Such is the indecency with which you treat the truths of religion, in the face of the inviolable law which binds us always to speak of them with reverence. But you have sinned no less flagrantly against the rule which obliges us to speak of them with truth and discretion. What is more common in your writings than calumny? Can those of Father Brisacier[[236]] be called sincere? Does he speak with truth when he says, that “the nuns of Port-Royal do not pray to the saints, and have no images in their church?” Are not these most outrageous falsehoods, when the contrary appears before the eyes of all Paris? And can he be said to speak with discretion, when he stabs the fair reputation of these virgins, who lead a life so pure and austere, representing them as “impenitent, unsacramentalists, uncommunicants, foolish virgins, visionaries, Calagans, desperate creatures, and anything you please,” loading them with many other slanders, which have justly incurred the censure of the late Archbishop of Paris? or when he calumniates priests of the most irreproachable morals,[[237]] by asserting “that they practise novelties in confession, to entrap handsome innocent females, and that he would be horrified to tell the abominable crimes which they commit.” Is it not a piece of intolerable assurance, to advance slanders so black and base, not merely without proof, but without the slightest shadow, or the most distant semblance of truth? I shall not enlarge on this topic, but defer it to a future occasion, for I have something more to say to you about it; but what I have now produced is enough to show that you have sinned at once against truth and discretion.
But it may be said, perhaps, that you have not offended against the last rule at least, which binds you to desire the salvation of those whom you denounce, and that none can charge you with this, except by unlocking the secrets of your breasts, which are only known to God. It is strange, fathers, but true, nevertheless, that we can convict you even of this offence; that while your hatred to your opponents has carried you so far as to wish their eternal perdition, your infatuation has driven you to discover the abominable wish; that so far from cherishing in secret desires for their salvation, you have offered up prayers in public for their damnation; and that, after having given utterance to that hideous vow in the city of Caen, to the scandal of the whole Church, you have since then ventured, in Paris, to vindicate, in your printed books, the diabolical transaction. After such gross offences against piety, first ridiculing and speaking lightly of things the most sacred; next falsely and scandalously calumniating priests and virgins; and lastly, forming desires and prayers for their damnation, it would be difficult to add anything worse. I cannot conceive, fathers, how you can fail to be ashamed of yourselves, or how you could have thought for an instant of charging me with a want of charity, who have acted all along with so much truth and moderation, without reflecting on your own horrid violations of charity, manifested in those deplorable exhibitions, which make the charge recoil against yourselves.
In fine, fathers, to conclude with another charge which you bring against me, I see you complain that among the vast number of your maxims which I quote, there are some which have been objected to already, and that I “say over again, what others have said before me.” To this I reply, that it is just because you have not profited by what has been said before, that I say it over again. Tell me now what fruit has appeared from all the castigations you have received in all the books written by learned doctors, and even the whole university? What more have your fathers Annat, Caussin, Pintereau, and Le Moine done, in the replies they have put forth, except loading with reproaches those who had given them salutary admonitions? Have you suppressed the books in which these nefarious maxims are taught?[[238]] Have you restrained the authors of these maxims? Have you become more circumspect in regard to them? On the contrary, is it not the fact, that since that time Escobar has been repeatedly reprinted in France and in the Low Countries, and that your fathers Cellot, Bagot, Bauny, Lamy, Le Moine, and others, persist in publishing daily the same maxims over again, or new ones as licentious as ever? Let us hear no more complaints, then, fathers, either because I have charged you with maxims which you have not disavowed, or because I have objected to some new ones against you, or because I have laughed equally at them all. You have only to sit down and look at them, to see at once your own confusion and my defence. Who can look without laughing at the decision of Bauny, respecting the person who employs another to set fire to his neighbor’s barn; that of Cellot on restitution; the rule of Sanchez in favor of sorcerers; the plan of Hurtado for avoiding the sin of duelling by taking a walk through a field, and waiting for a man; the compliments of Bauny for escaping usury; the way of avoiding simony by a detour of the intention, and keeping clear of falsehood by speaking high and low; and such other opinions of your most grave and reverend doctors? Is there anything more necessary, fathers, for my vindication? and as Tertullian says, “can anything be more justly due to the vanity and weakness of these opinions than laughter?” But, fathers, the corruption of manners to which your maxims lead deserves another sort of consideration; and it becomes us to ask, with the same ancient writer, “Whether ought we to laugh at their folly, or deplore their blindness?—Rideam vanitatem, an exprobrem cæcitatem?” My humble opinion is, that one may either laugh at them or weep over them, as one is in the humor. Hæc tolerabilius vel ridentur, vel flentur, as St. Augustine says. The Scripture tells us that “there is a time to laugh, and a time to weep;” and my hope is, fathers, that I may not find verified, in your case, these words in the Proverbs: “If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest.”[[239]]
P. S.—On finishing this letter, there was put in my hands one of your publications, in which you accuse me of falsification, in the case of six of your maxims quoted by me, and also with being in correspondence with heretics. You will shortly receive, I trust, a suitable reply; after which, fathers, I rather think you will not feel very anxious to continue this species of warfare.[[240]]
LETTER XII.
TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS.
REFUTATION OF THEIR CHICANERIES REGARDING ALMS-GIVING AND SIMONY.
September 9, 1656.
Reverend Fathers,—I was prepared to write you on the subject of the abuse with which you have for some time past been assailing me in your publications, in which you salute me with such epithets as “reprobate,” “buffoon,” “blockhead,” “merry-Andrew,” “impostor,” “slanderer,” “cheat,” “heretic,” “Calvinist in disguise,” “disciple of Du Moulin,”[[241]] “possessed with a legion of devils,” and everything else you can think of. As I should be sorry to have all this believed of me, I was anxious to show the public why you treated me in this manner; and I had resolved to complain of your calumnies and falsifications, when I met with your Answers, in which you bring these same charges against myself. This will compel me to alter my plan; though it will not prevent me from prosecuting it in some sort, for I hope, while defending myself, to convict you of impostures more genuine than the imaginary ones which you have ascribed to me. Indeed, fathers, the suspicion of foul play is much more sure to rest on you than on me. It is not very likely, standing as I do, alone, without power or any human defence, against such a large body, and having no support but truth and integrity, that I would expose myself to lose everything, by laying myself open to be convicted of imposture. It is too easy to discover falsifications in matters of fact such as the present. In such a case there would have been no want of persons to accuse me, nor would justice have been denied them. With you, fathers, the case is very different; you may say as much as you please against me, while I may look in vain for any to complain to. With such a wide difference between our positions, though there had been no other consideration to restrain me, it became me to study no little caution. By treating me, however, as a common slanderer, you compel me to assume the defensive, and you must be aware that this cannot be done without entering into a fresh exposition, and even into a fuller disclosure of the points of your morality. In provoking this discussion, I fear you are not acting as good politicians. The war must be waged within your own camp, and at your own expense; and although you imagine that, by embroiling the questions with scholastic terms, the answers will be so tedious, thorny, and obscure, that people will lose all relish for the controversy, this may not, perhaps, turn out to be exactly the case; I shall use my best endeavors to tax your patience as little as possible with that sort of writing. Your maxims have something diverting about them, which keeps up the good humor of people to the last. At all events, remember that it is you that oblige me to enter upon this eclaircissement, and let us see which of us comes off best in defending themselves.