The Bollandist Acta Sanctorum [pp. 81-87]

The Bollandist Acta Sanctorum.
THE BOLLANDIST ACTA SANCTORUM.
II.
AT the suppression of its parent
society in I773 the subordinate
work of the Bollandist editors was
naturally involved in the calamity.
A hundred and thirty years had
elapsed since the appearance of its
first volume; fifty volumes had
brought down the work to the
month of October, at an average
rate of about two years and a half
to each volume. At a similar rate
some thirty volumes more, at the
end of about eighty years, should
have brought the whole series to
a close somewhere about the year
1850, or little more than two centuries from its commencement.
The actual course of its historywas
destined to be very different indeed. The Society of Jesus had
disappeared, but a wish soon began to be felt that its Bollandist
Acta should not be interrupted.
The wish was effectually supported
by the Austrian government, and
an arrangement sanctioned by
which the library, museum, and.
whole stock of the Bollandists
should be transferred to the
Abbey of Caudenberg, at Brussels,
a house of Augustinian Canons no
longer existing, but of which the
site is marked by the royal church
of St. Jacques en Caudenberg in
the Place Royale, familiar to tourists Kn Belgium. From this abbey
issued the fourth volume of October in I780, and the fifth in 1786.
Four ex-Jesuit editors, the last of
the original Bollandist line, superintended the work. Even this
refuge was to fail it; Joseph II.
suppressed the abbey, and the
VOL. xxviii.-6
work of Bollandus had once more
to seek an asylum elsewhere. It
was provided, through the munificence of Godfrey Hermans, abbot
of the Premonstratensian monastery of Tongerloo in Belgium, who
purchased the Bollandist property
for 2I,000 florins (about $8,500)
and set the press going once more.
The first, and also the last; volume
issued from Tongerloo bears the
date of I794. Its editors were no
longer exclusively Jesuits. One of
the original line, P. Bue, or Bumus,
had trained five coadjutors, one of
them a Benedictine, another a
Canon Regular, and the remaining
three Premonstratensians of the
abbey. But Tongerloo, like Caudenberg, was doomrned; the French
Republic annexed Belgium, and the
Acta Sanctorum ceased to advance
for half a century. The museum
and library were scattered; a part
was concealed by the peasants in
the neighborhood, a part fell a
prey to the flames, and a part was
carried off to Westphalia in carts,
and much injured in its transit, before it was restored to Belgium.
Yet there was still a vitality in
the Bollandist idea. While France
remained mistress, of Belgium inquiry began again to be made as to
the possibility of reviving and completing the work. In i80oi, under
the Consular Triumvirate, D'Herbonville, prefect of Antwerp, was
instructed to consult the editors
who survived about the renewal of
their labors. In I803 the Institute
revived the question and pressed
the editors either to resume their