nt he was subjected to.
The third, very old and very infirm, had not a better fate. At last,
being no longer able to hold out, he asked to be allowed to pay a visit
to my Versailles house (after having explained himself to me), under
pretext of fresh air. He remained there several months, and died at the
noviciate in Paris. Such is the fate of all the Jesuits, without
excepting the most famous, putting aside a few who having shone at the
Court and in the world by their sermons and their merit, and having made
many friends--as Peres Bordaloue, La Rue, Gaillard--have been guaranteed
from the general disgrace, because, often visited by the principal
persons of the Court and the town, policy did not permit them to be
treated like the rest, for fear of making so many considerable people
notice what they would not have suffered without disturbance and scandal.
It was, then, in this abandonment and this contempt that Pere Tellier
remained at La Fleche, although he had from the Regent four thousand
livres pension. He had ill-treated everybody. When he was confessor of
the King, not one of his brethren approached him without trembling,
although most of them were the "big-wigs" of the company. Even the
general of the company was forced to bend beneath the despotism he
exercised upon all. There was not a Jesuit who did not disapprove the
violence of his conduct, or who did not fear it would injure the society.
All hated him, as a minister is hated who is coarse, harsh, inaccessible,
egotistical, and who takes pleasure in showing his power and his disdain.
His exile, and the conduct that drew it upon him, were fresh motives for
hatred against him, unveiling, as they did, a number of secret intrigues
he had been concerned in, and which he had great interest in hiding. All
these things together did not render agreeable to Tellier his forced
retirement at La Fleche. He found there sharp superiors and equals,
instead of the general terror his presence had formerly caused among the
Jesuits. All now showed nothing but contempt for him, and took pleasure
in making him sensible of it. This King of the Church, in part of the
State, and in private of his society, became a common Jesuit like the
rest, and under superiors; it may be imagined what a hell this was to a
man so impetuous and so accustomed to a domination without reply, and
without bounds, and abused in every fashion. Thus he did not endure it
long. Nothing more wa
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