his
authority did not extend to the suppression of the order; but they were
mistaken. The sovereign pontiff delayed the signature of the bull, but
his hesitation proceeded from the fact that in signing it he feared lest
he should be signing his own sentence of death. Accordingly he put it off
till he found that his honour was threatened. The King of Spain, the most
obstinate tyrant in Europe, wrote to him with his own hand, telling him
that if he did not suppress the order he would publish in all the
languages of Europe the letters he had written when he was a cardinal,
promising to suppress the order when he became Pope. On the strength of
these letters Ganganelli had been elected.

Another man would have taken refuge in casuistry and told the king that
it was not for a pope to be bound to the cardinal's promises, in which
contention he would have been supported by the Jesuits. However, in his
heart Ganganelli had no liking for the Jesuits. He was a Franciscan, and
not a gentleman by birth. He had not a strong enough intellect to defy
the king and all his threats, or to bear the shame of being exhibited to
the whole world as an ambitious and unscrupulous man.

I am amused when people tell me that Ganganelli poisoned himself by
taking so many antidotes. It is true that having reason, and good reason,
to dread poison, he made use of antidotes which, with his ignorance of
science, might have injured his health; but I am morally certain that he
died of poison which was given by other hands than his own.

My reasons for this opinion are as follows:

In the year of which I am speaking, the third of the Pontificate of
Clement XIV., a woman of Viterbo was put in prison on the charge of
making predictions. She obscurely prophesied the suppression of the
Jesuits, without giving any indication of the time; but she said very
clearly that the company would be destroyed by a pope who would only
reign five years three months and three days--that is, as long as Sixtus
V., not a day more and not a day less.

Everybody treated the prediction with contempt, as the product of a
brain-sick woman. She was shut up and quite forgotten.

I ask my readers to give a dispassionate judgment, and to say whether
they have any doubt as to the poisoning of Ganganelli when they hear that
his death verified the prophecy.

In a case like this, moral certainty assumes the force of scientific
certainty. The spirit which inspired the Pythia of Viterb