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THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE JESUITS
and immediate control of Your Holiness". But, when the wretches were about to disembark at Civita-Vecchia, they were welcomed with the thunder of cannon shot on the order of their own general who already had to look after the Portuguese Jesuits and couldn't even feed them. They just managed to find them a wretched sanctuary in Corsica".(22) "Clement XIII, elected on the 6th of July 1758, had resisted a long time the pressing requests of several nations demanding the Jesuits' suppression. He was about to yield and had already arranged a consistory for the 3rd of February 1769 at which he was to tell the cardinals about his resolution to comply with the wishes of these Courts; on the night before that particular day, he suddenly felt ill as he was going to bed and cried out: "I am dying...". It is a very dangerous thing to attack the Jesuits!"(23) A conclave assembled and went on for three months. At last, cardinal Ganganelli put on the mitre and took the name of Clement XIV. The Courts which had banished the Jesuits kept on asking for the total suppression of the Society. But the papacy was in no hurry to abolish this primordial instrument for the carrying out of its politics, and four years passed before Clement XIV, constrained by the firm attitude of his opponents, who had occupied some of the pontifical States, at last signed the Brief of dissolution: "Dominus ac Redemptor" in 1773. Ricci, the Order's general, was even imprisoned at the castle of Saint-Ange where he died a few years later. "The Jesuits only appeared to submit to this verdict which condemned them... They wrote innumerable pamphlets against the pope and to incite rebellion; they told lies and slanders without number concerning so-called atrocities committed when their properties in Rome were confiscated".(24) The death of Clement XIV, fourteen months later, was even attributed to them by a section of European opinion. "The Jesuits, in principle at least, were no more; but Clement XIV knew very well that, by signing their death warrant, he was signing his own as well: "This suppression is done at last", he exclaimed, "and I am not sorry about it.. I would do it again if it was not done already; but this suppression will kill me".(25) Ganganelli was right; soon, posters started to appear on the palace walls which invariably displayed these five letters: I.S.S.S.V.,and everyone wondered what it meant. Clement understood immediately and boldly declared: "It means "In Settembre, Sara Sede Vacante", (In September, the (22) Pierre Doninique, op.cit., p.209. (23) Baron de Ponnat, "Histoire des variations et des contradictions de l'Eglise romaine", p.215. t i l . (24) J. Huber, op.cit., p.365. (25) Caraccioli: "Vie du Pape Clement XIV" (Desant, Paris 1776, p.313).