Part 4

Nevertheless, in spite of the opposition of the magistrates, the bull was registered; every thing plyed, either willingly or by force, under the weight of the royal authority: the fury with which father le Tellier, the author of this strange production, persecuted all its opposers, was carried so far, that the Jesuits themselves, though long inured to violence, were terrified at his, and said aloud, “Father le Tellier drives at such a rate, that he will overturn us.” They thought not perhaps that they were speaking so much truth. It is this bull, and the persecution which it occasioned, that after fifty years has given the Jesuits the mortal blow: we shall see it in the sequel of this recital. But it may not be useless to make, before-hand, an observation on the conduct and the projects of father le Tellier. Many people believe, that this Jesuit was a knave, void of religion, who made its respectable name subservient to his hatred: it is much more probable that he was a fanatick in reality, who, being persuaded of the goodness of his cause, thought every thing permitted him, in order to ensure the triumph of what he supposed to be _the sound doctrine_. At the same time that he persecuted the Jansenists, he accused Fontenelle to Louis XIV. as an atheist, for having written _The History of Oracles_. Fontenelle, the pupil of the Jesuits, their friend at all times, as well as the great Corneille his uncle, disapproving also the doctrine and morality of the Jansenists, as far as a philosopher can disapprove theological opinions; in short, ever discreet and reserved with respect to religion, in his discourses, as well as in his writings; such was the man whom le Tellier wanted to ruin, at the very time that he sought to crush Quesnel and his partisans. Would he have behaved in this manner, if he had not been animated by a principle of persuasion?

Happily for Jansenism and for philosophy, Louis XIV. died. Le Tellier, loaded with the public execration, was exiled to la Flêche, where he ended, in a short time, a life odious to the whole nation. The duke of Orleans the regent, being in every respect the reverse of Louis XIV. was disposed neither to brave with violence the publick clamour, which the constitution Unigenitus had excited, nor rudely to offend the pope and the bishops, who were too far engaged to recede: he caused to be accepted, almost without noise, this fatal bull, which, presented by the Jesuits, had excited such great clamours: supported by the philosophers who surrounded him, and who began, from that time, to command attention; supported above all by his minister Dubois, whose way of thinking, in matters of religion, was well known, he threw over this theological dispute, a ridicule which put a stop to it.

The Jesuits, though become less powerful during the regency, recovered, nevertheless, in a short time, the place of confessor to the king, of which they had been for a short time deprived: it is pretended that their restoration at court was one of the secret articles of the re-union between France and Spain in 1719. It is added, that this article had been procured by the management of the Jesuit d’Aubenton, confessor to Philip V. and extremely powerful at the court of Madrid. For the honour of the ministers which France had at that time, we must believe that this anecdote is fabulous.

Everything else was peaceable, with respect to the Jesuits, during the remainder of the regency and the succeeding ministry: they aimed only at supporting themselves, without making much noise. Cardinal Fleury, who loved them not, was nevertheless persuaded that they were to be protected strongly, “as the firmest supports of religion;” the maintenance of which that minister looked upon as a part of government. This manner of thinking in cardinal Fleury, with regard to the Jesuits, is found expressed in some manuscript letters of his, which I have read. “They are,” said he further, “excellent servants, but bad masters.” In pursuance of this principle, he treated them civilly, during his ministry, but without shewing them any marks of declared favour: on the contrary, he greatly raised (and the Jesuits were not the better pleased with him for it) the community of Sulpiciens, who were much less illustrious and less powerful, but also less formidable. Cardinal Fleury, an enemy to the Jansenists, whom he looked upon as dangerous, and at the same time very little biassed for what had any considerable degree of credit in its way, of whatever kind it was, took under his particular protection this numerous community: it had all that was necessary to make him think it worthy thereof: it joined to the merit of being extremely devoted to the bull, the happiness of having never made any noise. This minister filled the bishopricks of France with a multitude of the pupils of St. Sulpicius, who were more commendable for their devotion than their talents: thus he planted the first seeds of that state of languor into which the clergy of France seem now-a-days to be fallen, but from which it is to be hoped they will soon rouze themselves; thanks to the philosophick spirit which enlightens at present some of its members, and which makes them justly look upon fanaticism and ignorance as the two true scourges of Christianity.

However, the bull of which the Jesuits had been the promoters, and which had met with so much opposition when it appeared, came insensibly to be received by all the bishops. The French nation, which clamours so readily, and which more readily still grows tired of clamouring, was familiarized to a production which it had at first called _monstrous_: every one received it, with an interpretation according to his own liking; for such is the wonderful privilege of these kinds of decisions of the church of Rome, that people may, by all means, understand them just as they please, and submit to them at the same time that they continue in their own opinion. Jansenism, heretofore maintained (in spite of reason) by men of real merit, had no longer for its support any defenders, but such as were worthy of such a cause, a few poor and obscure priests, unknown even where they lived: the phrensy of convulsions, which had raised dissensions in the party itself, had rendered them completely contemptible, by rendering them ridiculous: in short, this sect, now expiring and despised, was at the last gasp, when an unforeseen chain of circumstances restored it to a new life, which it hoped not for. The viper which the Jesuits thought crushed, had strength enough to turn back its head, to bite them in the heel, and to kill them. The reader is here presented with the succession of causes, by which this strange event was produced.

The parliaments, which had opposed the society from its birth, had but too much reason for persisting in the same sentiments with regard to it. They were justly offended at the advantages of power and credit, which it had obtained in spite of them: they were above all hurt by the constitution _Unigenitus_, the acceptance of which the intrigues of the Jesuits had forced them to register; an acceptance which they thought, as we have seen, contrary to the rights of the crown; and in order to break forth, waited only for a favourable occasion, without perhaps presuming to flatter themselves that it would ever occur.

The contest occasioned by the refusal of the sacraments to the Jansenists, was the first spark of the conflagration, the Helen of that war, as small in its first object, as it is now become important by its consequences. One of the principal archbishops of the kingdom, and a bishop of Mirepoix, his aid and counsellor, both of them thoroughly persuaded of the excellence of the bull, and of the damnation of those who rejected it, resolved, like consistent prelates, to order the communion to be refused to Jansenists at the point of death. This refusal had before been attempted in some provinces, but twice or thrice only, at wide intervals, and with little noise: it was now thought time to take off the mask, and absolutely to treat the enemies of the bull _Unigenitus_ as hereticks cut off from the church. If we believe the crowd of constitutionary theologists, the two prelates, authors and executors of this project, were extremely in the right: but let us be permitted to relate here (as mere historians) the singular reasons which were alledged in their favour, and those that were opposed to them. “The bull _Unigenitus_,” said its partisans, “ill received without doubt, and even spit upon at its birth, had terminated in being unanimously received: there was not, in all Christendom, one bishop who rejected this production, whether good or bad, of the court of Rome: it was in vain to say that it overturned the principles of Christianity; that the acceptance of it had not been free; that some had received it through fear, others through interest: it was accepted, and without opposition, by the whole body of pastors. Here then we see, in the principles of the Catholic church, all that ought to serve, by way of compass, to plain Christians in their faith. It is not for them to examine either the doctrines themselves, or the nature of the acceptance; it is sufficient to them that they see clearly, that the visible church adopts them. We understand here by the visible church, what every Catholic understands by the term; that is to say, the pope, the bishops, and almost all the ecclesiasticks, secular and regular, of the second order. Whatever be the doctrine which this visible church teaches, the faithful ought to believe firmly, notwithstanding even the strongest appearances to the contrary, that it has always taught the same; otherwise Jesus Christ would not have said true in promising that church to be always with her. The passages of scripture, and of the fathers, which may appear the most evidently contrary to the new catechism, will be explained in a manner favourable to it: the church has alone the right of fixing the meaning of them. In a word, from the moment the church speaks, we must submit to her, whatever she may say. After the council of Nice, the divinity of Jesus Christ was very far from being as solemnly, as universally, as uniformly received by the body of pastors, as the bull _Unigenitus_ hath been in these latter times. Nevertheless, after the council of Nice, the Arians were, from that time, hereticks declared, not withstanding the partisans that still adhered to them. It may be; it is even out of doubt, that in the councils which have decided on matters of faith, many of the bishops declared for the good cause, through views of policy, interest, or passion. Witness the unhappy facility with which most of the prelates, who, under Constantine, had declared that the Word was God, declared afterwards, under Constantius, that it was but a man. Witness again the violent conduct of St. Cyril, and of the council of Ephesus, with regard to Nestorius. Witness, lastly, the intrigues which too often disturbed those holy assemblies, and affronted, as we may say, the Holy Ghost, that presides in them. But still, once more, it is not the motives, it is the result of the decision, that the faithful ought to consider. It is by this result alone that they ought to abide: they would have too much to do, if it were necessary for them to go back again to the causes which dictated the decree. God hath promised to his church infallibility in her decisions; but he has not promised to every individual purity in his motives: he makes use of all sorts of means, even of the passions of men, for making the truth triumph, and be known; and he employs human things, in order to make divine matters succeed.”

Agreeably to these reasonings (the justness of which we pretend by no means to judge of) the partisans of the bull thought themselves warranted to treat the Jansenists as declared sectaries. The latter said, in their defence, that the universal church was possessed of their cause, by the appeal which they had made to a future council; and that, ‘till the decision which they waited for, they could not be cast out of her bosom. It was replied, that a crowd of hereticks, to begin with Pelagius, so odious to the modern Jansenists, had been looked upon and treated as innovators, without having been condemned expressly by any œcumenical council. They objected, that the bull proposed in reality not one truth for belief; the accumulated qualifications of _hereticks_, _smelling_ of _heresy_, of _ill sounding_, of _offending pious ears_, &c. were not applied to any one proposition of father Quesnel’s in particular. Some of their adversaries, after the example of an illustrious chief of Israel[12], replied to them, (making a jest probably both of them and the bull) that it proposed “to believe with an implicit faith indeterminate truths:” others said simply, that in a list of poisons, it was not necessary to mark expressly the degree of malignity of each, in order to warn people to abstain from them. It was demanded again of the Jansenists, how the church could preserve one of her essential characters, that of being _visible_, if she were reduced to a handful of priests, opposed to all the other pastors? And they replied, that the true church, the _visible_ church, was that which taught _visibly_ sound doctrine, and which did not authorise, like the bull, the most shocking Pelagianism: they added, that the church, _visible_ as she is, and must be, was not the less hid in appearance in those unhappy times, when the fathers of the church assure us that the whole universe “was astonished to see itself Arian.” In a word, the Jansenists answered their adversaries, as Sertorius did Pompey,

Rome n’est plus dans Rome; elle est toute où je suis.

It was thus that the one and the other defended their cause. We say nothing of the ill language which they added to them, and which on either side were worthy of their reasons.

The magistrates alone (and this observation is not to be neglected) opposed, on this occasion, to the constitutionists, reasons that were unanswerable: they pronounced, that the doctrine, taught or authorised by the bull, was contrary to the laws of the kingdom, and of consequence ought not to be a pretext for vexation. Of this the magistrates were competent judges, and the partisans of the bull had nothing to reply: it belongs to the depositaries of the law to decide what is conformable or contrary to it; and this question is not within the province of the church.

It is certain, besides, that all those refusals of the sacraments, occasioned by the bull, disturbed private families; that they sowed dissension among the people: that in this view, at least, the magistrates ought to take cognizance of it, and to employ, as they did, the authority of the laws, to put an end to the confusion. But the inconvenience which attends contests in theology, of hurting the publick tranquillity, is the fruit of the error which was committed in France, and almost every where else, of connecting civil affairs with religion, of requiring a citizen of Paris to be, not only a faithful subject, but also a good catholic, and as exact in providing holy bread as in paying his taxes. As long as this spirit shall subsist among us, the maxim of which fanaticks make an ill use so often, “That it is better to obey God than man,” will be an invincible obstacle to the most prudent measures of government and of magistrates for stifling religious quarrels; because men like better to obey a master of their own chusing (and who, after all, commands them to do only what they please) than a master whom they have not chosen, and who enjoins them what they dislike. In Holland, where the Jansenists form a church absolutely separate, which the government knows nothing of, and leaves in peace, they are neither the cause nor the object of any disturbance. It is only by a discreet toleration (equally avowed by religion and politicks) that we can prevent those frivolous disputes from being contrary to the repose of the state, and to the union of the subject. But when shall we see that happy time?

However this be, the Jansenists, treated at their death as excommunicated persons, rose up against this new persecution. The parliament, which had registered the bull with a very ill will, undertook their defence; it banished the fathers who refused the communion to dieing Jansenists: the archbishop, on his side, forbad them, and deprived of their places those priests who obeyed the parliament; and the unhappy _God-Bearers_ (so they are called) having before their eyes exile on one side, and famine on the other, found themselves under a melancholy alternative. Reasonable people were surprised that the archbishop, the author of their misfortune, did not go and present himself to the parliament, declare that they had done nothing but by his orders, and give himself up as a victim for so many innocents. They had so much the more reason to expect this, as the virtue of that prelate, and his sincerity in this affair, were by no means suspected. The Jansenists called him persecutor and schismatick; the courtiers, obstinate: his partisans compared him to St. Athanasius, who was also (they said) called obstinate and rebellious by the courtiers of his time.

The dispute grew more and more warm: the court wished ineffectually to put a stop to it; the Jansenists had found means to occasion more trouble in their deaths than they had done during their lives; the parliaments and the arch-bishop were exiled by turns. At last the king, justly tired of these disputes, recalled the magistrates, and in concert with them imposed alike silence on the partisans and on the adversaries of the bull.

This law of silence, it is true, was not too well observed; it was particularly broken by the encomiums which the Jansenists bestowed on it: they printed large volumes to prove that it was necessary to be silent; they resembled the Pedant in Moliere, who after having talked a long time, and said abundance of foolish things, promises at last to keep silence[13], and in order to shew that he maintains his promise, interrupts every moment the conversation, by observing _that he opens not his mouth_.

The constitutionists on their side had the presumption to say, that the King had no right to ordain mad subjects to be silent on the ridiculous object which heated their imaginations; that the sixth general council had _anathematized_ the _type_ of the emperor Constantius, which was also, as they pretended, nothing more than a _law of silence_. The Jansenists replyed, that this council had done better still, in _anathematizing_ Pope Honorius.

The King, employed like a good father, according to the expression of a celebrated author, in parting his children who were fighting, was desirous of supporting himself by an authority respectable to both parties, and especially to the most numerous: he thought proper to consult on this question, by which all France was agitated, the late pope Benedict XIV. a man of understanding, who loved not the Jesuits, and who at the bottom despised this controversy. The pope replied like a crafty Italian; on one side he ordained the acceptance of the bull, the work of one of his _infallible_ predecessors, which he could not decently condemn; on the other, he declared at the same time, that the Jansenists who rejected it, ought nevertheless to have the sacraments administered to them at their deaths, “but at their own risque and hazard,” and after having been _thoroughly advertized_ of the danger which they ran with respect to their eternal salvation. From this period the refusals of the sacraments became less frequent; the Jansenists and their adversaries thought they had alike the pope for them, and tranquillity seemed almost re-established.

It was not even lessened by the step which the parliament thought itself obliged to take some time after, of protesting anew against this bull _Unigenitus_; the acceptance of which it had registered with reluctance. It called not in question indeed the doctrine of the bull; that would have been to encroach on the authority of the church, and it knew too well the limits of its own rights: it protested only against the execution of this bull, declaring it contrary to what is termed in France “the liberties of the Gallican Church.” This protest had not the glory it merited; it was the sequel of a number of writings, of which the French levity began to be tired. Nay, the partisans of the bull even made a jest, with an indecency that deserved punishment, of the “pretended liberties of the Gallican Church,” by virtue of which, the parliament, according to the terms of its decrees, enjoined the priests, under ignominious penalties, to administer the sacraments: they saw not, said they jeeringly, how such decrees supported and favoured the liberty of the church of France, by forcing its ministers to do what they did not think they ought to do. This way of talking, these contests, the pieces without number, which resulted from them, served to feed the frivolous disposition and gaiety of the nation: people laughed at the reciprocal animosity of the theologists of both parties, for questions which deserved it so little: for that animosity, though very usual, and of all ages, always astonishes and amuses reasonable people. Every body laughed no less at seeing, that notwithstanding the reiterated orders issued by the Sorbonne, to mention no more of the bull _Unigenitus_, either in their writings or their theses, the college displayed an attachment the most obstinate to this bull, which it had rejected so long. Nothing more was wanting, it was said, to all the strange things that had happened on this subject, than to forbid without success the faculty of divinity from teaching a doctrine which it cost so much trouble to make them receive. Philosophy, above all, laughed in silence at all these extravagancies, and amused herself with this new change of the scene, waiting with patience for an opportunity of profiting by it. Those among the philosophers who hoped for no good from these quarrels, took the still wiser part, of laughing at the whole. They observed the mutual rancour of the Jansenists and their adversaries, with that disinterested curiosity with which they observe the combats of animals, well assured, let what would happen, of ending cause to laugh at the expence of some of them. So many blows reciprocally struck on both sides with violence, did not yet reach the Jesuits; employed on one hand in arming the bishops against the expiring remains of the Jansenists their enemies; and on the other, in animating, underhand, the court of France against the parliaments, they were the secret soul of all this war, without appearing to intermeddle in it. But the Jansenists, who, in the quarrel concerning the sacraments, had, or at least thought they had, gained ground, grew bolder by degrees, seemed to prepare for a more decisive stroke; and the arch-bishop, their enemy, whetted, without knowing it, by his zeal, the sword with which the society was soon to be pierced.