village, and advised him at last to drive away the remaining few who
still refused to abjure their faith.[6] Money, very powerful in this
poor country, seemed to him a means at once so natural and
irresistible, that he went even into Geneva, to buy up old Theodore de
Beze, and offered him, on the part of the Pope, a pension of four
thousand crowns.

It was an odd sight to behold this man, the bishop and titular prince
of Geneva, beating about the bush to circumvent his native city, and
organising a war of seduction against it by France and Savoy. Money
and intrigue did not suffice; it was necessary to employ a softer charm
to thaw and liquify the inattackable iceberg of logic and criticism.
Convents for females were founded, to attract and receive the
newly-converted, and to offer them a powerful bait composed of love and
mysticism. These convents have been made famous by the names of Madame
de Chantal and Madame Guyon. The former established in them the mild
devotion of the Visitation; and it was there that the latter wrote her
little book of _Torrents_, which seems inspired, like Rousseau's
_Julie_ (by the bye, a far less dangerous composition), by the
Charmettes, Meillerie, and Clarens.

[1] The masterpiece of the Jesuit was to get the shepherd-poet Des
Yveteaux, the most empty-headed man in France, named tutor, reserving
to himself the moral and religious part of education.

[2] See his Life, by Dorigny, p. 505.; Bonneville, Life of St.
Francois, p. 19, &c.

[3] Read the three great Vaudois historians, Gilles, Leger, and Arnaud.

[4] Plagiarius, in its proper sense, means, as is well known, a
man-stealer.

[5] Little lies, little deceits, little prevarications. See, for
instance, OEuvres, vol. viii. pp. 196, 223, 342.

[6] Nouvelles Lettres Inedites, published by Mr. Datta, 1835, vol. i.
p. 247. See also, for the intolerance of St. Francois, pp. 130, 131,
136, 141, and vol. ix. of the OEuvres, p. 335, the bounden duty of
kings to put to the sword all the enemies of the Pope.

CHAPTER II.

ST. FRANCOIS DE SALES AND MADAME DE
CHANTAL.--VISITATION.--QUIETISM.--RESULTS OF RELIGIOUS DIRECTION.

Saint Francois de Sales was very popular in France, and especially in
the provinces of Burgundy, where a fermentation of religious passions
had continued in full force ever since the days of the League. The
parliament of Dijon entreated him to come and preach there. He was
received by his friend An