The first is: "Of what use the Jesuits may be in France; the advantages or inconveniences that may attend the various functions, which they exercise under our authority."
The second: "How the Jesuits behave, in their instructions, and in their own conduct, with regard to certain opinions, which strike at the safety of the king's person; as, likewise, with regard to the received doctrine of the clergy of France, contained in the declaration of the year 1682; and, in general, with regard to their opinions on the other side of the Alps."
The third: "The conduct of the Jesuits, with regard to their subordination to bishops; and whether, in the exercise of their functions, they do not encroach on the pastoral rights and privileges."
The fourth: "Whether it may not be convenient to moderate and set bounds to the
authority, which the general of the Jesuits exercises in France."
The replies fully substantiate the utility of the society, the purity of their doctrine, the regularity of their conduct, and the consistency of their government with their duty to their king and country[[59]].
Such, then, is the nature of the authorities, that rank in favour of the Jesuits; and the reader, by comparing them with the inveterate and corrupt spirits, which have been dragged from obscurity to destroy them a second time, will be able to estimate their respective value, and the motives of the new conspirators against them.
Perhaps enough has incidentally appeared, in the preceding pages, to inform the reader of the
chief crimes imputed to the society of the Jesuits, and to satisfy his mind of the falsehood of the imputations, as well as of the baseness and wickedness of the means contrived for attaching them upon those devoted victims. Many of the imputations are also removed in the following Letters. And when I consider, that the judgment of the bishops of France affords, on these points, a complete refutation of the slanders which have been lavished upon the society, I feel, that I should be wasting time, and abusing the attention of my reader, with unnecessary repetition. A brief notice, however, of some of the principal charges against the society, may not be unacceptable here. Let us inquire into those of ambition, commerce, and sedition.