not take the extreme measure against the Jesuits which he was said to contemplate. It is clear that they realised his power and resolved to be discreet. After a fruitless appeal to the young king against him, they signed a series of propositions drawn up by the Sorbonne, and resigned themselves to the patriotic policy of the great minister. The position of the Jesuits during the next two decades was one of great prosperity but acute dissatisfaction, on account of their political impotence. They had (in 1627) 13,195 pupils in their schools in the Paris province alone, and more than that number in the remaining French provinces. Their opponents were, however, numerous and active, and Richelieu was not unwilling to see this check on their ambition. We find Father Suffren, the king's confessor, complaining in 1626 of the number and violence of their enemies, and adding: "Few of our friends have the courage openly to undertake to defend us." What we shall see presently of their relations to the bishops and universities will throw some light on this. There can be little doubt that Richelieu despised the Jesuits, but preferred to have them under his eye, engaged in the teaching of the young, rather than as open opponents. He punished them ruthlessly when they interfered in politics. He had Father Monod, confessor to Christiane of Savoy, imprisoned for his political intrigues, and when Father Caussin, who was appointed confessor to Louis in 1637, was discovered by Richelieu's spies to be making a secret and insidious attempt to turn the king against Richelieu, he was promptly exiled. Louis had shown Caussin a list, supplied by Richelieu, of Jesuit theologians, who approved the policy of the minister. "Ah, sire," said the Jesuit, piqued at this astute move, "they had a church to build." In a word, the Jesuits were politically powerless under Richelieu, and gave him little serious anxiety. It seems rather that he induced many of them, however insincerely, to support him in his policy--a policy which was angrily repudiated by Rome and the Catholic powers. In 1638 he threatened to cast off the yoke of the papacy, and, by making some of the gravest concessions demanded by the Reformers, unite the Huguenots and Catholics of France in an independent Gallican Church. If we may believe a story given in Bayle's _Dictionary_ (article "Amyrant"), which was written shortly afterwards, he actually used the Jesuit Amyrant to negotiate with a leading Huguenot divine, and promise to surrender such Catholic doctrines as purgatory and the invocation of the saints.[19]Two years later we find a Jesuit enlisted in the regiment of pamphleteers who defended Richelieu's singular policy. It is perhaps, in view of their constant policy toward the Reformation, one of the most curious instances of their power of adaptation to circumstances.