ey regard them with disdain, and instead of bestowing upon them the
attention merited by their age, their services, and their merit, leave
them in the dreariest solitude, and begrudge them even their food!

I have with my own eyes seen three examples of this in these Jesuits, men
of much piety and honour, who hid filled positions of confidence and of
talent, and with whom I was very intimate. The first had been rector of
their establishment at Paris, was distinguished by excellent works of
piety, and was for several years assistant of the general at Rome, at the
death of whom he returned to Paris; because the rule is, that the new
general has new assistants. Upon his return to the Paris establishment
he was put into a garret, at the very top of the house, amid solitude,
contempt, and want.

The direction of the royal conscience had been the principal occupation
of the two others, one of whom had even been proposed as confessor to
Madame la Dauphine. One was long ill of a malady he died of. He was not
properly nourished, and I sent him his dinner every day, for more than
five months, because I had seen his pittance. I sent him even remedies,
for he could not refrain from admitting to me that he suffered from the
treatment he was subjected to.

The third, very old and very infirm, had not a better fate. At last,
being no longer able to hold out, he asked to be allowed to pay a visit
to my Versailles house (after having explained himself to me), under
pretext of fresh air. He remained there several months, and died at the
noviciate in Paris. Such is the fate of all the Jesuits, without
excepting the most famous, putting aside a few who having shone at the
Court and in the world by their sermons and their merit, and having made
many friends--as Peres Bordaloue, La Rue, Gaillard--have been guaranteed
from the general disgrace, because, often visited by the principal
persons of the Court and the town, policy did not permit them to be
treated like the rest, for fear of making so many considerable people
notice what they would not have suffered without disturbance and scandal.

It was, then, in this abandonment and this contempt that Pere Tellier
remained at La Fleche, although he had from the Regent four thousand
livres pension. He had ill-treated everybody. When he was confessor of
the King, not one of his brethren approached him without trembling,
although most of them were the "big-wigs" of the company. Even th