This quarrel is of interest for two reasons. In the first place, it illustrates the value of Crétineau-Joly's history of the Jesuits. The French writer ignores the attack in 1577, and says that, as soon as Mazzarino began to misbehave, "the Milan fathers hastened to disapprove of the imprudent orator," and the General recalled him. It is, of course, true that Charles's confessor, Adorno, "disapproved" of his brother Jesuit, but the Mazzarino faction retorted that he was jealous, because Mazzarino had larger audiences for his sermons; and Crétineau-Joly suppresses the fact that the Provincial, and for a time the General, defiantly supported Mazzarino. We know this from Borromeo's letters to his agent.[7] The further interest of the quarrel, which is entirely suppressed by the French historian, is that in these letters Charles passes very severe strictures on the Jesuits as a body. Instead of finding fault with one man only, Mazzarino, he found fault with all except one, his confessor, to whom he remained attached. "I confess," he writes to Spetiano, "that for some time I have felt the Society to be in grave danger of decadence unless a prompt remedy be applied." The Jesuits, he explains, admit clever youths without regard to their character, and they grant extravagant liberties to their literary colleagues. They are inflated by the favour of the nobility and the crowds of wealthy women who flock to lax moralists like Mazzarino. We may also recall here the grave statement of Charles's nephew and successor, Archbishop Frederic Borromeo, who was educated by the Jesuits: a statement repeated, in the most solemn terms, by a writer to whom he made it. I have enlarged on this quarrel because we have here the rare advantage of an impartial and unimpeachable witness, and we see how serious a ground there is at times, when independent evidence can be found, for reading Jesuit and pro-Jesuit writers with caution. We must not, however, pass to the opposite extreme and conclude that the Italian Jesuits generally were the favourites of ladies who appreciated indulgence in their confessors and preachers. This is the only serious scandal of the Italian province under Mercurian.