However, the impolitic rejoicing of the Jesuits compelled the Pope to make some concession to their opponents. It was customary to republish every year the bull _In Coena Domini_ which a friendly predecessor had issued in favour of the Society. Clement declined to sanction its republication in 1769, and another ripple of excitement ran over Europe. In some places the Jesuits printed and published the bull themselves, and added another indiscretion to the account against them. A third and more serious error was committed by them. The ambassadors pressed more eagerly, and, as Bernis reports to his court, the Pope replied with dignity that he must consult his honour and his conscience, and make a prolonged inquiry before deciding. Choiseul threatened that the ambassadors would be withdrawn if the Pope did not give them a written assurance within two months, and Clement again sternly refused. France offered to restore Avignon if he would give the assurance, and only excited his indignation. This is the Pope whom the Jesuits and their apologists represent as morally and intellectually perverse; yet they themselves betrayed, and betray, a considerable degree of unscrupulousness in the matter. Crétineau-Joly, ignoring its inconsistency with his whole narrative, quotes a letter in which Clement is supposed to tell Louis XV. that he will not abolish a Society that has had the blessing of nineteen of his predecessors. This letter was forged and published by the Jesuits who lingered in disguise in France, and the apologist must have been quite aware that the Pope himself indignantly disavowed it in a letter to the Nuncio at Paris; indeed, Crétineau-Joly at once goes on to show, from Choiseul's correspondence, that the French could make nothing of the Pope's attitude.
These Jesuit outrages, however, seem to have stimulated the Pope, and on 25th September (1769) he gave Bernis a written assurance for Louis XV. that he intended to suppress the Society. A little later Charles III. of Spain received the same secret assurance. Thirty-four of the bishops of Spain, led by their cardinals and the Archbishop of Seville, had written to demand the suppression, and prove that it was not merely liberal politicians who opposed the Society. In the following February the seminary at Frascati was taken from the Jesuits and put under the control of secular priests. The spring and summer passed without giving fresh hope to the Jesuits. They reported Clement gloomy and inaccessible, and it is not impossible that they learned that a search was now being made in the Vatican Archives, and a report being drawn up on the history of the Society since its establishment. From that time, in fact, Clement secretly gathered the historical material with which he was to frame his crushing indictment of the Society. In June, it is true, Count Kaunitz visited Rome; but, as we know the attitude of both Maria Theresa and Joseph II., we must accept Theiner's statement that he urged the Pope to suppress the Society, rather than the French historian's light assertion that he pleaded for the Jesuits. The Society seemed to be doomed.
