them by the popes, and the great extent
and generality of the exercises in which they are conversant, according to
their calling, exposed them to the jealousy and opposition of other
religious orders. The universities, the mendicant orders, and others, tried
all means to hinder their establishment in France: your majesty's
parliaments, in their remonstrances, laid open the many inconveniences,
that might attend their being admitted into this kingdom: Eustace de
Bellay, the then bishop of Paris, opposed them, and even the clergy of
France, in their assembly at Poissy, anno 1561, expressed a diffidence and
apprehension, that the Jesuits might encroach upon their rights; for,
though they consented to their admission, they did it with such
restrictions and limitations as then seemed proper to secure the rights and
jurisdiction of the bishops.

Anno 1574, the clergy of your kingdom, having been apprised of the credit
and the approbation this institution had gained in the council of Trent, in
conformity to the judgment of that general assembly, declare by their
deputies, upon the article concerning the profession of novices after one
year's probation, that, by _this rule, their intention was not any way to
derogate from or to make any change in the good constitutions of the clerks
of the society of Jesus, approved by the holy apostolic see_.

It appears even, that the Jesuits, by their behaviour, had got the better
of those prejudices, which had formerly been conceived against their order,
seeing that, in the year 1610, when so great a storm was raised against
them, Henry de Gondy, bishop of Paris, gives their {349} character in words
very different from those of his predecessor, Eustace de Bellay, _viz._
that _the order of the Jesuits was greatly serviceable both to church and
state, on account of their learning, piety, and exemplary behaviour_.

Hence it was, that, in the general assembly of the states, anno 1614 and
1615, both the clergy and the nobility so pressingly desired the
re-establishment of the Jesuits, for the instruction of youth, in the city
of Paris, and the erection of other colleges in the different towns of the
kingdom: this they recommended to their deputies as a matter of the
greatest concernment, desiring they would most earnestly address his
majesty, in order to obtain a favourable and speedy answer; _the assembly
being sensible how greatly the order of the Jesuits, by their learning and
industry, had