eroy of Catalonia, and subsequently the third General of the Order
and a saint. This man placed the university, which he had founded, in
their hands; and about the same time they gained a footing in the
university of Salamanca. Still they continued to retain their strongest
hold upon the people, who regarded them as saviours from the tyranny and
ennui of the established Dominican hierarchy.

Portugal was won at a blow. Xavier and Rodriguez planted the Company
there under the affectionate protection of King John III. When Xavier
started on his mission to the Indies in 1541, Rodriguez took the affairs
of the realm into his hands, controlled the cabinet, and formed the
heir-apparent to their will.

With France they had more trouble. Both the University and the
Parliament of Paris opposed their settlement. The Sorbonne even declared
them 'dangerous in matters of the faith, fit to disturb the peace of the
Church, and to reverse the order of monastic life; more adapted to
destroy than to build.' The Gallican Church scented danger in these
bondsmen of the Papacy; and it was only when they helped to organize the
League that the influence of the Guises gave them a foothold in the
kingdom. Even then their seminaries at Reims, Douai, and S. Omer must be
rather regarded as outposts _epiteichismoi_ against England and
Flanders, than, as nationally French establishments. In France they long
remained a seditious and belligerent faction.[162]

[Footnote 162: It was not till the epoch of Maria de'Medici's Regency
that the Jesuits obtained firm hold on France.]

They had the same partial and clandestine success in the Low Countries,
where their position was at first equivocal, though they early gained
some practical hold upon the University of Louvain. We are perhaps
justified in attributing the evil fame of Reims, Douai, S. Omer, and
Louvain to the incomplete sympathy which existed between the Jesuits and
the countries where they made these settlements. Not perfectly at home,
surrounded by discontent and jealousy, upon the borderlands of the
heresies they were bound to combat, their system assumed its darkest
colors in those hotbeds of intrigue and feverish fanaticism. In time,
however, the Jesuits fixed their talons firmly upon the Netherlands,
through the favor of Anne of Austria; and the year 1562 saw them
comfortably ensconced at Antwerp, Louvain, Brussels, and Lille, in spite
of the previous antipathy of the population. Here, as