This report fanned the smouldering
fires of Jansenism into a flame visible enough and threatening
enough to the peace of the Church.
The failure and bankruptcy of Father Vallette's enormous
speculations in the West Indies had filled France with bad debts and
protested obligations which the Society of Jesus repudiated, but
which the Parliament of Paris ordered them to pay. The excitement
was intense all over the Kingdom and the Colonies. On the part of
the order it became a fight for existence.
They were envied for their wealth, and feared for their ability and
their power. The secular clergy were for the most part against
them. The Parliament of Paris, in a violent decree, had declared
the Jesuits to have no legal standing in France. Voltaire and his
followers, a growing host, thundered at them from the one side. The
Vatican, in a moment of inconsistency and ingratitude, thundered at
them from the other. They were in the midst of fire, and still
their ability and influence over individual consciences, and
especially over the female sex, prolonged their power for fifteen
years longer, when Louis XV.
Pages:
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020