[113] Pope, indeed, has contradicted the calumny in his energetic verse,
Where London's column, pointing at the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.
In spite of which, the column is still allowed to disgrace the first city in the world, though it totters, and daily nods destruction around it.—Ed.
[114] It must be acknowledged, that this calumny has been too hastily placed to the credit of Laicus. He has not the honour of the invention. Calumny it certainly is. Whoever knows the angry temper of the parliament of Paris, in 1757, when their opposition to the king, and their fury against the archbishop De Beaumont and the Jesuits, were wound up to an uncommon height, must allow, that they would have been delighted with the detection of the slightest symptom, the most distant presumption of guilt, in any Jesuit. The wretched culprit Damiens was frequently interrogated with this view. He constantly denied that he had any accomplice, but owned, that he had conceived the idea of his crime, from frequently hearing the table talk of members of the parliament, on whom he waited; his design being, as he pretended, only to make the king more attentive to the voice and complaints of the people. Notwithstanding the certainty of this, one of the above mentioned Italian libels, written per il minuto populo, informs them roundly, that the Jesuits were accomplices of Damiens, and that two Jesuits were privately hanged for it in the Bastille. But why was not Laicus equally trusted with the secrets of that state prison? Possibly he has learned this lesson from his oracle Coudrette. He cannot however glory in the invention.
[115] It may be suspected, that Coudrette is really the writer, to whom, suppressing his name, Robertson so often refers his readers, in his account of Jesuits, in the Life of Charles V. Perhaps he was ashamed to name such an author. But he had already forfeited his title to historical impartiality, by acknowledging, that his unfavourable account of the Jesuits is derived from the Comptes Rendus and Requisitoires of La Chalotais, attorney general of the parliament of Bretagne, who, not less than Coudrette, was truly un ennemi acharné des Jesuites.
[116] "They," said Dr. Johnson, "who would cry out Popery in the present day, would have cried Fire in the time of the deluge."
[117] See Letter V.
[118] See Letter V.
[119] See Letter V.