is, De Beaumont, in particular, demonstrated
the forgeries and artful falsifications, which it contained, and it was
moreover solidly refuted by _La Reponse aux_ {312} _Assertions_. This
laboured piece of Jansenistical malice seems to be unknown to Laicus and
his associates, though he has copied and cited several of the vile libels,
which were industriously circulated, to convey the indecent impurities of
the book _Des Assertions_ to every corner of France. In this point the
shameless Laicus has faithfully imitated his models, or rather he has
confined himself to one, whom he calls Coudrette; and, with his usual
effrontery, he turns this obscure man into a repentant Jesuit,
acknowledging and expiating his crimes by an unreserved confession of their
foulness. His magic pen has already changed into Jesuits three such perfect
_disparates_, as Louis XIV, the miserable Jacques Clement, and the weak
English archpriest Blackwell. It has, upon motives equally invidious,
transformed to Jesuits two churchmen of the first rate merit, the cardinals
Allen and Barberini, because these two prelates were, at different periods,
concerned in the religious affairs of England, and were thereby obnoxious
to the then prevailing sects, though neither of them had any other
connexion with Jesuits, than the {313} intercourse of friendship and
esteem. But Coudrette a Jesuit! How can this be credited? New personages in
comedies are introduced to excite new interest; and was Coudrette ever
before named in this island? Indeed his name is so very obscure, that it is
difficult to find, even a Frenchman, who ever heard it. It has however
obtained a small niche in two French historical dictionaries, the first of
which, _par une societe des gens-de-lettres_, though friendly to the
Jansenists, styles Coudrette _un ennemi acharne des Jesuits_. The other, by
the well known abbe Feller, a man of very general information, asserts,
that Coudrette had been from his youth, _de tres bonne heure_, a violent
partisan of Jansenism, closely connected with the abbe Boursier, one of the
heroes of the sect. In 1735 and 1738, during the ministry of cardinal de
Fleury, he was confined by a _lettre de cachet_ first at Vincennes, then in
the Bastille, for his intrigues, cabals, and libels against the church; and
of course he was canonized as a saint in the _Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques_,
the well known {314} Jansenistical gazette. When the parliaments denounced
open war against t