Note 546 — Chapter III

Augustin Barruel (1741–1820) was a French controversialist and publicist, whose zeal was aroused in the defence of traditional ecclesiastical institutions and doctrines, in opposition to rationalistic tendencies manifest in the eighteenth century. Barruel entered the Society of Jesus in 1756 and was later driven from France when that order was suppressed by the French government in 1773. Permitted the next year to terminate his exile, he gave himself to literary pursuits. As might be expected, the turbulent condition of public affairs in France drew him into the currents of political discussion. His loyalty to the interests of the church would brook no silence. The civil oath demanded of ecclesiastics and the promulgation of the civil constitution in the earlier period of the Revolution specially roused his spirit, and led to the publication of a number of pamphlets from his pen. His ecclesiastical loyalties and political antagonisms were such that when the full fury of the revolutionary storm broke, Barruel became an emigré and sought asylum in England. There he continued his literary employments, and published in 1794 his well-known Histoire du clergé de France, pendant la révolution française. In that same year he brought out an English translation at London. This work Barruel dedicated to the English people in grateful recognition of the hospitable treatment which they accorded the persecuted ecclesiastics of his own land. Later, and while still in England, he wrote his Memoirs of Jacobinism. The number of editions through which this work passed is in itself a gauge of its claim upon popular interest. After the fall of the Directory, and after he had given his pledge of fidelity to the new government, Barruel again was permitted to return to France. With a view to healing the schism in the French church which the Revolution had produced, he championed the cause of the government in a work entitled, Du Pape et ses droits religieux, 1803. As the Napoleonic regime drew towards its close, Barruel came to be regarded as an emigré priest, and suffered arrest at the hands of the government. In August, 1816, Barruel was allowed to make his profession in the Society of Jesus. Shortly before this he wrote to its General: “Je m’étais toujours regardé comme lié par mes voeux, sans cesser d’être vraiment Jésuite, ce qui heureusement a fait pour moi une douce illusion dans laquelle je remercie Dieu de m’avoir laissé vivre jusqu’ au moment où vous vous prêtez avec tant de bonté à la demande que j’ai faite pour ma profession.” (La Compagnie de Jésus en France, Histoire d’un siècle, 1814–1914, Par Joseph Burnichon, S.J., Tome 1er, Paris, 1914, pp. 74 et seq.) The last years of Barruel’s life were spent in retirement. A list of his writings may be found in Quérard’s La France Littéraire, Tome Premier, pp. 196, 197, and a more elaborate one, in Sommervogel, op. cit. i, coll. 930–945.