Paris as accomplices
in the attempt against Louis XV. When they did not take an active part
in political crimes, they exercised indirectly their influence by means
of a whole series of works approving regicide or tyrannicide, as they
were pleased to distinguish it in their books. Mariana, in his book, _De
Rege et Rege Constitutione_, praises Clement and apologizes for
regicide; and that, in spite of the fact that the Council of Constance
had condemned the maxim according to which it was permitted to kill a
tyrant."[L][11]

That the views of Mariana were very similar to those of the terrorists
will be seen by the following quotation from his famous book: "It is a
question," he writes, in discussing the best means of killing a king,
"whether it is more expedient to use poison or the dagger. The use of
poison in the food has a great advantage in that it produces its effect
without exposing the life of the one who has recourse to this method.
But such a death would be a suicide, and one is not permitted to become
an accomplice to a suicide. Happily, there is another method available,
that of poisoning the clothing, the chairs, the bed. This is the method
that it is necessary to put into execution in imitation of the
Mauritanian kings, who, under the pretext of honoring their rivals with
gifts, sent them clothes that had been sprinkled with an invisible
substance, with which contact alone has a fatal effect."[12]

It has also been pointed out that, although Catholics have rarely been
given to revolutionary political and economic theories, the Mafia and
the Camorra in Italy, the Fenians in Ireland, and the Molly Maguires in
America were all organizations of Catholics which pursued the same
terrorist tactics that we find in the anarchist movement. These are
unquestionable facts, yet they explain nothing. Certainly Zenker is
justified in saying, "The deeds of people like Jacques Clement,
Ravaillac, Corday, Sand, and Caserio, are all of the same kind; hardly
anyone will be found to-day to maintain that Sand's action followed from
the views of the _Burschenschaft_, or Clement's from Catholicism, even
when we learn that Sand was regarded by his fellows as a saint, as was
Charlotte Corday and Clement, or even when learned Jesuits like Sa,
Mariana, and others, _cum licentia et approbatione superiorum_, in
connection with Clement's outrage, discussed the question of regicide in
a manner not unworthy of Nechayeff or Most."[13] It th