The different pieces which have been published on the affair of the Jesuits (if we except therefrom the requisitories of the magistrates) breathe an animosity or fanaticism in those who have undertaken either to defend or attack the society. We may say of these historians, what Tacitus said of the historians of his time: _Neutris cura posteritatis, inter infensos vel obnoxios_: “None of them were influenced by any regard for posterity, being themselves among the exasperated or the obnoxious.” As the author of the following writing professes a pretty great indifference for quarrels of this sort, he has had no violence to do himself in order to tell the truth (so far at least as he has been able to come at the knowledge of it) with respect to the causes and the circumstances of this singular event: if he has sometimes told it with energy, he flatters himself at least that he has delivered it without bitterness, and he hopes that thus his work will not displease those, who like him are detached from any spirit of party or interest. He has even waited, before he published this writing, till peoples' minds should be no longer heated, in regard to the matter which is the object of it; he will lose thereby, without doubt, some readers, but the truth will gain by it, or at least be no loser. The facts which are related here, are, for the most part, very well known in France: they are less so to foreigners, for whom we have proposed to write as well as for the French. The reflexions which have been to this historical account, may be useful to both, and perhaps still more to the French than to foreigners. [Illustration: Decorative image] ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JESUITS IN FRANCE.