Continued from Popery, The Inquisition, And The Jesuits – By E.K. Pickering

The Jesuits in France and the Assassination of Henry IV

In the Jesuits’ College was found, in the handwriting of Guignard, his applauding the massacre of Saint Bartholomew and the assassin of Henry III, and expressing himself thus, respecting Henry IV, then reigning:

“Let us call him the Nero, the Sardanapalus of France, a Bernese fox (his birth-place). That the Crown of France might and ought to be transferred to another family than the Bourbons; that if the reigning monarch could not be deposed without war, war must be levied; and that if war could not be waged, he must be killed.”

Guignard acknowledged that he had written it, and on January 7, 1595, was condemned to death; Gueret was banished for life, and Chatel for nine years. On the site of Chatel’s house (which had been razed) a column was erected, with an inscription describing “the detestable attempt springing from the Jesuits,” etc. When the Jesuits effected their return, they destroyed this monument of their crimes in May 1605, ten years after its erection. (De Thou, 134, and Sully gives an engraving of the column.)

Le Bel, a Jesuit, was banished March 21, 1595, for several writings of instructions for the murder of kings, and commending the assassin of Henry III. (See D’Argentré, p. 529.) And Francis Jacob, a Jesuit of Bourges, boasted that he should have killed the King himself, if he had not supposed that another would have done so. (See D’Argentré, Vol. II. p. 533.)

Many of the Jesuits, in order to remain in France, laid aside their habits; and so disguised, obtained asylums, and even offices in the kingdom; which led to an Act on August 21, 1597, forbidding all persons to receive or harbor them, or suffer them to keep public or private schools, on pain of high treason.

Henry IV said to Sully (in consequence of the intrigues of the Jesuits, which occasioned to him great perplexity):

“I must now of necessity do one of two things, either simply admit the Jesuits and put their repeated oaths and promises to the test, or else absolutely reject them for ever, and employ the most rigorous means to prevent their approaching me or my kingdom, in which case they will undoubtedly be thrown into despair, and lay plots for my life, which will render me so wretched, from living in constant fear of being poisoned or assassinated, (since they have a universal intelligence and correspondence, and great skill in persuading others to their purpose,) that death itself would be preferable to such a life.” (See Mémoires de Sully, Vol. II. c. 3.)

Mariana published his book (De Rege et Regis Institutione) against kings, maintaining the lawfulness of killing them, and that it was a laudable, glorious, and heroic action. Several attempts were made on King Henry’s life, which he escaped, and he was forewarned of a further conspiracy against him; but on May 14, 1610, the day after the queen’s coronation, as he was riding in his coach through the streets, he was stabbed by Ravaillac—the wound was instantly fatal, the king neither spoke nor rose again!

Ravaillac pretended that he had seen apparitions, and had communicated with the Jesuit Aubigny. Aubigny at first denied this, but when Ravaillac was confronted with him and proved the contact, Aubigny said to the president:

“God had given to some the gift of tongues, to others the gift of prophecy, and to him the gift of forgetfulness of confessions,”

and added:

“We are religious persons who know nothing of what is passing in the world.”

Jouvenci, in his History of the Jesuits, had the assurance of denying the guilt of Guignard (concerned with Chatel), and defended him as a martyr for “the truth,” a Christian hero, and called his judges persecutors, and compared the president to “Pilate” and the parliament to the Jews. (See Dictionnaire Historique, Art. Jouvenci.)

The Jesuits had so propagated the doctrines of Mariana that others were actuated to the same infatuation. Charles Ridicove, a native of Ghent, excited by their preaching, determined to commit that assassination, being particularly instigated to it by a Jesuit named Hodume, who instructed him as to the execution of it. Ridicove went into France three several times for the purpose, but did not meet with the opportunity—he was seized, confessed his guilt to the parliament, and was condemned and executed in April 1599.

Jesuit Blasphemies Regarding Ignatius

To such an extent did the Jesuits carry their assurance that they printed sermons preached by them in honor of their patriarch Ignatius, affirming:

“That he had performed more miracles than Moses, and as many as the apostles; that his authority over the creatures was such that they rendered him a prompt obedience; that whilst he lived, his life and his manners were so holy and exemplary, even in the opinion of HEAVEN, that only such Popes as Saint Peter, such an Empress as the Mother of God, such a Sovereign Monarch as God the Father, and his Son, had the happiness of beholding him.”

To these blasphemies was added the impiety of applying to Ignatius what Saint Paul applied to Jesus Christ.

“In these days,” it is said in these sermons, “God has spoken to us by his Son Ignatius, whom he hath made heir of all things;”

and that this impiety might go all lengths, it is added:

“By whom he made the worlds.”¹ (See D’Argentré, Vol. II. part 2. p. 50.)

Jesuit Missions in China

The Jesuits are charged by the Jansenists and Dominicans with many fraudulent practices in their attempts to propagate Christianity in China. Ricci, an Italian Jesuit, established churches in China and allowed the Chinese converts to retain the pagan rites of their ancestors. This was condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1645, but afterwards permitted to them by Alexander VII. It was again complained of by the Dominicans in 1661 and 1674 under Pope Innocent XI, and this dispute was carried on in Europe and China till the question was decided against the Jesuits in 1704 by Clement XI, though his edict was mitigated in 1715.

Palafox, Bishop of Angelopolis, in his letter to Pope Innocent X, dated January 8, 1689, says:

“The whole Church publicly laments that it has been rather seduced than instructed in China, by what the Jesuits have taught respecting the faith,—they have kept the cross of Christ out of sight, and authorised customs absolutely Pagan: instead of christianising idolaters, they have heathenized Christians; they have united God and Belial at the same table, in the same temple, at the same altar, and in the same sacrifices; nay, they themselves offer sacrifices to the idols,—prostrate themselves before them, present incense to them, and erect the cross in the same temple with Dagon—the idolatry of such rites being evaded by the pretext of the Jesuits, directing the inward attention to a cross carried in secret at the time of their idol worship.”

This Bishop adds:

“As I am nearer to this people (the Chinese) than any other prelate, I am acquainted with all the facts of the case, and in possession of all the documents that have appeared upon it.”

Bishop Horne says, “a man should be well established in faith and virtue who attempts to reclaim a profligate, lest he become a convert, instead of making one; and instances Boileau and Chapelle,—the former met the latter in the street, and remonstrated with
him upon his habit of drinking—they were near a tavern—Chapelle only desired that they might step in and he would listen patiently and attentively; they did so, and about one in the morning they were both carried home dead drunk.”

Civilization and Loose Maxims in Paraguay

About the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits effected much civilization amongst the inhabitants of Paraguay in South America, and a few Jesuits resided there over some hundred thousand Indians. But they soon changed their views from the propagation of Christianity to schemes of avarice and boundless ambition, and inculcated the most licentious and dangerous maxims with regard to morality and religion. The following are stated to be some of their tenets, extracted from their writings:

• That persons truly wicked, and void of the love of God, may expect to obtain eternal life in heaven, provided that they be impressed with a fear of the Divine anger, and avoid all heinous and enormous crimes through the dread of future punishment.
• That those persons may transgress with safety who have a probable reason for transgressing, i.e., any plausible argument or authority in favor of the sin they intended to commit.
• That actions intrinsically evil, and directly contrary to the divine laws, may be innocently performed by those who have so much power over their own mind as to join, even ideally, a good end to this wicked action.
• That philosophical sin is of a very light and trivial nature, and does not deserve the pain of hell—by philosophical sin is meant an action contrary to right reason, which is done by a person who is either absolutely ignorant of God, or does not think of him during the time this action is committed.
• That the transgressions by a person blinded and agitated by the impulse of tumultuous passions, and destitute of religion, however detestable and heinous they may be in themselves, are not imputable to the transgressors before God; and that such transgressions may often be as involuntary as the actions of a madman.
• And that the person who takes an oath, or enters into a contract, may, to elude the force of the one, and the obligation of the other, add to the form of words that express them certain mental additions and tacit reservations.”

Some of these maxims were condemned in 1659 by Pope Alexander VII, and again in 1690 by Alexander VIII.

Pascal attacked these corrupt principles of the Jesuits in his work Les Provinciales ou Lettres Écrites. The Jesuits, however, had sufficient interest to obtain a sentence against that work and to have it burnt publicly at Paris.

Another book, by Perrault, was published at Mons in 3 vols. 8vo. in 1702, entitled La Morale des Jésuites extraite fidèlement de leurs livres. The famous Arnauld and his Jansenist brethren asserted and proved that the Jesuits reduced their pernicious maxims to practice, in the work entitled La Morale Pratique des Jésuites. A long controversy ensued between the Jesuits and Jansenists.

Suppression and Abolition of the Jesuits

The Jesuits changed and accommodated their habits and assumed characters to times and occasions the better to effect their designs. They originally renounced, by a solemn vow, all preferment, and especially prelacy, and could not receive any unless enjoined by the Pope to do so under pain of sin; this the Pope sometimes did, inasmuch as they have had eight Cardinals of their order.

Both Louis XIII and Louis XIV were induced to favor the Jesuits, and they obtained the revocation of the Edict of Nantes against the Protestants. Father Tellier’s violence and the universal commotion occasioned by the Bull Unigenitus then raised general clamor against them, and their continuous intrigues augmented the public feeling against them.

Their commerce in the island of Dominica involved them in litigation, which was decided against them in the grand chamber of the parliament in Paris, sentencing them to pay immense sums and interdicting them from all future commerce. This proceeding induced the examination of their constitution through their own books, which appeared to be contrary to the laws of the kingdom, against the king and the safety of his person, as well as the peace of the state. They were now found to have grown rich, insolent, and imperious; and although they avowedly professed to renounce the world, they were found to be tutors, courtiers, merchants, politicians, priests, and their objects to be “governors and rulers of the world.”

In 1744, Pope Benedict XIV by his mandate suspended the missions then existing and declared his disapprobation of the artifices which had been used in the conversion of the Indians.

In consequence of the rising opposition to them, an attempt was made to assassinate the French King in 1757, and the King of Portugal was assassinated the next year—both events being charged upon the Jesuits—and in 1759 they were driven out of Portugal. The French entered into a full consideration of their tenets, and Mr. D’Alembert insisted upon the principal of their college observing the arrêts of parliament and shut up their schools (in 1762). In August following, the parliament of Paris unanimously condemned the institution, and the society was dissolved, their possessions alienated and sold. The other parliaments adopted a similar course, driving them out of their provinces, though some Jesuits were allowed to remain in France upon renouncing the society and taking oaths of allegiance to the King. Soon after, an edict was passed by the parliament of Paris abolishing the society throughout France, ordaining that each Jesuit should reside in his own diocese, present themselves every six months before local magistrates, and remain at least ten leagues away from Paris and six leagues from Versailles.

The Jesuits were expelled from Portugal in consequence of a conspiracy by the Duke of Aveiro and others under the sanction of their confessors—three Jesuits named Malagrida, Alexander, and Mathos—to murder the King, having decided that “to kill a king was only a venial sin and not a mortal one.” The conspirators, fortified by such counsels and provided with pardons and absolution, awaited a favorable opportunity. On September 3, 1758, as the King of Portugal was returning from his country residence at Bellem, three of the principal conspirators on horseback fired their guns twice into his carriage, wounding him. The Duke of Aveiro and the other conspirators were executed; the Jesuits escaped because the King (according to his allegiance to the Pope) could not condemn an ecclesiastic to death without first obtaining the consent of the Court of Rome, which he tried for over a year to obtain, but in vain.

The Jesuits were consequently expelled from:

• Portugal in 1759
• France in 1764
• Spain and Naples in 1767.

The order was totally abolished in July 1773 by Clement XIV. These circumstances appear from Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, Robertson’s History (Ch. 5), and D’Alembert’s Account of the Destruction of the Jesuits. Pope Clement XIV is supposed to have lost his life on account of that act.

Restoration of the Jesuits

The restoration of the order of the Jesuits took place on August 7, 1814, by a Bull of Pope Pius VII. This Bull recited the revival of the order in Russia (1801) and in Sicily (1804). The Pope decreed that the concessions made to the Jesuits in Russia and Sicily should extend to all ecclesiastical states and all other states, granting full powers to the General and members of the order to educate youth, direct colleges and seminaries, hear confessions, preach, and administer the sacraments. They were taken under the protection of the Holy See, reserving power to consolidate the society more and more, render it stronger, and purge its abuses “should they ever creep in,” and strongly recommending them to princes, lords, archbishops, and bishops, exhorting them to treat the Jesuits with all kindness and prevent them from being molested. This Bull of 1814 gave the Jesuits all the powers and privileges they held under the Bull of Pope Paul III and others.

Papal Politics, Toleration, and the Netherlands

Pope Pius VII absolved all Frenchmen from their allegiance to the Bourbons on November 29, 1801. On October 29, 1805, this Pope anointed his “beloved Son in Christ, Napoleon,” with holy unction to receive the Imperial Crown, calling down upon him the benediction of heaven—this same man who, wearing the garb of hypocrisy in Egypt, had assumed to be the servant of their prophet and had marched to Rome to overthrow the Pope because he had invited Christians to make war against the Mahometan religion.

Louis XVIII protested against this usurpation, notwithstanding which the Pope (the successor of Saint Peter) had been to France to decorate his beloved son in Christ with the ensigns of imperial dignity, and whom God had chosen to restore to his true religion, and whose consecration and crowning, and of his “dear daughter Josephine,” Napoleon’s august consort, had been celebrated in the most solemn manner. [She was the kept mistress of Barras the Director, who prevailed on Napoleon to marry her in consideration of being promoted in the army.]

The Concordat of that Pope (Pius VII) occasioned much discussion. By his letter of February 5, 1808, addressed to all the cardinals regarding Bonaparte’s proposal for granting free and public exercise of religious worship to those who dissented from the Roman communion, the Pope stated:

“We have rejected this article as contrary to the canons and to the councils of the Catholic religion, to the peace of human life, and to the welfare of the state.”

This same Pontiff, in his pastoral letters, declaimed against the toleration of Protestant worship as pregnant with the most fatal consequences, that he considered the protection and indulgence given to them as heretics, sectaries, and schismatics as an alliance between Christ and Belial, light and darkness, truth and error, piety and impiety. He maintained that there is no salvation out of the Church of Rome; that he (the Pope) had the right to interfere, as of old, among all the nations of the earth in secular concerns, marriages, bastardies, divorces, religious houses, vows of celibacy, oaths of allegiance, and over bishops and clergy; that the Church held all marriages with heretics in abhorrence; and that the same law (under Clement XI) which forbids the marriage of Christians with infidels prohibited the sacrilegious nuptials of Catholics with heretics.[2]

The Papish clergy hold the same sentiments, maintaining that the existence of Protestants with equal rights to follow their own mode of worship ought not to be suffered.

When the King of the Netherlands took possession of his dominions, he was instantly assailed by the renegade Popish bishops in their letter of July 28, 1815, insisting upon his not giving equal favor and protection to all religions (under an article in the new constitution), as contrary to the discipline of the Catholic Church and incompatible with the exercise of their official duties—namely, “the extirpation of heresy.” They stated that if His Majesty protected in those provinces the public profession and spreading of those doctrines which they were bound to oppose, “they should be in formal opposition to the laws of the state,” and that His Majesty’s proclamation announcing “that the new constitution insured the liberty of religion, and would give all equal favor and protection,” filled every heart with consternation.

Thus those bishops declared that the Church of Rome is hostile to the right which all intellectual beings possess of investigating those doctrines, and that the system of Papists will never allow them to compromise or accord with such investigations of religious truth as form the glorious characteristic of the country in which we live, aiming at being “tyrants over conscience.”

Pope Pius VII, in his instructions to his nuncio at Vienna in 1805, insisted upon his (the Pope’s) right of deposing heretical princes, and deplored the misfortune of those times which prevented “the spouse of Jesus Christ (the Church) from putting those holy maxims into practice, and constrained her to suspend the course of her just severities against the enemies of the faith.” (See Essai Historique sur la Puissance des Papes.)

When the same Pope was applied to by the Church of Utrecht for a mutual interchange of offices, the only answer he gave was anathemas against them.

Revival of the Inquisition and Anti-Protestant Edicts

The Inquisition was revived by Pope Pius VII and confirmed by a Spanish edict on April 5, 1815.

The Inquisition, which was revived by this same Pope, was also confirmed by the Spanish edict 5th April, 1815. (See Les Jesuits tels qu ils ont eté dans l’ordre Politique Religieuse et Morale. P. 251.)

This act of that Pope, in reviving that monstrous engine of intolerance, tyranny, and bloodshed, stamps the character of its patron, and of that intolerant and persecuting church, and shews that Popery is “unchanged and unchangeable.” What has England to expect from that religion, if ever its adherents be invested with power?

The Spanish edict of the Inquisitor-General, Don Francisco Xavier, Mier of Campille, breathed vengeance against heretics (Protestants) if they did not abjure their religion, and embrace Popery, within the following year—and denouncing against them terrors of imprisonment, confiscation, and death.

Dr. Herbert Marsh in his work upon “Popery,” observed, respecting the power of the Pope, “of this spiritual tyranny we freed ourselves at the Reformation, and we must guard against its entrance a second time; a universal bishop is as much to be dreaded as a universal monarch; universal empire in temporal concerns is subversive of civil liberty; so universal empire in ecclesiastical concerns is subversive of religious liberty.”

Does England imagine that she has anything to receive but evil by any concession to such a power, a power which excited the just indignation and alarm of her forefathers?

All history declares that the Order of the Jesuits is only in corrupt accordance with the papal system, and that they are ardent and active members of the Popish church; and in their joint practice opposed to the dictates of religion and good conscience, as well as hostile to the safety of sovereign princes, governments, and states; holding and propagating doctrines of the most atrocious tendency, both in morals and politics; and in consequence of the concessions made to the Papists, by England, they and the Jesuits have since greatly increased—all acting upon their broad principle of Jesuitism, viz. “that the end to be achieved, sanctions the means to be employed;” Stonyhurst, near Preston, in Lancashire, and Castle Browne, in Ireland, are their collegiate establishments, besides Manouth and others. Condrette’s History (1764) exposed the Jesuits, and in the earlier period of his life he wrote against the Bull Unigenitus, for which he was imprisoned, first in the Castle of Vincennes, and afterwards in the Bastille. (See Biographical Dictionary, Condrette, and Dictionaire Historique.)

Robertson, than whom no man was more careful in consulting works of authority, correctness, and veracity, scrutinized and confirmed Condrette’s laborious expositions—so well founded and sustained by unquestionable testimonies from historians, both Catholic and Protestant, public acts, official documents, parliamentary decrees, royal proclamations, papal bulls, sentences of universities, mandates of Bishops, and the writings even of Jesuits themselves, as to their criminal casuistry.

We have in the preceding, seen this absurdity: one Pope approving and supporting the Order of Jesuits, and his successor abolishing that order, and another reinstating it.

And yet all claiming to be infallible!! The question is—and an important one as to its result—is it a blessing or a curse upon the world at large? At least it can have no charity from its origin! History, like a rock under water, has its hidden dangers, and, known, should be avoided! Unlearn what you have been taught, and become the victims of credulity!

The library of Munich, some time since purchased by the British Museum, affords numerous corroborative histories of the Jesuits’ impious conduct in every connection, and that “the Jesuits and Papists agree in general principles.”

Guimenceus asserts, that Thomas Aquinas, and divers others, agree that “A man may rejoice (within himself) at the death of another—and to desire it when advantageous to himself—let it matter what it may to the evil of another! That it is lawful to advise and draw a man to commit a lesser sin to avoid a greater—viz., to commit fornication rather than adultery—with numerous other plausible acts of subservience to crime, under specious ideal reservations or motives. Thus permitting the commands and requisitions of the divine law to be evaded upon the warrant of mere humanity, and thus accommodating the human passions.”

What else are the absolutions, indulgences, penances, and fasts of that Church? and, in accordance, purgatory, and papal and sacerdotal licences for sin?

Assuming to themselves the ability to absolve whom they please from punishment for any vices, past or to be committed—and even after death, by the mere prayers of man!—Thus fostering the system of immorality in its most baneful consequences, instead of infusing into the mind that religion which is designed for perfecting our nature, improving our faculties, governing our actions, and securing the peace of conscience, and the societies of mankind in common!

The Jesuits and Papists are united in their confessionals and categories—than which nothing can be more infamously indecent and abhorring—those inserted in their Daily Companion, a book put into the hands of girls and women, single and married, of a nature so disgusting that they cannot be repeated without shocking the feelings of any one not subverted by the insidious undermining of the priest; and such as it has been said that no virtuous girl or woman would endure, were not their minds first infatuated by the subtlety of such serpents.

As to the infallibility of the Pope,—It is notorious that his election generally is the result of bribery—as practised by Pope Borgia, Alex. VI.—and the Papacy has been always supported by pageantry and mean and contemptible tricks and deceptions, to pass upon the people as miracles; keeping the Scriptures out of the people’s hands, and using prayers in a language not to be understood by them; so as to impose upon their hearers the idea of great veneration for them as wonderful beings.

Auricular Confession was abolished by the Reformation (see Mills’s Translation of Villers on the Reformation). Hierarchical despotism had entwined its roots everywhere—had given to the clergy its enormous influence over princes, women, and every social connection in every family—in short, all were subservient to their will. Masters of the secrets of every family, they became, not the mere advisers, but the tyrants over ever one, and so became masters of human life. Their objects at length were condensed into two, to increase their riches and to gratify their senses and pride—cajoling the great and wealthy, —and attacking their victims in moments of weakness, in sickness, and at the hour of death, they obtained great and numerous bequests to their church and body,—and by abusing the opportunities they had with women, they indulged themselves in licentiousness to the misery of numerous families.

Pinkerton in his Geography (Vol. 1, pp.409 and 416, ‘&c. adverting to Spain, and that her religion was Roman Catholic, and that in that country and Portugal it had been carried to a pitch of fanaticism, and observes, that “The monks being extremely numerous, and human passions ever the same, those ascetics atone for the want of marriage by the practice of adultery,—the husband from the dread of the Inquisition being constrained to connive at this enormous abuse:” and adds,

“The conscience is seared by the practice of absolution; and the mind becomes reconciled to the strangest of all phenomena, theoretic piety and practical vice united in bonds almost indissoluble. The vice becomes flagrant beyond conception, as it is practised by those very men who ought to exhibit examples of pure morality,” and added, “were an apostle again to visit Spain he would certainly begin with preaching the Christian practice, as if the very idea of Christianity had perished; and his first duty would be to convert the ecclesiastics, and that any superstition remarkably absurd tended to produce atheism.”

The Papists and Jesuits also combined in the atrocious principles “of the lawfulness of regicide,” and the duty of persecuting Protestants, —principles admitted by them to be fundamental and obligatory on them,— and also admitting that there was no necessity for being scrupulous about the means for extending the influence of both. This was obvious on the assassinations of Henry III. and Henry IV., of France; and that of the 5th of November, by the Jesuits Garnett, Gerard, Tesmond, Baudouin, Hall, Catesby, Winter, Sir Everard Digby, Rookwood, and Fawkes (no one of whom, however, was a Jesuit, but all were Papists,) and the particulars as to those men shew that the system of each was the same. —Catholic priests being the agents of the Jesuits, the Catholic laity submissive to the dicta of their priests, and Jesuits and Papists upholding and exculpating each other. (See State Trials, Vol. II., p. 186.)

So regardless were the Jesuits of the professions of their order, that in Paraguay they (having assumed the sovereignty over the Indians,) instructed their subjects in the European arts of war, and formed them into bodies of cavalry and infantry, well armed and disciplined, with trains of artillery, against the Portuguese and Spaniards, in order to retain the whole influence and advantage from that country in themselves. (See Robertson, Ch. v. b. 6, p. 205, Edit. 1802.)

Nicholai of Berlin, about the period of the French Revolution, in his work asserted, that the Jesuits were then actively engaged in abetting and supporting the advocates of infidelity, and that the Jesuits were then to be found in every place under various habits and characters, labouring for the establishment of their own government upon the ruin of others; such an assertion being supported by other publications in Germany. And Professor Robison asserted, in his “Proofs of a Conspiracy,” &c. that “these intriguing brethren had attempted to maintain their influence by means of freemasonry;” and he also stated, that they had done so in England in the time of the civil…

(Pages 54 and 55 of this book are missing in the PDF file, which is why the previous paragraph does not flow in thought to the next paragraph. If anyone knows of a better PDF file of “Popery, The Inquisition, And The Jesuits” – By E.K. Pickering, please contact me.)

…Memoirs of Denzil, Lord Holland, Collection of State Papers, by Husband, Lilly’s History of that Period (Charles I.), Sir John Temple’s History of the Massacre in Ireland, Baxter’s Life and Times, Whitlock’s Memorials, Sir John Berkley’s Memoirs, Clement Walker’s History of Independency, Ludlow’s Memoirs, His Three Letters from the Hague, Fairfax’s Memorial, Baron Masere’s English History of that time, and his Select Tracts relating to the Civil Wars, and his Preface to Ludlow’s Three Letters, all confirming Prynne, and shewing that he was entitled to the gratitude of all succeeding times for so effectually exposing the intrigues of Popery and the Jesuits.)

De Thou, the privy counsellor of Henry III. and Henry IV., of France, and the author of the stupendous work, “the History of his own time,” (from 1545 to 1607,) involving all the great interests of policy, war, and letters, during a most interesting period; and displaying great impartiality and intelligence, as well as eloquence,—and although a Catholic, speaks with freedom of the crooked and secular policy of the Church of Rome,—of the worldly minded popes—of the licentious clergy, Jesuits or not,—and of the treacherous house of Guise; and evincing considerable liberality and candour towards Protestants: such conduct in this excellent man, naturally brought upon him the hatred of the Jesuits and Papists, who accused him of heterodoxy, and carried the matter to Rome, and obtained the condemnation of his work. Lord Mansfield, in the House of Lords, (the Chamberlain v. Evans,) speaks of him as “that great man who, though a Papist, had dared to advance so many admirable things in the dedication of his history to Henry IV., a history which (says Lord Mansfield,) I never read without rapture.”

De Thou, in his account of the examination of Ravaillac, the murderer of Henry IV., states that Ravaillac affirmed, that he did the act because the King did not take arms against the Huguenots, and that the King making war against the Pope “was the same as to make war against God—seeing that the Pope was God, and God was the Pope.”

In the Dictionaire Historique, (article De Thou,) by the Bull, Coena Domini, (which has never been retracted,) “all persons who read any book composed or printed by heretics were excommunicated, (published at Rome 1559;) and see the History of the Council of Trent, Book VI. Thus sacrificing truth itself to the interests of a particular system, and endeavouring to keep the world in darkness, rather than the delinquences of Popery, and her twin sister Jesuitism, should be exposed. De Thou was esteemed by the great and learned Grotius, and with whom he preserved a friendship and maintained a correspondence till the time of his death.

(To be continued.)