A father of the oratory, named Quesnel, is said, this time, to have been the instrument of discord. He wrote a book which, after being applauded throughout all Europe, France censured. It was not very easy to point out wherein this book was to be found fault with; but religious cabals were then in fashion. The Molinist party, in the mean time, carried it with a high hand, having the King’s ear.
The confessor to Lewis XIV. was a Jesuit, who formed parties both at court and in town, against the Jansenists, who keenly revenged themselves with their pens; thus, though there was a prevailing party, the war still continued.
Hitherto no manifestos had passed between the Molinists and the Jansenists, both parties, in the heat of their zeal, having taken up arms without any declaration of war. Lewis XIV. procured from Rome a bull, whereby a fire was kindled, which has not since been quenched. The Pope, the bishops, the King, the religious orders, in short, people of all ranks gradually engaged in the quarrel, to the great disturbance of the nation and families; all plotting and caballing one against the other.
The principal object of public hatred was father Le Tellier, who over-ruled the King’s conscience: this was a hot and ambitious man, who wanted to revenge some personal offences given him by the Jansenists, and, in pursuit of his drift, alarmed both the King’s conscience and the kingdom.
Lewis XIV. towards the decline of his life, was grown weak and irresolute, and often harrassed with terrible fears of the devil. The hard-hearted Jesuit had possessed him with a persuasion, that the affair of the Molinists was the cause of God. His resentment chiefly aimed at the cardinal de Noailles, and he had the confidence to move his penitent to depose him judicially. The death of this Prince brought on a suspension of this bustle, which was called the constitution.
The Duke of Orleans, who loved neither popes nor bishops, and despised bulls, in order to rid himself both of the Molinists and Jansenists, appointed commissioners for hearing their broils, separately from the other affairs of the monarchy; with an intent to deprive them of their public importance: but the wisdom of this precaution was frustrated; those people still were for figuring in the state. They appealed to a national council, which was nothing less than throwing off the yoke of the administration, to erect another independent of it. The regent banished and exiled both bishops and priests; but this remedy only inflamed the disease, hardening both parties in their obstinacy. The Jansenists and Molinists then formed themselves into two factions, under the names of acceptants and recusants. The Acceptants called the Recusants heretics, and the Recusants gave the appellation of schismatics to the Acceptants.
The frenzy for efficacious grace was bursting out with greater violence than ever, when the Missisippi scheme was set on foot; then avarice did what neither the Pope nor King could: all the people’s thoughts now ran only on getting money. The names of Jansenists and Molinists were almost forgotten, though to this nothing perhaps contributed more than the contempt and ridicule which the Duke of Orleans put on this controversy, calling it a trifle; whereas Lewis XIV. had been made to lay it to heart, as an affair of the greatest concern.
The subsequent wars under Lewis XV. made the Jansenists and Molinists to be still farther forgotten, though not without some occasional skirmishes on predestination; but as there was no general action, they were not much heeded.
The dispute, in the mean time, was not totally extinguished, or rather it was a-fire lurking under embers. In 1750, the Molinists renewed hostilities, refusing the Sacraments to sick persons of the contrary party, under pretence of their not having confessional certificates.
The parliament intervened, and punished the delinquents; by which the two parties regained the consideration, which they had lost by the Duke of Orleans’s measures. This rupture gave rise to a new discussion, whether the parliament could intermeddle with this affair, or had any right to banish, or inflict punishments on priests, who, in refusing to administer the sacraments, only conformed to the injunctions of their bishops.