Part 47 (2/2)
Archbishop of Paris, my prayers for yours My little church of Saint Joseph has not the same splendour as your cathedral; but the incense that we burn there is of better quality than yours, for I get it from the Sultan of Persia I will instruct my little community to-morrow to hold our Forty Hours' Prayer, that God uieres, who has been dan to accept these most sincere reprisals, and believe me, without reserve, Monsieur the Archbishop,
THE MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN
This letter cast the cas between the Episcopal Palace and the Jesuits of the Rue Saint Antoine, and froe of Louis le Grand The matadores of the society were of opinion that I should be conciliated by every possible ed that the Archbishop should pay me a visit at Saint Joseph's, on the earliest possible occasion, to exculpate his virtuous colleagues and makeweek I made him wait for half an hour in the chapel, for half an hour in e, al either to see or salute hiities, nor to have intervieith their insolent authors
Alarms, anxieties of consciences, weak but virtuous, have always found ned; the false scruples of hypocrites and libertines will never receive froht but disdain and contempt
CHAPTER XLII
The Verse of Berenice--Praises of Boileau--The King's Aversion to Satirical Writers--The Painter Le Brun--His Bacchus--The Waterbottle--The Pyramid of Jean Chatel Injurious to the Jesuits--They Solicit Its Demolition--Madame de Maintenon's Opposition--Political Views of Henri IV on This Matter--The Jesuits of Paris Proclaie to Louis the Great--The Gold Pieces
Whatever be the issue of a liaison which cannot probably be eternal, I have too reat talents which are his by nature, or to dispute the surnaiven hies to co secret Memoirs, where I set down, as in aon the stage, and I wish to relate in what manner and hat aim this apotheosis affected the mind of those who flattered the prince in their own interest
The painters and sculptors, , had already represented the King, noith the attributes of Apollo, now in the costume of the God Mars, of Jupiter Tonans, Neptune, lord of the waves; noith the forreat Hercules, who strangled serpents even in his cradle
His Majesty saw all these ingenious allegories, examined theard them as accessories inherent to the coood and current se of art The adulations of Racine, in his ”Berenice,” having all a foundation of truth, please hirace of the poetry; and he sometimes recited them, when he wished to recall and quote soh well versified, had not, however, the fortune to please him He found those verses too methodical for poetry; and the poet, moreover, seemed to hiht do what they liked, they never had his friendshi+p Perhaps he feared thenificent cradle of the great gallery, he cons or cartoons, which in their entirety should represent the victories and great islative achieve finished, he ca with me In one of the couise of Bacchus; the King ilass I gave a great peal of laughter, and said to M le Brun, ”You see, monsieur, his Majesty's decision in that libation of pure water”
M le Brun changed his design, seeing the King had no love for Bacchus, but he left the Thundering Jove, and all the other ard to which no opinion had been given
The Jesuits for a long ti, exactly opposite the Palace,--[In the midst of the semicircle in front of the Palais de Justice]--in the centre of Paris, that hu pyra, the faicide of the student, Jean Chatel, assassin of Henri IV Pere de la Chaise, many times and always in vain, had prayed his Majesty to render justice to the virtues of his order, and to co had constantly refused, alleging to-day one motive, to-morrow another One day, when the professed House of Paris came to hand hied Madaed us to listen to it with intelligence, in order to be able to give an opinion
The Jesuits said in this document that the Parlias much too far in this matter ”For that Jean Chatel, student with the Jesuit Fathers, having been heard to say to his professor that the King of Navarre, a true Huguenot, ought not to reign over France, which was truly Catholic, thethat that Jesuit, and all the Jesuits, had directed the dagger of Jean Chatel, a ood King Henri IV, as better informed, had decided to recall the Society of Jesus, had reestablished it in all his colleges, and had even chosen a confessor froed rathful inscriptions,” added the petition, ”designates our Society as a perpetual hotbed of regicidal conspiracy, and presents us to credulous people as an association of ambitious, thankless and corrupt assassins!”
[This monument represented a sort of small square temple, built of Arcueil stone and eneral decoration, and enshrined the four fulminatory inscriptions
Independently of the obelisk, the cupola of this teorical statues, of which the one was France inher sword, and the others the principal virtues of the King On the principal side these words occurred: ”Passer-by, whosoever thou be, abhor Jean Chatel, and the Jesuits who beguiled his youth and destroyed his reason”--EDITOR'S NOTE]
”In the naerous memento of old passions, unjust hatreds, and the spirit of iistrates devoid of light, serves to-day only to beguile new generations, whoht blinds,” etc, etc