Note 57 — APPENDIX TO LETTERS III. AND VII.[56]

There is a Life of Palafox, published at Paris, in 1767. The design of the unknown author is evidently to mortify and prejudice the Jesuits by exalting the character of one of their earliest and fiercest opponents. The author is, however, either an ardent fanatic of the Jansenist party, and as superstitious as those he wishes to expose; or he promotes the cause of the Philosophers of France and Spain by affecting devotion, and conciliating many true believers to the measure of suppressing the Jesuits.—Palafox was the illegitimate child of Don Jayme de Palafox y Mendoza, by a lady of rank, who, to conceal her pregnancy, retired to the waters of Fitero in Navarre, and being delivered on the 24th June, 1600, to avoid the scandal, took the wicked resolution of drowning her child in the neighbouring river. The woman employed to perpetrate this murder was detected before she effected her purpose, the child saved, and brought up by an old dependant of the house of Ariza till he was ten years old, when his father returned from Rome, acknowledged, relieved, and educated him at Alcalá and Salamanca. His mother became a nun of the barefooted Carmelite order. Palafox was introduced at Court, and to the Count Duke de Olivares in 1626, and was soon after named to the council of India. An illness of his paternal sister, the funeral of two remarkable men, and the piety of his mother, made such impression upon him, that he gave himself up to the most fervent devotion, and soon after took orders. He became chaplain to the Queen of Hungary, Philip IVth’s sister, and travelled through Italy, Germany, Flanders, and France. In 1639, he was consecrated Bishop of Angelopolis, or Puebla de los Angeles, in America. His first quarrel with the Jesuits was on the subject of tithes. Lands on which tithes were payable had been alienated in favour of the Company, and they pretended, that when once the property of their body, they were exempt from that tax. The second ground was a pretended privilege of the Jesuits to preach without the permission of the Diocesan, against which Palafox contended. The Jesuits, having the Viceroy of New Spain on their side, obliged Palafox to fly; on which occasion he wrote his celebrated letters against his enemies. A brief of the Pope in his favour did not prevent his being recalled in civil terms, by the King. At the petition of the Jesuits, who dreaded his return to America, the King named him to the bishopric of Osma. Of the austerity and extravagance of his principles, the following resolutions of the pious bishop are specimens: Not to admit any woman to his presence, and never to speak to one but with his eyes on the ground, and the door open. Never to pay a woman a compliment, but when the not doing so would appear singular or scandalous; and never to look a female in the face. Whenever compelled to visit a woman, to wear a cross with sharp points next the skin.