public reading of the bull _In Coena Domini_, so obnoxious
to civil authority; resumed relations with Portugal; revoked the
_monitorium_ of his predecessor against Parma. But the powers were bent
upon the destruction of the Jesuits, and they had the pope at their
mercy. Clement looked abroad for help, but found none. Even Maria
Theresa, his last hope, suppressed the order in Austria. Temporizing
and partial concessions were of no avail. At last, convinced that the
peace of the Church demanded the sacrifice, Clement signed the brief
_Dominus ac Redemptor_, dissolving the order, on the 21st of July 1773.
The powers at once gave substantial proof of their satisfaction;
Benevento, Ponte Corvo, Avignon and the Venaissin were restored to the
Holy See. But it would be unfair to accept this as evidence of a
bargain. Clement had formerly indignantly rejected the suggestion of
such an exchange of favours.

There is no question of the legality of the pope's act; whether he was
morally culpable, however, continues to be a matter of bitter
controversy. On the one hand, the suppression is denounced as a base
surrender to the forces of tyranny and irreligion, an act of treason to
conscience, which reaped its just punishment of remorse; on the other
hand, it is as ardently maintained that Clement acted in full accord
with his conscience, and that the order merited its fate by its own
mischievous activities which made it an offence to religion and
authority alike. But whatever the guilt or innocence of the Jesuits, and
whether their suppression were ill-advised or not, there appears to be
no ground for impeaching the motives of Clement, or of doubting that he
had the approval of his conscience. The stories of his having swooned
after signing the brief, and of having lost hope and even reason, are
too absurd to be entertained. The decline in health, which set in
shortly after the suppression, and his death (on the 22nd of September
1774) proceeded from wholly natural causes. The testimony of his
physician and of his confessor ought to be sufficient to discredit the
oft-repeated story of slow poisoning (see Duhr, _Jesuiten Fabeln_, 4th
ed., 1904, pp. 69 seq.).

The suppression of the Jesuits bulks so large in the pontificate of
Clement that he has scarcely been given due credit for his praiseworthy
attempt to reduce the burdens of taxation and to reform the financial
administration, nor for his liberal encouragement of art and learning,