[297] We find also in the Ricci archives (vol. xci. part 11, No. 136) the letter accompanying this act of adhesion. It bears the signature of "Gabriel du Pac de Bellegarde, ancien comte et chanoine de l'église primatiale de Lyon." It begins thus: "Monseigneur the Archbishop of Utrecht, messeigneur's his suffragans, and the messieurs of the Metropolitan Chapter of Utrecht, have given me, monseigneur, the honorable and agreeable commission of addressing to you the act of adhesion to your holy synod of 1786."
[298] Gautier Michel van Nieuwenhuizen, Adrien Jean Brœckman, Nicholas Nelleman.
[299] The bull is dated March 6, 1641—that is to say, 1642, the year beginning March 25—and was received in the Low Countries in 1643. The last signature of the clergy of Utrecht in favor of the Augustinus is dated Feb. 10, 1642.
[300] Reipublicæ Christianæ, libri duo, p. 102 et seq.
[301] Port Royal, vol iv. p. 20, in note.
[302] Archives of Malines, MS. volume entitled Monumenta originalia et authentica de Jansenismo, No. 32. The more I study facts by the light of these and several other documents preserved in the same archives, the more I am persuaded that historians have greatly overlooked the credit due to Humbert de Precipiano, while exalting that of his successor, the Cardinal of Alsace. Humbert de Precipiano inflicted terrible blows upon Jansenism in the Low Countries; he died just as the triumph for which he had prepared the way began.
[303] They added: "We are prepared to prove by Scripture, the councils, the testimony of the fathers, and especially by the authority of S. Augustine, that the doctrine set forth in this second column is the true doctrine of the church." This promise was not carried out until after the condemnation of Quesnel's Réflexions Morales; the monstrous book of the Hexaples is the principal effort the Jansenists have attempted with this view.
[304] In the Provinciales, xvii. and xviii., Pascal himself defended the distinction between faith and right. (See Maynard, Les Provinciales.)
[305] Œuvres, ed. Bossutel biblioth. Mazarine, T., 2199.
[306] Port Royal, vol. iii. p. 92 and further.