The motives which induced Charles to take such a decided part in the destruction of the Society are not very well ascertained, and the two parties attribute it to different causes. We will try to throw some new light on this obscure affair. As every one, in the absence of proofs, has been obliged to have recourse to conjectures, we beg leave to give our own also. We begin by relating the facts.
The long and ample cloaks, and the low, large-brimmed hats, worn at this epoch in Spain, served to facilitate the perpetration of many crimes, and to conceal the criminals. Squillace, the king’s prime minister, by Charles’s order, issued a proclamation prohibiting the use of them; but the populace of Madrid broke out in insurrection, besieged the minister in his house, pulled it down, repulsed the Walloon guards which had marched against them, and obliged the king, whose exhortation they despised, to retire for the moment from Madrid. The revolt lasted for several days, when the Jesuits, mingling amongst the rioters, appeased them in a moment with the greatest facility. This revolt, which happened in 1766, is known in history as the _Emeute des Chapeaux_.
This outbreak, which had no result, was entirely forgotten, when, on the 2d of April 1767, appeared a royal proclamation abolishing the Society of the Jesuits in the peninsula, and expelling them from the Spanish monarchy. Let the reader imagine the astonishment which the proclamation produced throughout Europe, and the consternation and despair into which it threw the Jesuits. What had happened that could furnish a motive for such a harsh and most severe measure? No sign of change had been the precursor of the storm; no warning had been given to the Jesuits; no signs of enmity had been shewn to them. The proclamation not only was silent as to the motives which had elicited it, but forbade every man to appreciate and discuss either the measure or its causes; and this redoubled the astonishment and the curiosity. Let us try to penetrate this mystery. First of all we shall give the reasons which, according to the Marquis d’Ossun, French ambassador at the court of Madrid, were adduced to him by Charles himself, as having induced him to the suppression of the order.