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Blaise Pascal The Provincial Letters The translation is that
of Rev. Dr. Thomas M’Crie D.D., Professor of Divinity, Edinburgh and was published
in New York by Robert Carter & Brothers, 1853. [Return
to book contents page] Letter XV
TO THE
REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS November 25, 1656 REVEREND FATHERS, As your scurrilities are daily
increasing, and as you are employing them in the merciless abuse of all pious
persons opposed to your errors, I feel myself obliged, for their sake and
that of the Church, to bring out that grand secret of your policy, which I
promised to disclose some time ago, in order that all may know, through means
of your own maxims, what degree of credit is due to your calumnious accusations. I am aware that those who are
not very well acquainted with you are at a great loss what to think on this
subject, as they find themselves under the painful necessity, either of
believing the incredible crimes with which you charge your opponents, or
(what is equally incredible) of setting you down as slanderers. “Indeed!”
they exclaim, “were these things not true, would clergymen publish them to
the world—would they debauch their consciences and damn themselves by venting
such libels?” Such is their way of reasoning, and thus it is that the
palpable proof of your falsifications coming into collision with their
opinion of your honesty, their minds hang in a state of suspense between the
evidence of truth, which they cannot gainsay, and the demands of charity,
which they would not violate. It follows that since their high esteem for you
is the only thing that prevents them from discrediting your calumnies, if we
can succeed in convincing them that you have quite a different idea of
calumny from that which they suppose you to have, and that you actually
believe that in blackening and defaming your adversaries you are working out
your own salvation, there can be little question that the weight of truth
will determine them immediately to pay no regard to your accusations. This,
fathers, will be the subject of the present letter. My design is not simply to
show that your writings are full of calumnies; I mean to go a step beyond
this. It is quite possible for a person to say a number of false things
believing them to be true; but the character of a liar implies the intention
to tell lies. Now I undertake to prove, fathers, that it is your deliberate
intention to tell lies, and that it is both knowingly and purposely that you
load your opponents with crimes of which you know them to be innocent,
because you believe that you may do so without falling from a state of grace.
Though you doubtless know this point of your morality as well as I do, this
need not prevent me from telling you about it; which I shall do, were it for
no other purpose than to convince all men of its existence, by showing them
that I can maintain it to your face, while you cannot have the assurance to
disavow it, without confirming, by that very disavowment, the charge which I
bring against you. The doctrine to which I allude
is so common in your schools that you have maintained it not only in your
books, but, such is your assurance, even in your public theses; as, for
example, in those delivered at Louvain in the year 1645, where it occurs in the
following terms: “What is it but a venial sin to culminate and forge false
accusations to ruin the credit of those who speak evil of us?” So settled is
this point among you that, if any one dare to oppose it, you treat him as a
blockhead and a hare-brained idiot. Such was the way in which you treated
Father Quiroga, the German Capuchin, when he was so unfortunate as to impugn
the doctrine. The poor man was instantly attacked by Dicastille, one of your
fraternity; and the following is a specimen of the manner in which he manages
the dispute: “A certain rueful-visaged, bare-footed, cowled friar-cucullatus
gymnopoda—whom I do not choose to name, had the boldness to denounce this
opinion, among some women and ignorant people, and to allege that it was
scandalous and pernicious against all good manners, hostile to the peace of
states and societies, and, in short, contrary to the judgement not only of
all Catholic doctors, but of all true Catholics. But in opposition to him I
maintained, as I do still, that calumny, when employed against a calumniator,
though it should be a falsehood, is not a mortal sin, either against justice
or charity: and, to prove the point, I referred him to the whole body of our
fathers, and to whole universities, exclusively composed of them whom I had
consulted on the subject; and among others the reverend Father John Gans,
confessor to the Emperor; the reverend Father Daniel Bastele, confessor to
the Archduke Leopold; Father Henri, who was preceptor to these two princes;
all the public and ordinary professors of the university of Vienna” (wholly
composed of Jesuits); “all the professors of the university of Gratz” (all
Jesuits); “all the professors of the university of Prague” (where Jesuits are
the masters);—“from all of whom I have in my possession approbations of my
opinions, written and signed with their own hands; besides having on my side
the reverend Father Panalossa, a Jesuit, preacher to the Emperor and the King
of Spain; Father Pilliceroli, a Jesuit, and many others, who had all judged
this opinion to be probable, before our dispute began.” You perceive,
fathers, that there are few of your opinions which you have been at more
pains to establish than the present, as indeed there were few of them of
which you stood more in need. For this reason, doubtless, you have
authenticated it so well that the casuists appeal to it as an indubitable
principle. “There can be no doubt,” says Caramuel, “that it is a probable
opinion that we contract no mortal sin by calumniating another, in order to
preserve our own reputation. For it is maintained by more than twenty grave
doctors, by Gaspard Hurtado, and Dicastille, Jesuits, &c.; so that, were
this doctrine not probable, it would be difficult to find any one such in the
whole compass of theology.” Wretched indeed must that
theology be, and rotten to the very core, which, unless it has been decided
to be safe in conscience to defame our neighbor’s character to preserve our
own, can hardly boast of a safe decision on any other point! How natural is it,
fathers, that those who hold this principle should occasionally put it in
practice! corrupt propensity of mankind leans so strongly in that direction
of itself that, the obstacle of conscience once being removed, it would be
folly to suppose that it will not burst forth with all its native
impetuosity. If you desire an example of this, Caramuel will furnish you with
one that occurs in the same passage: “This maxim of Father Dicastille,” he
says, “having been communicated by a German countess to the daughters of the
Empress, the belief thus impressed on their minds that calumny was only a
venial sin, gave rise in the course of a few days to such an immense number
of false and scandalous tales that the whole court was thrown into a flame
and fill ed with alarm. It is easy, indeed, to conceive what a fine use these
ladies would make of the new light they had acquired. Matters proceeded to
such a length, that it was found necessary to call in the assistance of a
worthy Capuchin friar, a man of exemplary life, called Father Quiroga” (the
very man whom Dicastille rails at so bitterly), “who assured them that the
maxim was most pernicious, especially among women, and was at the greatest
pains to prevail upon the Empress to abolish the practice of it entirely.” We
have no reason, therefore, to be surprised at the bad effects of this
doctrine; on the contrary, the wonder would be if it had failed to produce
them. Self-love is always ready enough to whisper in our ear, when we are
attacked, that we suffer wrongfully; and more particularly in your case,
fathers, whom vanity has blinded so egregiously as to make you believe that
to wound the honour of your Society is to wound that of the Church. There
would have been good ground to look on it as something miraculous, if you had
not reduced this maxim to practice. Those who do not know you are ready to
say: How could these good fathers slander their enemies, when they cannot do
so but at the expense of their own salvation? But, if they knew you better,
the question would be: How could these good fathers forego the advantage of
decrying their enemies, when they have it in their power to do so without
hazarding their salvation? Let none, therefore, henceforth be surprised to
find the Jesuits calumniators; they can exercise this vocation with a safe
conscience; there is no obstacle in heaven or on earth to prevent them. In
virtue of the credit they have acquired in the world, they can practise
defamation without dreading the justice of mortals; and, on the strength of
their self-assumed authority in matters of conscience, they have invented
maxims for enabling them to do it without any fear of the justice of God. This, fathers, is the fertile
source of your base slanders. On this principle was Father Brisacier led to
scatter his calumnies about him, with such zeal as to draw down on his head
the censure of the late Archbishop of Paris. Actuated by the same motives,
Father D’Anjou launched his invectives from the pulpit of the Church of St.
Benedict in Paris on the 8th of March, 1655, against those honourable
gentlemen who were intrusted with the charitable funds raised for the poor of
Picardy and Champagne, to which they themselves had largely contributed; and,
uttering a base falsehood, calculated (if your slanders had been considered
worthy of any credit) to dry up the stream of that charity, he had the
assurance to say, “that he knew, from good authority, that certain persons
had diverted that money from its proper use, to employ it against the Church
and the State”; a calumny which obliged the curate of the parish, who is a
doctor of the Sorbonne, to mount the pulpit the very next day, in order to
give it the lie direct. To the same source must be traced the conduct of your
Father Crasset, who preached calumny at such a furious rate in Orleans that
the Archbishop of that place was under the necessity of interdicting him as a
public slanderer. In this mandate, dated the 9th of September last, his
lordship declares: “That whereas he had been informed that Brother Jean
Crasset, priest of the Society of Jesus, had delivered from the pulpit a
discourse filled with falsehoods and calumnies against the ecclesiastics of
this city, falsely and maliciously charging them with maintaining impious and
heretical propositions, such as: That the commandments of God are
impracticable; that internal grace is irresistible; that Jesus Christ did not
die for all men; and others of a similar kind, condemned by Innocent X: he
therefore hereby interdicts the aforesaid Crasset from preaching in his diocese,
and forbids all his people to hear him, on pain of mortal disobedience.” The
above, fathers, is your ordinary accusation, and generally among the first
that you bring against all whom it is your interest to denounce. And,
although you should find it as impossible to substantiate the charge against
any of them, as Father Crasset did in the case of the clergy of Orleans, your
peace of conscience will not be in the least disturbed on that account; for
you believe that this mode of calumniating your adversaries is permitted you
with such certainty that you have no scruple to avow it in the most public
manner, and in the face of a whole city. A remarkable proof of this may
be seen in the dispute you had with M. Puys, curate of St. Nisier at Lyons;
and the story exhibits so complete an illustration of your spirit that I
shall take the liberty of relating some of its leading circumstances. You
know, fathers, that, in the year 1649, M. Puys translated into French an
excellent book, written by another Capuchin friar, On the duty which
Christians owe to their own parishes, against those that would lead them away
from them, without using a single invective, or pointing to any monk or any
order of monks in particular. Your fathers, however, were pleased to put the
cap on their own heads; and without any respect to an aged pastor, a judge in
the Primacy of France, and a man who was held in the highest esteem by the
whole city, Father Alby wrote a furious tract against him, which you sold in
your own church upon Assumption Day; in which book, among other various
charges, he accused him of having made himself scandalous by his
gallantries,” described him as suspected of having no religion, as a heretic,
excommunicated, and, in short, worthy of the stake. To this M. Puys made a
reply; and Father Alby, in a second publication, supported his former
allegations. Now, fathers, is it not a clear point either that you were
calumniators, or that you believed all that you alleged against that worthy
priest to be true; and that, on this latter assumption, it became you to see
him purified from all these abominations before judging him worthy of your
friendship? Let us see, then, what happened at the accommodation of the
dispute, which took place in the presence of a great number of the principal
inhabitants of the town on the 25th of September, 1650. Before all these
witnesses M. Puys made a declaration, which was neither more nor less than
this: “That what he had written was not directed against the fathers of the
Society of Jesus; that he had spoken in general of those who alienated the
faithful from their parishes, without meaning by that to attack the Society;
and that, so far from having such an intention, the Society was the object of
his esteem and affection.” By virtue of these words alone, without either
retraction or absolution, M. Puys recovered, all at once, from his apostasy,
his scandals, and his excommunication; and Father Alby immediately thereafter
addressed him in the following express terms: “Sir, it was in consequence of
my believing that you meant to attack the Society to which I have the honour
to belong that I was induced to take up the pen in its defence; and I
considered that the mode of reply which I adopted was such as I was permitted
to employ. But, on a better understanding of your intention, I am now free to
declare that there is nothing in your work to prevent me from regarding you
as a man of genius, enlightened in judgement, profound and orthodox in
doctrine, and irreproachable in manners; in one word, as a pastor worthy of
your Church. It is with much pleasure that I make this declaration, and I beg
these gentlemen to remember what I have now said.” They do remember it, fathers;
and, allow me to add, they were more scandalized by the reconciliation than
by the quarrel. For who can fail to admire this speech of Father Alby? He
does not say that he retracts, in consequence of having learnt that a change
had taken place in the faith and manners of M. Puys, but solely because,
having understood that he had no intention of attacking your Society, there
was nothing further to prevent him from regarding the author as a good
Catholic. He did not then believe him to be actually a heretic! And yet,
after having, contrary to his conviction, accused him of this crime, he will
not acknowledge he was in the wrong, but has the hardihood to say that he
considered the method he adopted to be “such as he was permitted to employ!” What can you possibly mean,
fathers, by so publicly avowing the fact that you measure the faith and the
virtue of men only by the sentiments they entertain towards your Society? Had
you no apprehension of making yourselves pass, by your own acknowledgement,
as a band of swindlers and slanderers? What, fathers! must the same
individual without undergoing any personal transformation, but simply
according as you judge him to have honoured or assailed your community, be
“pious” or “impious,” “irreproachable” or “excommunicated,” “a pastor worthy
of the Church,” or “worthy of the stake”; in short, “a Catholic” or “a
heretic”? To attack your Society and to be a heretic are, therefore, in your
language, convertible terms! An odd sort of heresy this, fathers! And so it
would appear that, when we see many good Catholics branded, in your writings,
by the name of heretia, it means nothing more than that you think they attack
you! It is well, fathers, that we understand this strange dialect, according
to which there can be no doubt that I must be a great heretic. It is in this
sense, then, that you so often favour me with this appellation! Your sole
reason for cutting me off from the Church is because you conceive that my
letters have done you harm; and, accordingly, all that I have to do, in order
to become a good Catholic, is either to approve of your extravagant morality,
or to convince you that my sole aim in exposing it has been your advantage.
The former I could not do without renouncing every sentiment of piety that I
ever possessed; and the latter you will be slow to acknowledge till you are
well cured of your errors. Thus am I involved in heresy, after a very
singular fashion; for, the purity of my faith being of no avail for my
exculpation, I have no means of escaping from the charge, except either by
turning traitor to my own conscience, or by reforming yours. Till one or
other of these events happen, I must remain a reprobate and a slanderer; and,
let me be ever so faithful in my citations from your writings, you will go
about crying everywhere: “What an instrument of the devil must that man be,
to impute to us things of which there is not the least mark or vestige to be
found in our books!” And, by doing so, you will only be acting in conformity
with your fixed maxim and your ordinary practice: to such latitude does your
privilege of telling lies extend! Allow me to give you an example of this,
which I select on purpose; it will give me an opportunity of replying, at the
same time, to your ninth Imposture: for, in truth, they only deserve to be
refuted in passing. About ten or twelve years ago,
you were accused of holding that maxim of 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 neighbour” (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.” 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.” 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 acknowledgement 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 whitewash 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 futurae spes nulla appareat.” 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.” 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 patent 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. 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. 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 manoeuvre 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 meantime, 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. |
Blaise Pascal |
