, without
the Jesuits, with all their cunning, having received a breath of
information, or entertained a suspicion, as to the stroke impending over
them; and, what is still more strange, without having given rise to the
least symptom of complaint or disapprobation. On the contrary, the other
religious orders, who had been offended by the haughty bearing of the
Jesuits, and who beheld their opulence and preponderance with envy,
celebrated their fall without restraint, and considered it as a triumph
of the true religion over the dangerous novelties which these men had
introduced.

From that period nobody cared for the Jesuits nor thought of them, and
the rest of the reigns of Charles III. and Charles IV. passed without a
single voice being raised in their favour.

In 1817, Ferdinand VII., released from his captivity in France, and ruled
entirely by the persecuting and fanatical party, not satisfied with
having re-established the Inquisition, wished also to recall the Jesuits.
The Council of Castille, which he consulted, _pro forma_, on that
business, showed itself favourable, moved by the able report of his
fiscal, Gutierez de la Huerta, a man known for his Voltairean opinions,
who was suspected of having received a large sum of money to defend, with
energy, the cause of fanaticism and of intolerance. The few Jesuits who
have outlived their expulsion, and who are scattered over some of the
towns of Italy, are returning to the Peninsula in such small numbers,
that they are scarcely enough to occupy the ancient establishment of San
Isidro in Madrid. Their installation, which was announced as an epoch of
triumph, disappointed the expectation of the court, and of their friends.
Those extraordinary beings, whose dress, customs, and even affected
Italian accent, were opposed to the national habits and the ideas of the
new generation, were beheld by the public with the most perfect
indifference. It was said publicly that they were strangers, and that
they despised their country; that they ate _maccaroni_ instead of
_garbanzos_; {67} and people spread about innumerable other epigrams and
satires against them, regardless of the government police, and even
without fear of the inquisitors. But what most tended to destroy their
reputation was the circumstance that none of them were in a condition to
instruct youth, and that, in order to fill the professorships of their
college, they were obliged to take their professors from th