The nuns of Port Royal were the next victims of their relentless
campaign. A more friendly Pope, Clement XI., succeeded Innocent, and
in 1705 he was induced to issue a fresh bull (_Vineam Domini_) for the
suppression of Jansenism. It was pressed for the acceptance of the nuns
by the Archbishop of Paris; but it seemed to them still to consecrate
the familiar untruth, and they declared that they would subscribe to it
only with a qualifying clause. We have no documentary proof that the
Jesuits inspired the events which followed this reserve, but the blame
was openly cast upon them at the time, and the circumstances suggest
it. The King--still under the guidance of Père la Chaise--wrote to
the Vatican for permission to destroy the community, and in the early
spring of 1708 the nuns were definitely scattered. Père la Chaise died
at the beginning of the following year, and Père Letellier, a grim and
resolute supporter of the ambitions of the Society, succeeded to the
office. Under his influence the last insurgent movements of the brave
nuns were rigorously suppressed, and in January 1710 their ancient and
beloved abbey, the strictest centre of conventual virtue in France, was
rased to the ground.
Letellier, a sombre, indefatigable man, whose flashing eyes scorned the
comfort of the court--he was a peasant's son--and sought nothing in
this world but the ascendancy of the Society of Jesus, now found the
influence of the Jesuits threatened by that of Louis's wife and her
favourite prelate Noailles, Archbishop of Paris. In 1711 a letter was
intercepted which revealed the intrigues of Letellier and the Jesuits,
and Noailles angrily suspended all the members of the Society in his
diocese. The chief Jansenist writer was now Quesnel, who had just
published his _Moral Reflections_. The Jesuits detected much heresy
in the innocent work, and at once used their influence to secure a
condemnation. The Archbishop had, however, expressed admiration of it,
and the task of the Jesuits was more than usually difficult. At length,
in July 1711, a letter was intercepted from which it was clear that
Letellier was intriguing against the Archbishop, and there was much
indignation among the new party at court. Noailles not only suspended
the fathers, but condemned about a score of their writers and preachers
for lax principles. The intrigue continued, however, and in the autumn
of 1713, Clement XI. condemned Quesnel's book in the bull _Unigenitus_.
Saint Simon, who was in the French court at the time and on good
terms with the Jesuits, tells us that the bull was due to Letellier
and two other Jesuits "as fine and false as he," and that in the bull
"everything was brilliant except truth." Saint Simon was no theologian.
We may accept his word that the securing of the bull was "a dark
business"; and we know that, in its later stages, it was pressed at
Rome with irregular and improper haste. It is, however, true that many
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