ul said of a certain vice, "that its very name should never be heard
amongst Christians." And it is with the greatest grief we see all the
particulars of this damnable doctrine publicly explained in the French
tongue, and purposely {354} dispersed in all parts of your kingdom in an
infinity of libels, the reading of which has done more prejudice to your
majesty's subjects than could possibly have been caused by reading the
fanatic authors themselves, who have treated of that subject. We shall only
observe, that, in order to render the Jesuits more odious to the public,
care has been taken to hold them forth as the first broachers of a
doctrine, that was published long before they had a being. Their enemies
have spared no pains to confound and perplex all our ideas concerning this
doctrine, jumbling together, at all events, right or wrong, truth and
falsehood, in order to bring the Jesuits in guilty: they are ever urging
against them a certain period of our history, which, as it equally involves
all states and conditions[121], ought to be blotted out of our annals, and
never more be mentioned amongst us.

Whatever may be objected against the foreign Jesuits Mariana, Santarel,
Suarez, and Busembaum, this is most certain, that the decree of their
general, Acquaviva, appeared so satisfactory to your parliament of Paris,
that, in the year 1614, they desired to have the same renewed; and it is
well known, that, when those books first appeared in France, the Jesuits,
in their declarations to the parliaments, disowned them in so clear,
precise, and express terms, as did honour to their body, and gained them
the applause of the whole nation. Lastly, their behaviour in the year 1682,
and the declarations, which they have lately made to us, and which they
desire to have registered at the respective offices in our spiritual
courts, as a lasting and authentic testimony of their loyalty and fidelity,
leave no room to doubt of their abhorrence and detestation of {355} any
doctrine or opinion that may in any wise intrench upon the safety of the
sacred person of sovereigns; or of their entire acquiescence to the maxims
established by the clergy of your kingdom, in the four articles of 1682.

We must likewise observe to your majesty, that the instructions of the
Jesuits in our dioceses are all performed in public; innumerable persons,
of all conditions, are witnesses of what they teach; and we have the honour
to assure your majesty, that