During the previous pontificate, the Jesuits had been expelled from Portugal and from all the courts of the House of Bourbon, which included France, Spain, Naples & Sicily, and Parma.

The next day, after touring St. Peter's Basilica, they took advantage of the conclave doors being opened to admit Cardinal Girolamo Spinola to enter as well.

[5] The minister of King Louis XV of France (1715–74), the duc de Choiseul, had extensive experience dealing with the church as the French ambassador to the Holy See and was Europe's most skilled diplomat.

[citation needed] Choiseul's suggestion was advanced to the other ambassadors and it was that they should press, in addition to the Jesuit issue, territorial claims upon the Patrimony of Saint Peter, including the return of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin to France, the duchies of Benevento and Pontecorvo to Spain, an extension of territory adjoining the Papal States to Naples, and an immediate and final settlement of the vexed question of Parma and Piacenza that had occasioned a diplomatic rift between Austria and Pope Clement XIII.

On 19 May 1769, Cardinal Ganganelli was elected as a compromise candidate largely due to support of the Bourbon courts, which had expected that he would suppress the Society of Jesus.

[8] Clement XIV's policies were calculated from the outset to smooth the breaches with the Catholic crowns that had developed during the previous pontificate.

[1] By yielding the papal claims to Parma, Clement XIV obtained the restitution of Avignon and Benevento and in general he succeeded in placing the relations of the spiritual and the temporal authorities on a friendlier footing.

[9] His accession was welcomed by the Jewish community who trusted that the man who, as councilor of the Holy Office, declared them, in a memorandum issued 21 March 1758, innocent of the slanderous blood accusation, would be no less just and humane toward them on the throne of Catholicism.

He deferred somewhat on the already beatified Simon of Trent, in 1475, and Andreas of Rinn, but took the length of time before their beatifications as indicative that the veracity of the accusations raised significant doubts.

Clement XIV tried to placate their enemies by apparent unfriendly treatment of the Jesuits: he refused to meet the superior general, Lorenzo Ricci, removed it from the administration of the Irish and Roman Colleges, and ordered them not to receive novices, etc.

Clement XIV ultimately yielded "in the name of peace of the Church and to avoid a secession in Europe" and suppressed the Society of Jesus by the brief Dominus ac Redemptor of 21 July 1773.

Leopold found the upper clergy offensively haughty, but was received, with his son, by the pope, where Wolfgang demonstrated an amazing feat of musical memory.

[15] Clement XIV elevated sixteen new cardinals into the cardinalate in twelve consistories including Giovanni Angelo Braschi,[16] who succeeded him as Pope Pius VI.

His work was hardly accomplished before Clement XIV, whose usual constitution was quite vigorous, fell into a languishing sickness, generally attributed to poison.

[23][24] Clement XIV died on 22 September 1774, execrated by the Ultramontane party but widely mourned by his subjects for his popular administration of the Papal States.

When his body was opened for the autopsy, the doctors ascribed his death to scorbutic and hemorrhoidal dispositions of long standing that were aggravated by excessive labour and the habit of provoking artificial perspiration even in the greatest heat.

In both cases the requisite condition was unattainable; neither in the 16th nor in the 18th century has it been practicable to set bounds to the spirit of inquiry otherwise than by fire and sword, and Ganganelli's successors have been driven into assuming a position analogous to that of Popes Paul IV (1555–59) and Pius V (1566–72) in the age of the Reformation.