ot the effect of a bad opinion of the order: as it is applicable to the
subject I will insert it here. "While the bells were ringing, and cannon
firing, to celebrate his exaltation, the general of the Jesuits observed,
with a sigh, _there tolls our passing-bell_. Not," says the writer, "that
Ganganelli was _hostile_ to the Jesuits, but because he thought it was
_necessary_ to attend to the representations of the sovereigns."

THE PRESIDENT D'EGUILLES.

This gentleman was the Aristides of the French magistracy. I have already
mentioned {134} him, when speaking of Monclar's _Compte Rendu_[51]. His
opinion of the persecution of the society will be seen in the following
passage, which was addressed by him to Louis XV. "If the church be
incessantly outraged, by the judgments passed against the institute of the
Jesuits, the throne is still more pointedly attacked, upon the two
principal motives, which instigate the enemies of the Jesuits to work their
destruction. The first of these motives is, plainly, to deprive a society,
which is entirely devoted to the interests of its king, of the education of
youth; but more especially of the youth of the nobility. The second, which
is equally as dangerous, is, to astound all the other bodies of the kingdom
by the terrible fall of that, which seemed the most unlikely to be shaken;
and thus to make them sensible, that the hatred of the parliaments is more
to be dreaded than the protection of the king to be coveted."

{135}

ABBE PROYART.

In his work entitled "Louis XVI dethroned before he was King," speaks of
the Jesuits in these words: "The Jesuits, considered only in the light of
public teachers, were, during their existence, the first supports of the
throne."--"The destruction of the Jesuits was the ruin of the precious
edifice of national education, and gave a general shock to public
morality." The abbe, from his many testimonies in favour of the Jesuits,
being suspected to be one of their order, openly declares, "that he never
belonged to the society, and that he owed them only truth and justice, for
that he was not even indebted to them for his education."

VOLTAIRE.

I have already cited Voltaire, but I place him in the list here, for the
purpose of inserting some farther extracts from his Letters. When {136} he
was solicited by the Jansenistical magistrates to join with them in
accusing the Jesuits of the crime of regicide, he gave this remarkable
answer, in his Letter t