Letter XV

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS

November 25, 1656

REVEREND FATHERS,
As your scurrilities are daily increasing, and as you are
employing them in the merciless abuse of all pious persons opposed
to your errors, I feel myself obliged, for their sake and that of
the Church, to bring out that grand secret of your policy, which I
promised to disclose some time ago, in order that all may know,
through means of your own maxims, what degree of credit is due to your
calumnious accusations.

I am aware that those who are not very well acquainted with you
are at a great loss what to think on this subject, as they find
themselves under the painful necessity, either of believing the
incredible crimes with which you charge your opponents, or (what is
equally incredible) of setting you down as slanderers. "Indeed!"
they exclaim, "were these things not true, would clergymen publish
them to the world- would they debauch their consciences and damn
themselves by venting such libels?" Such is their way of reasoning,
and thus it is that the palpable proof of your falsifications coming
into collision with their opinion of your honesty, their minds hang in
a state of suspense between the evidence of truth, which they cannot
gainsay, and the demands of charity, which they would not violate.
It follows that since their high esteem for you is the only thing that
prevents them from discrediting your calumnies, if we can succeed in
convincing them that you have quite a different idea of calumny from
that which they suppose you to have, and that you actually believe
that in blackening and defaming your adversaries you are working out
your own salvation, there can be little question that the weight of
truth will determine them immediately to pay no regard to your
accusations. This, fathers, will be the subject of the present letter.

My design is not simply to show that your writings are full of
calumnies; I mean to go a step beyond this. It is quite possible for a
person to say a number of false things believing them to be true;
but the character of a liar implies the intention to tell lies. Now
I undertake to prove, fathers, that it is your deliberate intention to
tell lies, and that it is both knowingly and purposely that you load
your opponents with crimes of which you know them to be innocent,
because you believe that you may do so without falling from a state of
grace. Though you doubtless know this point of your morality as well
as I do, this need not prevent me from telling you about it; which I
shall do, were it for no other purpose than to convince all men of its
existence, by showing them that I can maintain it to your face,
while you cannot have the assurance to disavow it, without confirming,
by that very disavowment, the charge which I bring against you.

The doctrine to which I allude is so common in your schools that
you have maintained it not only in your books, but, such is your
assurance, even in your public theses; as, for example, in those
delivered at Louvain in the year 1645, where it occurs in the
following terms: "What is it but a venial sin to culminate and forge
false accusations to ruin the credit of those who speak evil of us?"
So settled is this point among you that, if any one dare to oppose it,
you treat him as a blockhead and a hare-brained idiot. Such was the
way in which you treated Father Quiroga, the German Capuchin, when
he was so unfortunate as to impugn the doctrine. The poor man was
instantly attacked by Dicastille, one of your fraternity; and the
following is a specimen of the manner in which he manages the dispute:
"A certain rueful-visaged, bare-footed, cowled friar-cucullatus
gymnopoda- whom I do not choose to name, had the boldness to
denounce this opinion, among some women and ignorant people, and to
allege that it was scandalous and pernicious against all good manners,
hostile to the peace of states and societies, and, in short,
contrary to the judgement not only of all Catholic doctors, but of all
true Catholics. But in opposition to him I maintained, as I do
still, that calumny, when employed against a calumniator, though it
should be a falsehood, is not a mortal sin, either against justice
or charity: and, to prove the point, I referred him to the whole
body of our fathers, and to whole universities, exclusively composed
of them whom I had consulted on the subject; and among others the
reverend Father John Gans, confessor to the Emperor; the reverend
Father Daniel Bastele, confessor to the Archduke Leopold; Father
Henri, who was preceptor to these two princes; all the public and
ordinary professors of the university of Vienna" (wholly composed of
Jesuits); "all the professors of the university of Gratz" (all
Jesuits); "all the professors of the university of Prague" (where
Jesuits are the masters);- "from all of whom I have in my possession
approbations of my opinions, written and signed with their own
hands; besides having on my side the reverend Father Panalossa, a
Jesuit, preacher to the Emperor and the King of Spain; Father
Pilliceroli, a Jesuit, and many others, who had all judged this
opinion to be probable, before our dispute began." You perceive,
fathers, that there are few of your opinions which you have been at
more pains to establish than the present, as indeed there were few
of them of which you stood more in need. For this reason, doubtless,
you have authenticated it so well that the casuists appeal to it as an
indubitable principle. "There can be no doubt," says Caramuel, "that
it is a probable opinion that we contract no mortal sin by
calumniating another, in order to preserve our own reputation. For
it is maintained by more than twenty grave doctors, by Gaspard
Hurtado, and Dicastille, Jesuits, &c.; so that, were this doctrine not
probable, it would be difficult to find any one such in the whole
compass of theology."

Wretched indeed must that theology be, and rotten to the very
core, which, unless it has been decided to be safe in conscience to
defame our neighbor's character to preserve our own, can hardly
boast of a safe decision on any other point! How natural is it,
fathers, that those who hold this principle should occasionally put it
in practice! corrupt propensity of mankind leans so strongly in that
direction of itself that, the obstacle of conscience once being
removed, it would be folly to suppose that it will not burst forth
with all its native impetuosity. If you desire an example of this,
Caramuel will furnish you with one that occurs in the same passage:
"This maxim of Father Dicastille," he says, "having been
communicated by a German countess to the daughters of the Empress, the
belief thus impressed on their minds that calumny was only a venial
sin, gave rise in the course of a few days to such an immense number
of false and scandalous tales that the whole court was thrown into a
flame and fill ed with alarm. It is easy, indeed, to conceive what a
fine use these ladies would make of the new light they had acquired.
Matters proceeded to such a length, that it was found necessary to
call in the assistance of a worthy Capuchin friar, a man of
exemplary life, called Father Quiroga" (the very man whom Dicastille
rails at so bitterly), "who assured them that the maxim was most
pernicious, especially among women, and was at the greatest pains to
prevail upon the Empress to abolish the practice of it entirely." We
have no reason, therefore, to be surprised at the bad effects of
this doctrine; on the contrary, the wonder would be if it had failed
to produce them. Self-love is always ready enough to whisper in our
ear, when we are attacked, that we suffer wrongfully; and more
particularly in your case, fathers, whom vanity has blinded so
egregiously as to make you believe that to wound the honour of your
Society is to wound that of the Church. There would have been good
ground to look on it as something miraculous, if you had not reduced
this maxim to practice. Those who do not know you are ready to say:
How could these good fathers slander their enemies, when they cannot
do so but at the expense of their own salvation? But, if they knew you
better, the question would be: How could these good fathers forego the
advantage of decrying their enemies, when they have it in their
power to do so without hazarding their salvation? Let none, therefore,
henceforth be surprised to find the Jesuits calumniators; they can
exercise this vocation with a safe conscience; there is no obstacle in
heaven or on earth to prevent them. In virtue of the credit they
have acquired in the world, they can practise defamation without
dreading the justice of mortals; and, on the strength of their
self-assumed authority in matters of conscience, they have invented
maxims for enabling them to do it without any fear of the justice of
God.

This, fathers, is the fertile source of your base slanders. On
this principle was Father Brisacier led to scatter his calumnies about
him, with such zeal as to draw down on his head the censure of the
late Archbishop of Paris. Actuated by the same motives, Father D'Anjou
launched his invectives from the pulpit of the Church of St.
Benedict in Paris on the 8th of March, 1655, against those
honourable gentlemen who were intrusted with the charitable funds
raised for the poor of Picardy and Champagne, to which they themselves
had largely contributed; and, uttering a base falsehood, calculated
(if your slanders had been considered worthy of any credit) to dry
up the stream of that charity, he had the assurance to say, "that he
knew, from good authority, that certain persons had diverted that
money from its proper use, to employ it against the Church and the
State"; a calumny which obliged the curate of the parish, who is a
doctor of the Sorbonne, to mount the pulpit the very next day, in
order to give it the lie direct. To the same source must be traced the
conduct of your Father Crasset, who preached calumny at such a furious
rate in Orleans that the Archbishop of that place was under the
necessity of interdicting him as a public slanderer. In this
mandate, dated the 9th of September last, his lordship declares: "That
whereas he had been informed that Brother Jean Crasset, priest of
the Society of Jesus, had delivered from the pulpit a discourse filled
with falsehoods and calumnies against the ecclesiastics of this
city, falsely and maliciously charging them with maintaining impious
and heretical propositions, such as: That the commandments of God
are impracticable; that internal grace is irresistible; that Jesus
Christ did not die for all men; and others of a similar kind,
condemned by Innocent X: he therefore hereby interdicts the
aforesaid Crasset from preaching in his diocese, and forbids all his
people to hear him, on pain of mortal disobedience." The above,
fathers, is your ordinary accusation, and generally among the first
that you bring against all whom it is your interest to denounce.
And, although you should find it as impossible to substantiate the
charge against any of them, as Father Crasset did in the case of the
clergy of Orleans, your peace of conscience will not be in the least
disturbed on that account; for you believe that this mode of
calumniating your adversaries is permitted you with such certainty
that you have no scruple to avow it in the most public manner, and
in the face of a whole city.

A remarkable proof of this may be seen in the dispute you had with
M. Puys, curate of St. Nisier at Lyons; and the story exhibits so
complete an illustration of your spirit that I shall take the
liberty of relating some of its leading circumstances. You know,
fathers, that, in the year 1649, M. Puys translated into French an
excellent book, written by another Capuchin friar, On the duty which
Christians owe to their own parishes, against those that would lead
them away from them, without using a single invective, or pointing
to any monk or any order of monks in particular. Your fathers,
however, were pleased to put the cap on their own heads; and without
any respect to an aged pastor, a judge in the Primacy of France, and a
man who was held in the highest esteem by the whole city, Father
Alby wrote a furious tract against him, which you sold in your own
church upon Assumption Day; in which book, among other various
charges, he accused him of having made himself scandalous by his
gallantries," described him as suspected of having no religion, as a
heretic, excommunicated, and, in short, worthy of the stake. To this
M. Puys made a reply; and Father Alby, in a second publication,
supported his former allegations. Now, fathers, is it not a clear
point either that you were calumniators, or that you believed all that
you alleged against that worthy priest to be true; and that, on this
latter assumption, it became you to see him purified from all these
abominations before judging him worthy of your friendship? Let us see,
then, what happened at the accommodation of the dispute, which took
place in the presence of a great number of the principal inhabitants
of the town on the 25th of September, 1650. Before all these witnesses
M. Puys made a declaration, which was neither more nor less than this:
"That what he had written was not directed against the fathers of
the Society of Jesus; that he had spoken in general of those who
alienated the faithful from their parishes, without meaning by that to
attack the Society; and that, so far from having such an intention,
the Society was the object of his esteem and affection." By virtue
of these words alone, without either retraction or absolution, M. Puys
recovered, all at once, from his apostasy, his scandals, and his
excommunication; and Father Alby immediately thereafter addressed
him in the following express terms: "Sir, it was in consequence of
my believing that you meant to attack the Society to which I have
the honour to belong that I was induced to take up the pen in its
defence; and I considered that the mode of reply which I adopted was
such as I was permitted to employ. But, on a better understanding of
your intention, I am now free to declare that there is nothing in your
work to prevent me from regarding you as a man of genius,
enlightened in judgement, profound and orthodox in doctrine, and
irreproachable in manners; in one word, as a pastor worthy of your
Church. It is with much pleasure that I make this declaration, and I
beg these gentlemen to remember what I have now said."

They do remember it, fathers; and, allow me to add, they were more
scandalized by the reconciliation than by the quarrel. For who can
fail to admire this speech of Father Alby? He does not say that he
retracts, in consequence of having learnt that a change had taken
place in the faith and manners of M. Puys, but solely because,
having understood that he had no intention of attacking your
Society, there was nothing further to prevent him from regarding the
author as a good Catholic. He did not then believe him to be
actually a heretic! And yet, after having, contrary to his conviction,
accused him of this crime, he will not acknowledge he was in the
wrong, but has the hardihood to say that he considered the method he
adopted to be "such as he was permitted to employ!"

What can you possibly mean, fathers, by so publicly avowing the
fact that you measure the faith and the virtue of men only by the
sentiments they entertain towards your Society? Had you no
apprehension of making yourselves pass, by your own acknowledgement,
as a band of swindlers and slanderers? What, fathers! must the same
individual without undergoing any personal transformation, but
simply according as you judge him to have honoured or assailed your
community, be "pious" or "impious," "irreproachable" or
"excommunicated," "a pastor worthy of the Church," or "worthy of the
stake"; in short, "a Catholic" or "a heretic"? To attack your
Society and to be a heretic are, therefore, in your language,
convertible terms! An odd sort of heresy this, fathers! And so it
would appear that, when we see many good Catholics branded, in your
writings, by the name of heretia, it means nothing more than that
you think they attack you! It is well, fathers, that we understand
this strange dialect, according to which there can be no doubt that
I must be a great heretic. It is in this sense, then, that you so
often favour me with this appellation! Your sole reason for cutting me
off from the Church is because you conceive that my letters have
done you harm; and, accordingly, all that I have to do, in order to
become a good Catholic, is either to approve of your extravagant
morality, or to convince you that my sole aim in exposing it has
been your advantage. The former I could not do without renouncing
every sentiment of piety that I ever possessed; and the latter you
will be slow to acknowledge till you are well cured of your errors.
Thus am I involved in heresy, after a very singular fashion; for,
the purity of my faith being of no avail for my exculpation, I have no
means of escaping from the charge, except either by turning traitor to
my own conscience, or by reforming yours. Till one or other of these
events happen, I must remain a reprobate and a slanderer; and, let
me be ever so faithful in my citations from your writings, you will go
about crying everywhere: "What an instrument of the devil must that
man be, to impute to us things of which there is not the least mark or
vestige to be found in our books!" And, by doing so, you will only
be acting in conformity with your fixed maxim and your ordinary
practice: to such latitude does your privilege of telling lies extend!
Allow me to give you an example of this, which I select on purpose; it
will give me an opportunity of replying, at the same time, to your
ninth Imposture: for, in truth, they only deserve to be refuted in
passing.

About ten or twelve years ago, you were accused of holding that
maxim of Father Bauny, "that it is permissible to seek directly (primo
et per se) a proximate occasion of sin, for the spiritual or
temporal good of ourselves or our neighbour" (tr.4, q.14); as an
example of which, he observes: "It is allowable to visit infamous
places, for the purpose of converting abandoned females, even although
the practice should be very likely to lead into sin, as in the case of
one who has found from experience that he has frequently yielded to
their temptations." What answer did your Father Caussin give to this
charge in the year 1644? "Just let any one look at the passage in
Father Bauny," said he, "let him peruse the page, the margins, the
preface, the appendix, in short, the whole book from beginning to end,
and he will not discover the slightest vestige of such a sentence,
which could only enter into the mind of a man totally devoid of
conscience, and could hardly have been forged by any other but an
instrument of Satan." Father Pintereau talks in the same style:
"That man must be lost to all conscience who would teach so detestable
a doctrine; but he must be worse than a devil who attributes it to
Father Bauny. Reader, there is not a single trace or vestige of it
in the whole of his book." Who would not believe that persons
talking in this tone have good reason to complain, and that Father
Bauny has, in very deed, been misrepresented? Have you ever asserted
anything against me in stronger terms? And, after such a solemn
asseveration, that "there was not a single trace or vestige of it in
the whole book, " who would imagine that the passage is to be found,
word for word, in the place referred to?

Truly, fathers, if this be the means of securing your
reputation, so long as you remain unanswered, it is also,
unfortunately, the means of destroying it forever, so soon as an
answer makes its appearance. For so certain is it that you told a
lie at the period before mentioned, that you make no scruple of
acknowledging, in your apologies of the present day, that the maxim in
question is to be found in the very place which had been quoted;
and, what is most extraordinary, the same maxim which, twelve years
ago, was "detestable," has now become so innocent that in your ninth
Imposture (p. 10) you accuse me of "ignorance and malice, in
quarrelling with Father Bauny for an opinion which has not been
rejected in the School." What an advantage it is, fathers, to have
to do with people that deal in contradictions! I need not the aid of
any but yourselves to confute you; for I have only two things to show:
first, That the maxim in dispute is a worthless one; and, secondly,
That it belongs to Father Bauny; and I can prove both by your own
confession. In 1644, you confessed that it was "detestable"; and, in
1656, you avow that it is Father Bauny's. This double
acknowledgement completely justifies me, fathers; but it does more, it
discovers the spirit of your policy. For, tell me, pray, what is the
end you propose to yourselves in your writings? Is it to speak with
honesty? No, fathers; that cannot be, since your defences destroy each
other. Is it to follow the truth of the faith? As little can this be
your end; since, according to your own showing, you authorize a
"detestable" maxim. But, be it observed that while you said the
maxim was "detestable," you denied, at the same time, that it was
the property of Father Bauny, and so he was innocent; and when you now
acknowledge it to be his, you maintain, at the same time, that it is a
good maxim, and so he is innocent still. The innocence of this monk,
therefore, being the only thing common to your two answers, it is
obvious that this was the sole end which you aimed at in putting
them forth; and that, when you say of one and the same maxim, that
it is in a certain book, and that it is not; that it is a good
maxim, and that it is a bad one; your sole object is to whitewash some
one or other of your fraternity; judging in the matter, not
according to the truth, which never changes, but according to your own
interest, which is varying every hour. Can I say more than this? You
perceive that it amounts to a demonstration; but it is far from
being a singular instance, and, to omit a multitude of examples of the
same thing, I believe you will be contented with my quoting only one
more.

You have been charged, at different times, with another
proposition of the same Father Bauny, namely:. "That absolution
ought to be neither denied nor deferred in the case of those who
live in the habits of sin against the law of God, of nature, and of
the Church, although there should be no apparent prospect of future
amendment- etsi emendationis futurae spes nulla appareat." Now, with
regard to this maxim, I beg you to tell me, fathers, which of the
apologies that have been made for it is most to your liking; whether
that of Father Pintereau, or that of Father Brisacier, both of your
Society, who have defended Father Bauny, in your two different
modes- the one by condemning the proposition, but disavowing it to
be Father Bauny's; the other by allowing it to be Father Bauny's,
but vindicating the proposition? Listen, then, to their respective
deliverances. Here comes that of Father Pintereau (p. 8): "I know
not what can be called a transgression of all the bounds of modesty, a
step beyond all ordinary impudence, if the imputation to Father
Bauny of so damnable a doctrine is not worthy of that designation.
Judge, reader, of the baseness of that calumny; see what sort of
creatures the Jesuits have to deal with; and say if the author of so
foul a slander does not deserve to be regarded from henceforth as
the interpreter of the father of lies." Now for Father Brisacier:
"It is true, Father Bauny says what you allege." (That gives the lie
direct to Father Pintereau, plain enough.) "But," adds he, in
defence of Father Bauny, "if you who find so much fault with this
sentiment wait, when a penitent lies at your feet, till his guardian
angel find security for his rights in the inheritance of heaven; if
you wait till God the Father swear by himself that David told a lie,
when he said by the Holy Ghost that 'all men are liars,' fallible
and perfidious; if you wait till the penitent be no longer a liar,
no longer frail and changeable, no longer a sinner, like other men; if
you wait, I say, till then, you will never apply the blood of Jesus
Christ to a single soul."

What do you really think now, fathers, of these impious and
extravagant expressions? According to them, if we would wait "till
there be some hope of amendment" in sinners before granting their
absolution, we must wait "till God the Father swear by himself,"
that they will never fall into sin any more! What, fathers! is no
distinction to be made between hope and certainty? How injurious is it
to the grace of Jesus Christ to maintain that it is so impossible
for Christians ever to escape from crimes against the laws of God,
nature, and the Church, that such a thing cannot be looked for,
without supposing "that the Holy Ghost has told a lie"; and, if
absolution is not granted to those who give no hope of amendment,
the blood of Jesus Christ will be useless, forsooth, and would never
be applied to a single soul!" To what a sad pass have you come,
fathers by this extravagant desire of upholding the glory of your
authors, when you can find only two ways of justifying them- by
imposture or by impiety; and when the most innocent mode by which
you can extricate yourselves is by the barefaced denial of facts as
patent as the light of day!

This may perhaps account for your having recourse so frequently to
that very convenient practice. But this does not complete the sum of
your accomplishments in the art of self-defence. To render your
opponents odious, you have had recourse to the forging of documents,
such as that Letter of a Minister to M. Arnauld, which you
circulated through all Paris, to induce the belief that the work on
Frequent Communion, which had been approved by so many bishops and
doctors, but which, to say the truth, was rather against you, had been
concocted through secret intelligence with the ministers of Charenton.
At other times, you attribute to your adversaries writings full of
impiety, such as the Circular Letter of the Jansenists, the absurd
style of which renders the fraud too gross to be swallowed, and
palpably betrays the malice of your Father Meynier, who has the
impudence to make use of it for supporting his foulest slanders.
Sometimes, again, you will quote books which were never in
existence, such as The Constitution of the Holy Sacrament, from
which you extract passages, fabricated at pleasure and calculated to
make the hair on the heads of certain good simple people, who have
no idea of the effrontery with which you can invent and propagate
falsehoods, actually to bristle with horror. There is not, indeed, a
single species of calumny which you have not put into requisition; nor
is it possible that the maxim which excuses the vice could have been
lodged in better hands.

But those sorts of slander to which we have adverted are rather
too easily discredited; and, accordingly, you have others of a more
subtle character, in which you abstain from specifying particulars, in
order to preclude your opponents from getting any hold, or finding any
means of reply; as, for example, when Father Brisacier says that
"his enemies are guilty of abominable crimes, which he does not choose
to mention." Would you not think it were impossible to prove a
charge so vague as this to be a calumny? An able man, however, has
found out the secret of it; and it is a Capuchin again, fathers. You
are unlucky in Capuchins, as times now go; and I foresee that you
may be equally so some other time in Benedictines. The name of this
Capuchin is Father Valerien, of the house of the Counts of Magnis. You
shall hear, by this brief narrative, how he answered your calumnies.
He had happily succeeded in converting Prince Ernest, the Landgrave of
Hesse-Rheinsfelt. Your fathers, however, seized, as it would appear,
with some chagrin at seeing a sovereign prince converted without their
having had any hand in it, immediately wrote a book against the
friar (for good men are everywhere the objects of your persecution),
in which, by falsifying one of his passages, they ascribed to him an
heretical doctrine. They also circulated a letter against him, in
which they said: "Ah, we have such things to disclose" (without
mentioning what) "as will gall you to the quick! If you don't take
care, we shall be forced to inform the pope and the cardinals about
it." This manoeuvre was pretty well executed; and I doubt not,
fathers, but you may speak in the same style of me; but take warning
from the manner in which the friar answered in his book, which was
printed last year at Prague (p.112, &c.): "What shall I do," he
says, "to counteract these vague and indefinite insinuations? How
shall I refute charges which have never been specified? Here, however,
is my plan. I declare, loudly and publicly, to those who have
threatened me, that they are notorious slanderers and most impudent
liars, if they do not discover these crimes before the whole world.
Come forth, then, mine accusers! and publish your lies upon the
house-tops, in place of telling them in the ear, and keeping
yourselves out of harm's way by telling them in the ear. Some may
think this a scandalous way of managing the dispute. It was
scandalous, I grant, to impute to me such a crime as heresy, and to
fix upon me the suspicion of many others besides; but, by asserting my
innocence, I am merely applying the proper remedy to the scandal
already in existence."

Truly, fathers, never were your reverences more roughly handled,
and never was a poor man more completely vindicated. Since you have
made no reply to such a peremptory challenge, it must be concluded
that you are unable to discover the slightest shadow of criminality
against him. You have had very awkward scrapes to get through
occasionally; but experience has made you nothing the wiser. For, some
time after this happened, you attacked the same individual in a
similar strain, upon another subject; and he defended himself after
the same spirited manner, as follows: "This class of men, who have
become an intolerable nuisance to the whole of Christendom, aspire,
under the pretext of good works, to dignities and domination, by
perverting to their own ends almost all laws, human and divine,
natural and revealed. They gain over to their side, by their doctrine,
by the force of fear, or of persuasion, the great ones of the earth,
whose authority they abuse for the purpose of accomplishing their
detestable intrigues. Meanwhile their enterprises, criminal as they
are, are neither punished nor suppressed; on the contrary, they are
rewarded; and the villains go about them with as little fear or
remorse as if they were doing God service. Everybody is aware of the
fact I have now stated; everybody speaks of it with execration; but
few are found capable of opposing a despotism so powerful. This,
however, is what I have done. I have already curbed their insolence;
and, by the same means, I shall curb it again. I declare, then, that
they are most impudent liars- mentiris impudentissime. If the
charges they have brought against me be true, let them prove it;
otherwise they stand convicted of falsehood, aggravated by the
grossest effrontery. Their procedure in this case will show who has
the right upon his side. I desire all men to take a particular
observation of it; and beg to remark, in the meantime, that this
precious cabal, who will not suffer the most trifling charge which
they can possibly repel to lie upon them, made a show of enduring,
with great patience, those from which they cannot vindicate
themselves, and conceal, under a counterfeit virtue, their real
impotency. My object, therefore, in provoking their modesty by this
sharp retort, is to let the plainest people understand that, if my
enemies hold their peace, their forbearance must be ascribed, not to
the meekness of their natures, but to the power of a guilty
conscience." He concludes with the following sentence: "These
gentry, whose history is well known throughout the whole world, are so
glaringly iniquitous in their measures, and have become so insolent in
their impunity, that if I did not detest their conduct, and publicly
express my detestation too, not merely for my own vindication, but
to guard the simple against its seducing influence, I must have
renounced my allegiance to Jesus Christ and his Church."

Reverend fathers, there is no room for tergiversation. You must
pass for convicted slanderers, and take comfort in your old maxim that
calumny is no crime. This honest friar has discovered the secret of
shutting your mouths; and it must be employed on all occasions when
you accuse people without proof. We have only to reply to each slander
as it appears, in the words of the Capuchin: "Mentiris impudentissime-
You are most impudent liars." For instance, what better answer does
Father Brisacier deserve when he says of his opponents that they are
"the gates of hell; the devil's bishops; persons devoid of faith,
hope, and charity; the builders of Antichrist's exchequer"; adding, "I
say this of him, not by way of insult, but from deep conviction of its
truth"? Who would be at the pains to demonstrate that he is not "a
gate of hell," and that he has no concern with "the building up of
Antichrist's exchequer"?

In like manner, what reply is due to all the vague speeches of
this sort which are to be found in your books and advertisements on my
letters; such as the following, for example: "That restitutions have
been converted to private uses, and thereby creditors have been
reduced to beggary; that bags of money have been offered to learned
monks, who declined the bribe; that benefices are conferred for the
purpose of disseminating heresies against the faith; that pensioners
are kept in the houses of the most eminent churchmen, and in the
courts of sovereigns; that I also am a pensioner of Port-Royal; and
that, before writing my letters, I had composed romances"- I, who
never read one in my life, and who do not know so much as the names of
those which your apologist has published? What can be said in reply to
all this, fathers, if you do not mention the names of all these
persons you refer to, their words, the time, and the place, except-
Mentiris impudentissime? You should either be silent altogether, or
relate and prove all the circumstances, as I did when I told you the
anecdotes of Father Alby and John d'Alba. Otherwise, you will hurt
none but yourselves. Your numerous fables might, perhaps, have done
you some service, before your principles were known; but now that
the whole has been brought to light, when you begin to whisper as
usual, "A man of honor, who desired us to conceal his name, has told
us some horrible stories of these same people"- you will be cut
short at once, and reminded of the Capuchin's "Mentiris
impudentissime." Too long by far have you been permitted to deceive
the world, and to abuse the confidence which men were ready to place
in your calumnious accusations. It is high time to redeem the
reputation of the multitudes whom you have defamed. For what innocence
can be so generally known, as not to suffer some injury from the
daring aspersions of a body of men scattered over the face of the
earth, and who, under religious habits, conceal minds so utterly
irreligious that they perpetrate crimes like calumny, not in
opposition to, but in strict accordance with, their moral maxims? I
cannot, therefore, be blamed for destroying the credit which might
have been awarded you, seeing it must be allowed to be a much
greater act of justice to restore to the victims of your obloquy the
character which they did not deserve to lose, than to leave you in the
possession of a reputation for sincerity which you do not deserve to
enjoy. And, as the one could not be done without the other, how
important was it to show you up to the world as you really are! In
this letter I have commenced the exhibition; but it will require
some time to complete it. Published it shall be, fathers, and all your
policy will be inadequate to save you from the disgrace; for the
efforts which you may make to avert the blow will only serve to
convince the most obtuse observers that you were terrified out of your
wits, and that, your consciences anticipating the charges I had to
bring against you, you have put every oar in the water to prevent
the discovery.