An Account of the Destruction of the Jesuits in France

By M. D’ALEMBERT.
Incorruptam fidem professis, nec amore quisquam, & fine odio dicendus est.
Tacit. Hist. ch. 1.
LONDON. Printed for T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, near Surry-street in the Strand. MDCCLXVI.

To M. COUNSELLOR TO THE PARLIAMENT OF .
PERMIT, Sir, an unknown, but zealous, citizen, an impartial historian of the Jesuits, to pay public homage to that truely philosophical patriotism which you have displayed in this affair. In exciting against the society the zeal of the magistrates, you have not neglected to fix their enlightened attention on all those men, who may have with this alien society any marks of resemblance, and who, arrayed in black, gray, or white, may acknowledge like it, in the very bosom of France, another country, and another sovereign.
You have shewn no less lights in making known to the sage Depositaries of the laws, all the Men of the party, whoever they be, all the fanaticks, whatever livery they wear, whether they invoke Francis of Paris , or Francis of Borgia , whether they maintain predeterminating decrees, or congruous assistances .
If the author of this writing had been able to ask you your opinions, his work would, without doubt, have gained greatly by it. May you, such as it is, grant it your suffrage, and receive it as a slender mark of the acknowledgement which religion, the state, philosophy, and letters owe to you.

THE different pieces which have been published on the affair of the Jesuits (if we except therefrom the requisitories of the magistrates) breathe an animosity or fanaticism in those who have undertaken either to defend or attack the society. We may say of these historians, what Tacitus said of the historians of his time: Neutris cura posteritatis, inter infensos vel obnoxios : “None of them were influenced by any regard for posterity, being themselves among the exasperated or the obnoxious.” As the author of the following writing professes a pretty great indifference for quarrels of this sort, he has had no violence to do himself in order to tell the truth (so far at least as he has been able to come at the knowledge of it) with respect to the causes and the circumstances of this singular event: if he has sometimes told it with energy, he flatters himself at least that he has delivered it without bitterness, and he hopes that thus his work will not displease those, who like him are detached from any spirit of party or interest. He has even waited, before he published this writing, till peoples' minds should be no longer heated, in regard to the matter which is the object of it; he will lose thereby, without doubt, some readers, but the truth will gain by it, or at least be no loser.