Page - 344 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

© PER PIPPIN ASPAAS AND LÁSZLÓ KONTLER, ����  |  doi:10.1163/9789004416833_010 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. Chapter 8 Coping with Enlightenments 1 Viennese Struggles Hell’s own engagement with the problem of the general suppression of his or- der began as a recurrent theme in letters written during his Arctic expedition to the general of the Jesuit order in Rome, to Bishop Gondola in northern Ger- many, and to Jesuit friends in Vienna. Hell assured his correspondents that he was doing what he could to make a good impression of the Society of Jesus in Denmark–Norway. When rumors had it that the young king Christian might visit Rome in addition to London and Paris during his grand tour of 1768–69, Hell was full of hope that this would bring good news concerning future poli- cies toward Catholics (and Jesuits) in the lands ruled by the Copenhagen court.1 As late as the spring of 1773, in a letter to Weiss Hell assured his confrère that things are going quite well with our Society, we are expecting more joyful news from Rome any day soon. One thing is certain: a declaration that is most favorable toward the Society has long since been sent from our court to Rome, not directly to the pope, as a false rumor has it, but to the kind of men from whom the pope is likely to be told about it, and by now he has been told. They say they have learned from a French letter some- thing I think is highly likely to be true, namely that an instruction has been sent from the king of the French to his ambassador in Rome [Fran- çois-Joachim de Pierre] Cardinal de Bernis [1715–94] that he shall from now on refrain from all negative actions against the Society vis-à-vis the pope; […] after a week or two, we will learn from official news exactly what impression the declaration of our court has made in Rome.2 Fifteen weeks later, on July 21, Pope Clement xiv issued the Dominus ac re­ demptor noster, the draft of which had in fact been ready since the previous 1 See the letters edited by Pinzger, Hell Miksa, 2:48, 76, 80–81. 2 Hell to Weiss in Trnava, dated Vienna, April 6, 1773. Pinzger, Hell Miksa, 2:116–17. Neither the supposed “declaration” of the Viennese court, nor the “instruction” by the king of France, could be identified. As Hell’s claims run counter to the current state of scholarship on the suppression of the Society of Jesus, they are puzzling.