Anticlerical Propaganda, c.1830-50.

 

Anonymous, Les Moines devoilés ou le jesuit Malagrida (The Monks Unveiled or the Jesuit Malagrida). Undated, c.1830-1850. Etching.

This anonymous print is part of the surge of anti-clericalism that was a massive presence in the Left from the French Revolution until well into the 19th Century. On one side, the movement intersected with a number of progressive movements including free speech, anti-racism, anti-imperialism, socialism and proto-anarchism, and the separation of Church and State. On the other, it quickly became a driving force in a slew of conspiracy theories from both Left- and Right-wing perspectives, and often led to anti-Catholic persecution and fed into growing nationalism and xenophobia in Protestant countries. The  Jesuit order was often considered the epitome of Catholic/Clerical abuse and duplicity.

This print emphasizes the humanitarian aspects of anti-clericalism, while still appealing to more conservative monarchist sentiments. The central figure is labelled as the powerful 18th Century Jesuit Gabriel Malagrida, who who was implicated in a supposed plot on the life of King José I of Portugal, on extremely flimsy evidence; here, he brandishes a manuscript entitled "Hatred of Kings". To his left is Jacques Clémont, the ultra-Catholic assassin of the religiously tolerant King Henry III of France; to his right is unidentified. The bricks of the edifice around Malagrida are inscribed with the products that drove colonial conquest, including tobacco, opium, gum arabic, pears, topaz, porcelain, etc. We see the Jesuit order blamed, with varying degrees of legitimacy, for the destruction of Native American cultures in the conquest and colonial exploitation of Latin America, the enslavement of African and Native American people, the persecution of Heretics, and the overthrow and execution of six European kings.