iticians, amiable men, good fathers, who with so much mildness
have skilfully arranged from afar the Thirty Years' War, seducing
Aquaviva, you learned Canisius, and you good Possevino, the friend of
St. Francois de Sales, who will not admire the flexibility of your
genius? At the very time you were organising the terrible intrigue of
this second and prolonged St. Bartholomew, you were mildly discussing
with the good saint the difference that ought to be observed between
"those who died in love, and those who died for love."

What by-path led from these mild theories to such atrocious results?
How did it happen that souls enervated by gallant devotion and devout
gallantry, and spoiled by the daily facilities of an obliging and
accommodating casuistry, allowed themselves to be taken asleep in the
meshes of political intrigue? It would be a long story. In order to
set about it one must wade through their nauseous literature; but one
sickens at the sight of their filthy trash.

One word, however, for it is important. Prepared as the world was,
both by bad morals and bad taste, for the miserable productions with
which the Jesuits inundated it, all this insipid flood would have
subsided without leaving any traces behind, had they not mingled with
it a part of the pure original stream, which had already delighted the
human heart. The charm of St. Francois de Sales, his sublime spiritual
union with Madame de Chantal, the holy and mild seducing influence
which he had exercised over women and children, served indirectly, but
very efficaciously, the purpose of this great religious intrigue.

With small morality and cheap absolution, the Jesuits could very easily
corrupt consciences, but not tranquillise them. They could play, with
more or less skill, upon that rich instrument Falsehood, which their
institution gave them, airs of science, art, literature, and theology.
But could they, with all this false fingering, produce one true
note?--Not one!

But this true and gentle note was precisely that which was sounded for
them by St. Francois. They had only to play after his method to make
the false appear a little less discordant. The amiable qualities of
his writings, nay, their pleasing errors, were skilfully made the most
of. His taste for the minute and humble, which made him bestow a
partial regard upon the lesser beings of the creation, such as little
children, lambs, birds, and bees, became a precedent among the Jes