The magistrates were not the last to rise against this bull. They were especially shocked at the censure of the ninety-first proposition. “The dread of an unjust excommunication ought never to hinder us from doing our duty.” Instructed by the melancholy effects of the quarrels between the Priesthood and the Empire during so many ages, they perceived how easy it was to avail themselves of this censure, to detach the people, by menaces of excommunication, from the fidelity which they owe their sovereign. They saw, in so rash a condemnation, the secret attempt which the Jesuits and the court of Rome wanted to make upon our maxims, of the temporal independence of kings. There was no subscribing, with any modesty, to the Anathema launched out against a proposition so evident, but by confining it to a tortured sense, which it presents not, in judging it (which is ridiculous in such a case) upon a pretended intention of the author in favour of excommunicated fanaticks. Who doubts that fanaticks might not abuse the truth which this proposition includes, to the braving of every excommunication which they shall think unjust? But is the abuse, which may be made of a truth, a reason for proscribing it? Would the scripture itself be safe from a stigma founded on like motives?
Nevertheless, in spite of the opposition of the magistrates, the bull was registered; every thing plyed, either willingly or by force, under the weight of the royal authority: the fury with which father le Tellier, the author of this strange production, persecuted all its opposers, was carried so far, that the Jesuits themselves, though long inured to violence, were terrified at his, and said aloud, “Father le Tellier drives at such a rate, that he will overturn us.” They thought not perhaps that they were speaking so much truth. It is this bull, and the persecution which it occasioned, that after fifty years has given the Jesuits the mortal blow: we shall see it in the sequel of this recital. But it may not be useless to make, before-hand, an observation on the conduct and the projects of father le Tellier. Many people believe, that this Jesuit was a knave, void of religion, who made its respectable name subservient to his hatred: it is much more probable that he was a fanatick in reality, who, being persuaded of the goodness of his cause, thought every thing permitted him, in order to ensure the triumph of what he supposed to be the sound doctrine. At the same time that he persecuted the Jansenists, he accused Fontenelle to Louis XIV. as an atheist, for having written The History of Oracles. Fontenelle, the pupil of the Jesuits, their friend at all times, as well as the great Corneille his uncle, disapproving also the doctrine and morality of the Jansenists, as far as a philosopher can disapprove theological opinions; in short, ever discreet and reserved with respect to religion, in his discourses, as well as in his writings; such was the man whom le Tellier wanted to ruin, at the very time that he sought to crush Quesnel and his partisans. Would he have behaved in this manner, if he had not been animated by a principle of persuasion?
Happily for Jansenism and for philosophy, Louis XIV. died. Le Tellier, loaded with the public execration, was exiled to la Flêche, where he ended, in a short time, a life odious to the whole nation. The duke of Orleans the regent, being in every respect the reverse of Louis XIV. was disposed neither to brave with violence the publick clamour, which the constitution Unigenitus had excited, nor rudely to offend the pope and the bishops, who were too far engaged to recede: he caused to be accepted, almost without noise, this fatal bull, which, presented by the Jesuits, had excited such great clamours: supported by the philosophers who surrounded him, and who began, from that time, to command attention; supported above all by his minister Dubois, whose way of thinking, in matters of religion, was well known, he threw over this theological dispute, a ridicule which put a stop to it.
The Jesuits, though become less powerful during the regency, recovered, nevertheless, in a short time, the place of confessor to the king, of which they had been for a short time deprived: it is pretended that their restoration at court was one of the secret articles of the re-union between France and Spain in 1719. It is added, that this article had been procured by the management of the Jesuit d’Aubenton, confessor to Philip V. and extremely powerful at the court of Madrid. For the honour of the ministers which France had at that time, we must believe that this anecdote is fabulous.
Everything else was peaceable, with respect to the Jesuits, during the remainder of the regency and the succeeding ministry: they aimed only at supporting themselves, without making much noise. Cardinal Fleury, who loved them not, was nevertheless persuaded that they were to be protected strongly, “as the firmest supports of religion;” the maintenance of which that minister looked upon as a part of government. This manner of thinking in cardinal Fleury, with regard to the Jesuits, is found expressed in some manuscript letters of his, which I have read. “They are,” said he further, “excellent servants, but bad masters.” In pursuance of this principle, he treated them civilly, during his ministry, but without shewing them any marks of declared favour: on the contrary, he greatly raised (and the Jesuits were not the better pleased with him for it) the community of Sulpiciens, who were much less illustrious and less powerful, but also less formidable. Cardinal Fleury, an enemy to the Jansenists, whom he looked upon as dangerous, and at the same time very little biassed for what had any considerable degree of credit in its way, of whatever kind it was, took under his particular protection this numerous community: it had all that was necessary to make him think it worthy thereof: it joined to the merit of being extremely devoted to the bull, the happiness of having never made any noise. This minister filled the bishopricks of France with a multitude of the pupils of St. Sulpicius, who were more commendable for their devotion than their talents: thus he planted the first seeds of that state of languor into which the clergy of France seem now-a-days to be fallen, but from which it is to be hoped they will soon rouze themselves; thanks to the philosophick spirit which enlightens at present some of its members, and which makes them justly look upon fanaticism and ignorance as the two true scourges of Christianity.
However, the bull of which the Jesuits had been the promoters, and which had met with so much opposition when it appeared, came insensibly to be received by all the bishops. The French nation, which clamours so readily, and which more readily still grows tired of clamouring, was familiarized to a production which it had at first called monstrous: every one received it, with an interpretation according to his own liking; for such is the wonderful privilege of these kinds of decisions of the church of Rome, that people may, by all means, understand them just as they please, and submit to them at the same time that they continue in their own opinion. Jansenism, heretofore maintained (in spite of reason) by men of real merit, had no longer for its support any defenders, but such as were worthy of such a cause, a few poor and obscure priests, unknown even where they lived: the phrensy of convulsions, which had raised dissensions in the party itself, had rendered them completely contemptible, by rendering them ridiculous: in short, this sect, now expiring and despised, was at the last gasp, when an unforeseen chain of circumstances restored it to a new life, which it hoped not for. The viper which the Jesuits thought crushed, had strength enough to turn back its head, to bite them in the heel, and to kill them. The reader is here presented with the succession of causes, by which this strange event was produced.
The parliaments, which had opposed the society from its birth, had but too much reason for persisting in the same sentiments with regard to it. They were justly offended at the advantages of power and credit, which it had obtained in spite of them: they were above all hurt by the constitution Unigenitus, the acceptance of which the intrigues of the Jesuits had forced them to register; an acceptance which they thought, as we have seen, contrary to the rights of the crown; and in order to break forth, waited only for a favourable occasion, without perhaps presuming to flatter themselves that it would ever occur.
The contest occasioned by the refusal of the sacraments to the Jansenists, was the first spark of the conflagration, the Helen of that war, as small in its first object, as it is now become important by its consequences. One of the principal archbishops of the kingdom, and a bishop of Mirepoix, his aid and counsellor, both of them thoroughly persuaded of the excellence of the bull, and of the damnation of those who rejected it, resolved, like consistent prelates, to order the communion to be refused to Jansenists at the point of death. This refusal had before been attempted in some provinces, but twice or thrice only, at wide intervals, and with little noise: it was now thought time to take off the mask, and absolutely to treat the enemies of the bull Unigenitus as hereticks cut off from the church. If we believe the crowd of constitutionary theologists, the two prelates, authors and executors of this project, were extremely in the right: but let us be permitted to relate here (as mere historians) the singular reasons which were alledged in their favour, and those that were opposed to them. “The bull Unigenitus,” said its partisans, “ill received without doubt, and even spit upon at its birth, had terminated in being unanimously received: there was not, in all Christendom, one bishop who rejected this production, whether good or bad, of the court of Rome: it was in vain to say that it overturned the principles of Christianity; that the acceptance of it had not been free; that some had received it through fear, others through interest: it was accepted, and without opposition, by the whole body of pastors. Here then we see, in the principles of the Catholic church, all that ought to serve, by way of compass, to plain Christians in their faith. It is not for them to examine either the doctrines themselves, or the nature of the acceptance; it is sufficient to them that they see clearly, that the visible church adopts them. We understand here by the visible church, what every Catholic understands by the term; that is to say, the pope, the bishops, and almost all the ecclesiasticks, secular and regular, of the second order. Whatever be the doctrine which this visible church teaches, the faithful ought to believe firmly, notwithstanding even the strongest appearances to the contrary, that it has always taught the same; otherwise Jesus Christ would not have said true in promising that church to be always with her. The passages of scripture, and of the fathers, which may appear the most evidently contrary to the new catechism, will be explained in a manner favourable to it: the church has alone the right of fixing the meaning of them. In a word, from the moment the church speaks, we must submit to her, whatever she may say. After the council of Nice, the divinity of Jesus Christ was very far from being as solemnly, as universally, as uniformly received by the body of pastors, as the bull Unigenitus hath been in these latter times. Nevertheless, after the council of Nice, the Arians were, from that time, hereticks declared, not withstanding the partisans that still adhered to them. It may be; it is even out of doubt, that in the councils which have decided on matters of faith, many of the bishops declared for the good cause, through views of policy, interest, or passion. Witness the unhappy facility with which most of the prelates, who, under Constantine, had declared that the Word was God, declared afterwards, under Constantius, that it was but a man. Witness again the violent conduct of St. Cyril, and of the council of Ephesus, with regard to Nestorius. Witness, lastly, the intrigues which too often disturbed those holy assemblies, and affronted, as we may say, the Holy Ghost, that presides in them. But still, once more, it is not the motives, it is the result of the decision, that the faithful ought to consider. It is by this result alone that they ought to abide: they would have too much to do, if it were necessary for them to go back again to the causes which dictated the decree. God hath promised to his church infallibility in her decisions; but he has not promised to every individual purity in his motives: he makes use of all sorts of means, even of the passions of men, for making the truth triumph, and be known; and he employs human things, in order to make divine matters succeed.”
Agreeably to these reasonings (the justness of which we pretend by no means to judge of) the partisans of the bull thought themselves warranted to treat the Jansenists as declared sectaries. The latter said, in their defence, that the universal church was possessed of their cause, by the appeal which they had made to a future council; and that, ‘till the decision which they waited for, they could not be cast out of her bosom. It was replied, that a crowd of hereticks, to begin with Pelagius, so odious to the modern Jansenists, had been looked upon and treated as innovators, without having been condemned expressly by any œcumenical council. They objected, that the bull proposed in reality not one truth for belief; the accumulated qualifications of hereticks, smelling of heresy, of ill sounding, of offending pious ears, &c. were not applied to any one proposition of father Quesnel’s in particular. Some of their adversaries, after the example of an illustrious chief of Israel[12], replied to them, (making a jest probably both of them and the bull) that it proposed “to believe with an implicit faith indeterminate truths:” others said simply, that in a list of poisons, it was not necessary to mark expressly the degree of malignity of each, in order to warn people to abstain from them. It was demanded again of the Jansenists, how the church could preserve one of her essential characters, that of being visible, if she were reduced to a handful of priests, opposed to all the other pastors? And they replied, that the true church, the visible church, was that which taught visibly sound doctrine, and which did not authorise, like the bull, the most shocking Pelagianism: they added, that the church, visible as she is, and must be, was not the less hid in appearance in those unhappy times, when the fathers of the church assure us that the whole universe “was astonished to see itself Arian.” In a word, the Jansenists answered their adversaries, as Sertorius did Pompey,
Rome n’est plus dans Rome; elle est toute où je suis.