The failure and bankruptcy of Father Vallette's enormous speculations in the West Indies had filled France with bad debts and protested obligations which the Society of Jesus repudiated, but which the Parliament of Paris ordered them to pay. The excitement was intense all over the Kingdom and the Colonies. On the part of the order it became a fight for existence.
They were envied for their wealth, and feared for their ability and their power. The secular clergy were for the most part against them. The Parliament of Paris, in a violent decree, had declared the Jesuits to have no legal standing in France. Voltaire and his followers, a growing host, thundered at them from the one side. The Vatican, in a moment of inconsistency and ingratitude, thundered at them from the other. They were in the midst of fire, and still their ability and influence over individual consciences, and especially over the female sex, prolonged their power for fifteen years longer, when Louis XV., driven to the wall by the Jansenists, issued his memorable decree declaring the Jesuits to be rebels, traitors, and stirrers up of mischief. The King confiscated their possessions, proscribed their persons, and banished them from the kingdom as enemies of the State.
Padre Monti, an Italian newly arrived in the Colony, was a man very different from the venerable Vimont and the Jogues and the Lallements, who had preached the Evangel to the wild tribes of the forest, and rejoiced when they won the crown of martyrdom for themselves.
Monti was a bold man in his way, and ready to dare any bold deed in the interests of religion, which he could not dissociate from the interests of his order. He stood up, erect and commanding, upon the platform under the Holy Rood, while he addressed with fiery eloquence and Italian gesticulation the crowd of people gathered round him.
The subject he chose was an exciting one. He enlarged upon the coming of Antichrist and upon the new philosophy of the age, the growth of Gallicanism in the Colony, with its schismatic progeny of Jansenists and Honnetes Gens, to the discouragement of true religion and the endangering of immortal souls.
His covert allusions and sharp innuendoes were perfectly understood by his hearers, and signs of dissentient feeling were rife among the crowd. Still, the people continued to listen, on the whole respectfully; for, whatever might be the sentiment of Old France with respect to the Jesuits, they had in New France inherited the profound respect of the colonists, and deserved it.
A few gentlemen, some in military, some in fashionable civil attire, strolled up towards the crowd, but stood somewhat aloof and outside of it. The market people pressed closer and closer round the platform, listening with mouths open and eager eyes to the sermon, storing it away in their retentive memories, which would reproduce every word of it when they sat round the fireside in the coming winter evenings.
One or two Recollets stood at a modest distance from the crowd, still as statues, with their hands hid in the sleeves of their gray gowns, shaking their heads at the arguments, and still more at the invectives of the preacher; for the Recollets were accused, wrongfully perhaps, of studying the five propositions of Port Royal more than beseemed the humble followers of St. Francis to do, and they either could not or would not repel the accusation.
"Padre Monti deserves the best thanks of the Intendant for this sermon," remarked the Sieur d'Estebe to Le Mercier, who accompanied him.
"And the worst thanks of His Excellency the Count! It was bold of the Italian to beard the Governor in that manner! But La Galissoniere is too great a philosopher to mind a priest!" was the half-scoffing reply of Le Mercier.
"Is he? I do not think so, Le Mercier. I hate them myself, but egad! I am not philosophic enough to let them know it. One may do so in Paris, but not in New France. Besides, the Jesuits are just now our fast friends, and it does not do to quarrel with your supporters."
"True, D'Estebe! We get no help from the Recollets. Look yonder at Brothers Ambrose and Daniel! They would like to tie Padre Monti neck and heels with the cords of St. Francis, and bind him over to keep the peace towards Port Royal; but the gray gowns are afraid of the black robes. Padre Monti knew they would not catch the ball when he threw it. The Recollets are all afraid to hurl it back."
"Not all," was the reply; "the Reverend Father de Berey would have thrown it back with a vengeance. But I confess, Le Mercier, the Padre is a bold fellow to pitch into the Honnetes Gens the way he does. I did not think he would have ventured upon it here in the market, in face of so many habitans, who swear by the Bourgeois Philibert."
The bold denunciations by the preacher against the Honnetes Gens and against the people's friend and protector, the Bourgeois Philibert, caused a commotion in the crowd of habitans, who began to utter louder and louder exclamations of dissent and remonstrance. A close observer would have noticed angry looks and clenched fists in many parts of the crowd, pressing closer and closer round the platform.
The signs of increasing tumult in the crowd did not escape the sharp eyes of Father Glapion, who, seeing that the hot-blooded Italian was overstepping the bounds of prudence in his harangue, called him by name, and with a half angry sign brought his sermon suddenly to a close. Padre Monti obeyed with the unquestioning promptness of an automaton. He stopped instantly, without rounding the period or finishing the sentence that was in his mouth.
His flushed and ardent manner changed to the calmness of marble as, lifting up his hands with a devout oremus, he uttered a brief prayer and left the puzzled people to finish his speech and digest at leisure his singular sermon.
