[Footnote 20: Crétineau-Joly suppresses the whole of these facts, and describes Père de Bérulle as "intimately united with the Jesuits"! De Bérulle's letter to Richelieu is published in the _Annales_, ii. 738.] [Footnote 21: Many of the documents are collected in the _Annales de la Société des soi-disans Jésuites_. The most familiar procedure of the Jesuits was to accuse the monks of corruption and rely on their influence at court to prevent too close an inquiry. The French Conseil d'État forced them, as late as 4th August 1654, to restore three abbeys to their lawful owners.] CHAPTER VIII UNDER THE STUARTS With the exception of the English mission, which I have reserved for continuous treatment in this chapter, we have now surveyed the whole life of the Society of Jesus during the first century of its history. The most important conclusion that one can draw from this extensive and varied body of experiences is that every attempt to impose a uniform character on the early Jesuits must fail. The uniformity in virtue and heroism which is ascribed to the Society in the florid pages of the _Imago Primi Sæculi_ is as far removed from the truth as the uniformly dark features which are imposed on the Jesuits by some writers of the opposing school. The candid historian must follow the example of Macaulay, and give contrasted pictures of the light and the darkness, the heroic devotion and the demoralising casuistry, which one equally discovers in that first century of Jesuit history; and his effort to do justice will miscarry, as that of Macaulay did, because Catholic writers will ingenuously detach the earlier and more flattering half of his verdict and represent it as his full conclusion.