Then there occurred the "Popish Plot," or the imaginary plot of Titus Oates, and a furious storm whistled about their ears. Charles had soon realised the futility of the French alliance, made peace with the Dutch, and appeased his Protestant subjects by revoking the Declaration of Indulgence. On the whole, it paid him better to remain a Protestant. The natural and proper attitude for the Catholics was now to await in silence the accession of the Duke of York, as Catherine remained childless, but the Protestants were already looking to William of Orange and not obscurely hinting that the Catholic Duke of York was unfit to ascend the throne. Dutch agents distributed money among nobles and parliamentarians; French and Catholic agents distributed _louis d'or_ in the interest of York and Catholicism. Whatever we may say of the Dutch, a secret and treasonable correspondence was maintained by the Catholics with France. This correspondence was maintained on the English side by a zealous secretary of the Duke of York, named Coleman, a pupil and friend of the Jesuits. We shall see that Coleman was afterwards arrested, and his papers seized, so that there is no dispute about the fact that from 1675 to 1678 Coleman was in treasonable correspondence with the French. French money and, in emergency, French troops were to be employed for the destruction of the Established Church. The letters were generally in cipher, and at times the secret message was written in lemon-juice (which would become legible if held before the fire) between the lines. We are now asked to believe that this plot originated in the exalted imagination of Coleman, and that the Jesuits were not privy to his correspondence with Versailles. Jesuits in London were on such a footing at St. James's Palace that they were allowed to hold their secret meetings in its chambers, and on the French side the whole correspondence was conducted by the famous Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV., Père la Chaise; and the apologists would have us believe that this correspondence, of such profound import to the future of the Jesuit body in England, was carried on for several years without their knowledge and connivance. We should have to believe, in fact, that even the Duke of York was ignorant of it, since he concealed nothing from the Jesuits, and that Père la Chaise did not give the least inkling of it to his colleagues. One would need an extraordinary measure of credulity to imagine the Jesuits frequenting St. James's Palace week after week for years and being entirely ignorant that their friend Coleman was receiving important messages all the time from their French colleague. Hence Mr. Pollock concludes, in his recent and able study of the "Popish Plot,"[24] that we may adopt, or adapt, the familiar verdict of Dryden on the plot:--