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if they formed a political body like the Lutherans or Calvinists. Louis, in his own name, and in that of Philip V., now besought Pope Clement XI. to renew against the Jansenists the constitutions of his predecessors. Clement complied by a bull, which was accepted by the French clergy, in spite of the opposition of Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris (1705). To revenge themselves on Noailles, the Jesuits obtained from Clement a condemnation of Quesnel's Moral Reflections on the New Testament; a book of much repute, which had been published under the superintendence of the Cardinal, and which Clement himself is said to have praised. A ruder stroke was the suppression of the Abbey of Port Royal. The nuns had refused to accept the Papal bull of 1705. Le Tellier, who had succeeded Père La Chaise as the King's confessor, resorted to violent measures, and the Cardinal de Noailles, to clear himself from the suspicion of being a Jansenist, gave his sanction to them. In November 1709, the nuns of Port Royal were dragged from their abode and dispersed in various convents; and the famous abbey itself, consecrated by the memory of so much virtue, piety, and talent, was razed to its foundations.

Although the Cardinal de Noailles had taken part in the persecution of the Port Royalists, he refused to retract the approbation which he had given to Quesnel's book. Louis's Jesuit confessor, Le Tellier, instigated several bishops to denounce him to the King as an introducer of new doctrines; the book was prohibited by the royal council November 1711; and Pope Clement XI. was requested to give it a new condemnation in a form that might be received in France. After waiting nearly two years, Clement replied by promulgating the famous Bull UNIGENITUS (September 8th 1713). Instead of the general terms of the bull of 1708, the present instrument expressly condemned 101 propositions extracted from the Réflexions Morales. Many of these breathe the spirit of true Christianity, and might be found in the writings of St. Augustine and even of St. Paul. Noailles and a few other prelates protested against the bull; but the King compelled the Parliament to register it, and the Sorbonne and other universities to receive it, the principal opponents of it being sent into exile. Nevertheless the recusant bishops, who did not exceed fifteen in number, were supported by most of the principal religious orders, by the majority of the clergy, and by the opinion of the public, always adverse to the Jesuits. Le Tellier now endeavoured to obtain the deposition of Noailles from the Archbishopric of Paris;

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THE QUIETISTS.

[BOOK V. and he was only saved from that degradation by the death of Louis XIV.

The disputes proceeded during the Regency. The Jansenists seemed to gather fresh strength, and talked of appealing against the bull to a future council. To put an end to the contest, and to save the Parliament, threatened with dissolution by the court for refusing to register a royal decree for the acceptance of the bull, Noailles at length agreed to subscribe to it, with certain modifications (November 1720). The question, however, was by no means set at rest. It was again agitated in the pontificate of Benedict XIII. in 1725; and in 1750 it produced a great public scandal and disturbance, as we shall have to relate in a subsequent chapter.

The Quietists, another Roman Catholic sect, was much less important than the Jansenists. Their mystical tenets-a sort of inward, quiet, contemplation of the divine perfections, a worship of the heart-were too refined and transcendental to attract many followers. The founder of the sect in France was Madame Guyon, who gave her principles to the world in two works entitled Le Moyen Court and Les Torrents. The talent and enthusiasm of Madame Guyon obtained for her an illustrious disciple in Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, the amiable and ingenious author of Telemachus. The sect had previously appeared in Italy, where the doctrines of quietism had been propagated by a Spanish priest named Molinos. It had there been found, however, that these mystical tenets had been productive of gross immorality among his disciples, who imagined that, so long as the soul was wrapped up in God, the acts of the body were of little consequence; and in 1687 Molinos had been condemned by the Inquisition at Rome to perpetual imprisonment. These circumstances at first threw a suspicion on the French Quietists, who, however, do not appear to have deserved the least reproach of immorality. But their doctrines were approved neither by the orthodox clergy nor by the Jansenists. Bossuet, the illustrious Bishop of Meaux, was their most virulent opponent. He caused Madame Guyon to be imprisoned at Vincennes, entered into a violent controversy with Fénelon, and procured from Pope Innocent XII. a condemnation of that prelate's work entitled Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie Intérieure, in which he had explained and defended his principles (March 1699). This affair, as well as the publication of the Telemackus, entirely ruined Fénelon with Louis XIV. and Madame Maintenon, and deprived him of all his former influence.25

25 See Bausset, Vie de Fénelon, t. ii. and iii. (ed. 1817).

CHAP. VIII.]

FREETHINKERS.

291

It is not our intention to describe the various religious sects which sprang up in England during this period, as the Independents, Quakers, Methodists, &c. As the Reformation had a tendency to produce sectarianism in men of enthusiastic temperaments, so, on the other hand, among those of cooler and more reasoning minds it was apt to beget scepticism and infidelity. The English school of Freethinkers took its rise in the seventeenth century with Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Tindal, Bolingbroke and others; and hence was derived the French sceptical philosophy which heralded the Revolution.

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BOOK VI.

FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1789.

CHAPTER I.

THE Peace of Utrecht had reconciled all the contending Powers in the War of the Spanish Succession, except the two sovereigns principally concerned in the dispute. The questions at issue between Philip V. and Charles VI. still remained to be settled by future wars and negociations. In the military and diplomatic transactions which ensued Spain, directed by the will of a youthful and ambitious Queen, and the counsels of a subtle and enterprising Minister, seemed inspired with new vigour, and promised again to take a first rank in the affairs of Europe.

After the death of Philip V.'s first wife, Louisa of Savoy (February 1714), a woman of courage and understanding above her sex, the Princess des Ursins had assumed for a while the government of the King and Kingdom. But the uxorious temper of the melancholy and moral Philip demanded another consort; and the Princess, too old herself to fill that post, though rumour gave her credit for aspiring to it, resolved to procure for him a queen of a docile and pliant disposition, who would not contest with her the empire which she exercised over the King. With this view she consulted Alberoni, who now enjoyed a considerable share of the royal confidence and favour. This extraordinary man, the son of a working gardener, and a native of Piacenza, had been by turns a bell-ringer, an abbé, the steward of a bishop, the favourite and confidant of the Duke of Vendôme, and lastly, the agent of the Duke of Parma at Madrid. Alberoni, as if by accident, and after running over a great many names, recommended Elizabeth Farnese, the niece of his sovereign, the reign

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