Father Bauny, “that it is permissible to seek directly (_primo et per
se_) a proximate occasion of sin, for the spiritual or temporal good of
ourselves or our neighbor” (tr. 4, q. 14); as an example of which, he
observes, “It is allowable to visit infamous places, for the purpose of
converting abandoned females, even although the practice should be very
likely to lead into sin, as in the case of one who has found from
experience that he has frequently yielded to their temptations.” What
answer did your Father Caussin give to this charge in the year 1644?
“Just let any one look at the passage in Father Bauny,” said he, “let
him peruse the page, the margins, the preface, the appendix, in short,
the whole book from beginning to end, and he will not discover the
slightest vestige of such a sentence, which could only enter into the
mind of a man totally devoid of conscience, and could hardly have been
forged by any other but an instrument of Satan.”[271] Father Pintereau
talks in the same style: “That man must be lost to all conscience who
would teach so detestable a doctrine; but he must be worse than a devil
who attributes it to Father Bauny. Reader, there is not a single trace
or vestige of it in the whole of his book.”[272] Who would not believe
that persons talking in this tone have good reason to complain, and that
Father Bauny has, in very deed, been misrepresented? Have you ever
asserted anything against me in stronger terms? And, after such a solemn
asseveration, that “there was not a single trace or vestige of it in the
whole book,” who would imagine that the passage is to be found, word for
word, in the place referred to?
Truly, fathers, if this be the means of securing your reputation, so
long as you remain unanswered, it is also, unfortunately, the means of
destroying it forever, so soon as an answer makes its appearance. For so
certain is it that you told a lie at the period before mentioned, that
you make no scruple of acknowledging, in your apologies of the present
day, that the maxim in question is to be found in the very place which
had been quoted; and what is most extraordinary, the same maxim which,
twelve years ago, was “detestable,” has now become so innocent, that in
your ninth Imposture (p. 10) you accuse me of “ignorance and malice, in
quarrelling with Father Bauny for an opinion which has not been rejected
in the School.” What an advantage it is, fathers, to have to do with
people that deal in contradictions! I need not the aid of any but
yourselves to confute you; for I have only two things to show—first,
That the maxim in dispute is a worthless one; and, secondly, That it
belongs to Father Bauny; and I can prove both by your own confession. In
1644, you confessed that it was “detestable;” and, in 1656, you avow
that it is Father Bauny’s. This double acknowledgment completely
justifies me, fathers; but it does more, it discovers the spirit of your
policy. For, tell me, pray, what is the end you propose to yourselves in
your writings? Is it to speak with honesty? No, fathers; that cannot be,
since your defences destroy each other. Is it to follow the truth of the
faith? As little can this be your end; since, according to your own
showing, you authorize a “detestable” maxim. But, be it observed, that
while you said the maxim was “detestable,” you denied, at the same time,
that it was the property of Father Bauny, and so he was innocent; and
when you now acknowledge it to be his, you maintain, at the same time,
that it is a good maxim, and so he is innocent still. The innocence of
this monk, therefore, being the only thing common to your two answers,
it is obvious that this was the sole end which you aimed at in putting
them forth; and that, when you say of one and the same maxim, that it is
in a certain book, and that it is not; that it is a good maxim, and that
it is a bad one; your sole object is to white-wash some one or other of
your fraternity; judging in the matter, not according to the truth,
which never changes, but according to your own interest, which is
varying every hour. Can I say more than this? You perceive that it
amounts to a demonstration; but it is far from being a singular
instance; and, to omit a multitude of examples of the same thing, I
believe you will be contented with my quoting only one more.
You have been charged, at different times, with another proposition of
the same Father Bauny, namely, “That absolution ought to be neither
denied nor deferred in the case of those who live in the habits of sin
against the law of God, of nature, and of the Church, although there
should be no apparent prospect of future amendment—_etsi emendationis
futuræ spes nulla appareat_.”[273] Now, with regard to this maxim, I beg
you to tell me, fathers, which of the apologies that have been made for
it is most to your liking; whether that of Father Pintereau, or that of
Father Brisacier, both of your Society, who have defended Father Bauny,
in your _two different_ modes—the one by condemning the proposition, but
disavowing it to be Father Bauny’s; the other by allowing it to be
Father Bauny’s, but vindicating the proposition? Listen, then, to their
respective deliverances. Here comes that of Father Pintereau (p. 8): “I
know not what can be called a transgression of all the bounds of
modesty, a step beyond all ordinary impudence, if the imputation to
Father Bauny of so damnable a doctrine is not worthy of that
designation. Judge, reader, of the baseness of that calumny; see what
sort of creatures the Jesuits have to deal with; and say, if the author
of so foul a slander does not deserve to be regarded from henceforth as
the interpreter of the father of lies.” Now for Father Brisacier: “It is
true, Father Bauny says what you allege.” (That gives the lie direct to
Father Pintereau, plain enough.) “But,” adds he, in defence of Father
Bauny, “if you who find so much fault with this sentiment, wait, when a
penitent lies at your feet, till his guardian angel find security for
his rights in the inheritance of heaven; if you wait till God the
Father, swear by himself that David told a lie, when he said, by the
Holy Ghost, that ‘all men are liars,’ fallible and perfidious; if you
wait till the penitent be no longer a liar, no longer frail and
changeable, no longer a sinner, like other men; if you wait, I say, till
then, you will never apply the blood of Jesus Christ to a single
soul.”[274]
What do you really think now, fathers, of these impious and extravagant
expressions? According to them, if we would wait “till there be some
hope of amendment” in sinners before granting their absolution, we must
wait “till God the Father swear by himself,” that they will never fall
into sin any more! What, fathers! is no distinction to be made between
_hope_ and _certainty_? How injurious is it to the grace of Jesus
Christ, to maintain that it is so impossible for Christians ever to
escape from crimes against the laws of God, nature, and the Church, that
such a thing cannot be looked for, without supposing “that the Holy
Ghost has told a lie;” and if absolution is not granted to those who
give no hope of amendment, the blood of Jesus Christ will be useless,
forsooth, and “would never be applied to a single soul!” To what a sad
pass have you come, fathers, by this extravagant desire of upholding the
glory of your authors, when you can find only two ways of justifying
them—by imposture or by impiety; and when the most innocent mode by
which you can extricate yourselves, is by the barefaced denial of facts
as patient as the light of day!
This may perhaps account for your having recourse so frequently to that
very convenient practice. But this does not complete the sum of your
accomplishments in the art of self-defence. To render your opponents
odious, you have had recourse to the forging of documents, such as that
_Letter of a Minister to M. Arnauld_, which you circulated through all
Paris, to induce the belief that the work on Frequent Communion, which
had been approved by so many bishops and doctors, but which, to say the
truth, was rather against you, had been concocted through secret
intelligence with the ministers of Charenton.[275] At other times, you
attribute to your adversaries writings full of impiety, such as the
_Circular Letter of the Jansenists_, the absurd style of which renders
the fraud too gross to be swallowed, and palpably betrays the malice of
your Father Meynier, who has the impudence to make use of it for
supporting his foulest slanders. Sometimes, again, you will quote books
which were never in existence, such as _The Constitution of the Holy
Sacrament_, from which you extract passages, fabricated at pleasure, and
calculated to make the hair on the heads of certain good simple people,
who have no idea of the effrontery with which you can invent and
propagate falsehoods, actually to bristle with horror. There is not,
indeed, a single species of calumny which you have not put into
requisition; nor is it possible that the maxim which excuses the vice
could have been lodged in better hands.
But those sorts of slander to which we have adverted are rather too
easily discredited; and, accordingly, you have others of a more subtle
character, in which you abstain from specifying particulars, in order to
preclude your opponents from getting any hold, or finding any means of
reply; as, for example, when Father Brisacier says that “his enemies are
guilty of abominable crimes, _which he does not choose to mention_.”
Would you not think it were impossible to prove a charge so vague as
this to be a calumny? An able man, however, has found out the secret of
it; and it is a Capuchin again, fathers. You are unlucky in Capuchins,
as times now go; and I foresee that you may be equally so some other
time in Benedictines. The name of this Capuchin is Father Valerien, of
the house of the Counts of Magnis. You shall hear, by this brief
narrative, how he answered your calumnies. He had happily succeeded in
converting Prince Ernest, the Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinsfelt.[276] Your
fathers, however, seized, as it would appear, with some chagrin at
seeing a sovereign prince converted without their having had any hand in
it, immediately wrote a book against the friar (for good men are
everywhere the objects of your persecution), in which, by falsifying one
of his passages, they ascribed to him an heretical doctrine. They also
circulated a letter against him, in which they said: “Ah, we have such
things to disclose” (without mentioning what) “as will gall you to the
quick! If you don’t take care, we shall be forced to inform the pope and
the cardinals about it.” This manœuvre was pretty well executed; and I
doubt not, fathers, but you may speak in the same style of me; but take
warning from the manner in which the friar answered in his book, which
was printed last year at Prague (p. 112, &c.): “What shall I do,” he
says, “to counteract these vague and indefinite insinuations? How shall
I refute charges which have never been specified? Here, however, is my
plan. I declare, loudly and publicly, to those who have threatened me,
that they are notorious slanderers, and most impudent liars, if they do
not discover these crimes before the whole world. Come forth, then, mine
accusers! and publish your lies upon the house tops, in place of telling
them in the ear, and keeping yourselves out of harm’s way by telling
them in the ear. Some may think this a scandalous way of managing the
dispute. It was scandalous, I grant, to impute to me such a crime as
heresy, and to fix upon me the suspicion of many others besides; but, by
asserting my innocence, I am merely applying the proper remedy to the
scandal already in existence.”
Truly, fathers, never were your reverences more roughly handled, and
never was a poor man more completely vindicated. Since you have made no
reply to such a peremptory challenge, it must be concluded that you are
unable to discover the slightest shadow of criminality against him. You
have had very awkward scrapes to get through occasionally; but
experience has made you nothing the wiser. For, some time after this
happened, you attacked the same individual in a similar strain, upon
another subject; and he defended himself after the same spirited manner,
as follows: “This class of men, who have become an intolerable nuisance
to the whole of Christendom, aspire, under the pretext of good works, to
dignities and domination, by perverting to their own ends almost all
laws, human and divine, natural and revealed. They gain over to their
side, by their doctrine, by the force of fear, or of persuasion, the
great ones of the earth, whose authority they abuse for the purpose of
accomplishing their detestable intrigues. Meanwhile their enterprises,
criminal as they are, are neither punished nor suppressed; on the
contrary, they are rewarded; and the villains go about them with as
little fear or remorse as if they were doing God service. Everybody is
aware of the fact I have now stated; everybody speaks of it with
execration; but few are found capable of opposing a despotism so
powerful. This, however, is what I have done. I have already curbed
their insolence; and, by the same means, I shall curb it again. I
declare, then, that _they are most impudent liars_—MENTIRIS
IMPUDENTISSIME. If the charges they have brought against me be true, let
them prove it; otherwise, they stand convicted of falsehood, aggravated
by the grossest effrontery. Their procedure in this case will show who
has the right upon his side. I desire all men to take a particular
observation of it; and beg to remark, in the mean time, that this
precious cabal, who will not suffer the most trifling charge which they
can possibly repel to lie upon them, made a show of enduring, with great
patience, those from which they cannot vindicate themselves, and
conceal, under a counterfeit virtue, their real impotency. My object,
therefore, in provoking their modesty, by this sharp retort, is to let
the plainest people understand, that if my enemies hold their peace,
their forbearance must be ascribed, not to the meekness of their
natures, but to the power of a guilty conscience.” He concludes with the
following sentence: “These gentry, whose history is well known
throughout the whole world, are so glaringly iniquitous in their
measures, and have become so insolent in their impunity, that if I did
not detest their conduct, and publicly express my detestation too, not
merely for my own vindication, but to guard the simple against its
seducing influence, I must have renounced my allegiance to Jesus Christ
and his Church.”
Reverend fathers, there is no room for tergiversation. You must pass for
convicted slanderers, and take comfort in your old maxim, that calumny
is no crime. This honest friar has discovered the secret of shutting
your mouths; and it must be employed on all occasions when you accuse
people without proof. We have only to reply to each slander as it
appears, in the words of the Capuchin, _Mentiris impudentissime_—“You
are most impudent liars.” For instance, what better answer does Father
Brisacier deserve when he says of his opponents that they are “the gates
of hell; the devil’s bishops; persons devoid of faith, hope, and
charity; the builders of Antichrist’s exchequer;” adding, “I say this of
him, not by way of insult, but from deep conviction of its truth?” Who
would be at the pains to demonstrate that he is not “a gate of hell,”
and that he has no concern with “the building up of Antichrist’s
exchequer?”
In like manner, what reply is due to all the vague speeches of this sort
which are to be found in your books and advertisements on my letters;
such as the following, for example: “That restitutions have been
converted to private uses, and thereby creditors have been reduced to
beggary; that bags of money have been offered to learned monks, who
declined the bribe; that benefices are conferred for the purpose of
disseminating heresies against the faith; that pensioners are kept in
the houses of the most eminent churchmen, and in the courts of
sovereigns; that I also am a pensioner of Port-Royal; and that, before
writing my letters, I had composed _romances_”—I, who never read one in
my life, and who do not know so much as the names of those which your
apologist has published? What can be said in reply to all this, fathers,
if you do not mention the names of all these persons you refer to, their
words, the time, and the place, except—_Mentiris impudentissime_? You
should either be silent altogether, or relate and prove all the
circumstances, as I did when I told you the anecdotes of Father Alby and
John d’Alba. Otherwise, you will hurt none but yourselves. Your numerous
fables might, perhaps, have done you some service, before your
principles were known; but now that the whole has been brought to light,
when you begin to whisper as usual, “A man of honor, who desired us to
conceal his name, has told us some horrible stories of these same
people”—you will be cut short at once, and reminded of the Capuchin’s
_Mentiris impudentissime_. Too long by far have you been permitted to
deceive the world, and to abuse the confidence which men were ready to
place in your calumnious accusations. It is high time to redeem the
reputation of the multitudes whom you have defamed. For what innocence
can be so generally known, as not to suffer some injury from the daring
aspersions of a body of men scattered over the face of the earth, and
who, under religious habits, conceal minds so utterly irreligious, that
they perpetrate crimes like calumny, not in opposition to, but in strict
accordance with, their moral maxims? I cannot, therefore, be blamed for
destroying the credit which might have been awarded you; seeing it must
be allowed to be a much greater act of justice to restore to the victims
of your obloquy the character which they did not deserve to lose, than
to leave you in the possession of a reputation for sincerity which you
do not deserve to enjoy. And as the one could not be done without the
other, how important was it to show you up to the world as you really
are! In this letter I have commenced the exhibition; but it will require
some time to complete it. Published it shall be, fathers, and all your
policy will be inadequate to save you from the disgrace; for the efforts
which you may make to avert the blow, will only serve to convince the
most obtuse observers that you were terrified out of your wits, and
that, your consciences anticipating the charges I had to bring against
you, you have put every oar in the water to prevent the discovery.
-----
Footnote 267:
Pascal was assisted by M. Arnauld in the preparation of this letter.
(Nicole, iv. 162.)
Footnote 268:
Quidni non nisi veniale sit, detrahentes autoritatem magnam, tibi
noxiam, falso crimine elidere?
Footnote 269:
Dicastillus, De Just., l. 2, tr. 2, disp. 12, n. 404.
Footnote 270:
M. De Ville, Vicar-General of M., the Cardinal of Lyons; M. Scarron,
Canon and Curate of St. Paul; M. Margat, Chanter; MM. Bouvand, Seve,
Aubert, and Dervien, Canons of St. Nisier; M. de Gué, President of the
Treasurers of France; M. Groslier, Provost of the Merchants; M. de
Flèchre, President and Lieutenant-General; MM. De Boissart, De St.
Romain, and De Bartoly, gentlemen; M. Bourgeois, the King’s First
Advocate in the Court of the Treasurers of France; MM. De Cotton,
father and son; and M. Boniel; who have all signed the original copy
of the Declaration, along with M. Puys and Father Alby.
Footnote 271:
Apology for the Society of Jesus, p. 128.
Footnote 272:
First Part, p. 24.
Footnote 273:
Tr. 4, q. 22, p. 100.
Footnote 274:
Part. 4, p. 21
Footnote 275:
That is, the Protestant ministers of Paris, who are called “the
ministers of Charenton,” from the village of that name near Paris,
where they had their place of worship. The Protestants of Paris were
forbidden to hold meetings in the city, and were compelled to travel
five leagues to a place of worship, till 1606, when they were
_graciously_ permitted to erect their temple at Charenton, about two
leagues from the city! (Benoit, Hist. de l’Edit. de Nantes, i. 435.)
Even there they were harassed by the bigoted populace, and at last
“the ministers of Charenton,” among whom were the famous Claude and
Daillé, were driven from their homes, their chapel burnt to the
ground, and their people scattered abroad.
Footnote 276:
In the first edition it was said to be the Landgrave of Darmstat, by
mistake, as shown in a note by Nicole.
LETTER XVI.[277]
TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS.
SHAMEFUL CALUMNIES OF THE JESUITS AGAINST PIOUS CLERGYMEN AND INNOCENT
NUNS.
_December 4, 1656._
REVEREND FATHERS,—I now come to consider the rest of your calumnies, and
shall begin with those contained in your advertisements, which remain to
be noticed. As all your other writings, however, are equally well
stocked with slander, they will furnish me with abundant materials for
entertaining you on this topic as long as I may judge expedient. In the
first place, then, with regard to the fable which you have propagated in
all your writings against the Bishop of Ypres,[278] I beg leave to say,
in one word, that you have maliciously wrested the meaning of some
ambiguous expressions in one of his letters, which being capable of a
good sense, ought, according to the spirit of the Gospel, to have been
taken in good part, and could only be taken otherwise according to the
spirit of your Society. For example, when he says to a friend, “Give
yourself no concern about your nephew; I will furnish him with what he
requires from the money that lies in my hands,” what reason have you to
interpret this to mean, that he would take that money without restoring
it, and not that he merely advanced it with the purpose of replacing it?
And how extremely imprudent was it for you to furnish a refutation of
your own lie, by printing the other letters of the Bishop of Ypres,
which clearly show that, in point of fact, it was merely _advanced_
money, which he was bound to refund. This appears, to your confusion,
from the following terms in the letter, to which you give the date of
July 30, 1619: “Be not uneasy about the money _advanced_; he shall want
for nothing so long as he is here;” and likewise from another, dated
January 6, 1620, where he says: “You are in too great haste; when the
account shall become due, I have no fear but that the little credit
which I have in this place will bring me as much money as I require.”
If you are convicted slanderers on this subject, you are no less so in
regard to the ridiculous story about the charity-box of St. Merri. What
advantage, pray, can you hope to derive from the accusation which one of
your worthy friends has trumped up against that ecclesiastic? Are we to
conclude that a man is guilty, because he is accused? No, fathers. Men
of piety, like him, may expect to be perpetually accused, so long as the
world contains calumniators like you. We must judge of him, therefore,
not from the accusation, but from the sentence; and the sentence
pronounced on the case (February 23, 1656) justifies him completely.
Moreover, the person who had the temerity to involve himself in that
iniquitous process, was disavowed by his colleagues, and himself
compelled to retract his charge. And as to what you allege, in the same
place, about “that famous director, who pocketed at once nine hundred
thousand livres,” I need only refer you to Messieurs the curés of St.
Roch and St. Paul, who will bear witness, before the whole city of
Paris, to his perfect disinterestedness in the affair, and to your
inexcusable malice in that piece of imposition.
Enough, however, for such paltry falsities. These are but the first raw
attempts of your novices, and not the master-strokes of your “grand
professed.”[279] To these do I now come, fathers; I come to a calumny
which is certainly one of the basest that ever issued from the spirit of
your Society. I refer to the insufferable audacity with which you have
imputed to holy nuns, and to their directors, the charge of
“disbelieving the mystery of transubstantiation, and the real presence
of Jesus Christ in the eucharist.” Here, fathers, is a slander worthy of
yourselves. Here is a crime which God alone is capable of punishing, as
you alone were capable of committing it. To endure it with patience,
would require an humility as great as that of these calumniated ladies;
to give it credit would demand a degree of wickedness equal to that of
their wretched defamers. I propose not, therefore, to vindicate them;
they are beyond suspicion. Had they stood in need of defence, they might
have commanded abler advocates than me. My object in what I say here is
to show, not their innocence, but your malignity. I merely intend to
make you ashamed of yourselves, and to let the whole world understand
that, after this, there is nothing of which you are not capable.