The middle of the century, in which we live, appears destined to form an æra, not only in the history of the human mind, by the revolution which seems to be preparing itself in our opinions, but also in the history of states and empires, by the extraordinary events of which we have successively been witnesses. In less than eight years we have seen the earth shaken, swallow up a part of Portugal, Spain, Africa, and Hungary, and terrify by its shocks several other nations; a war kindled from Lisbon to Petersbourg, for some almost uncultivated tracts in North-America; the system of Europe changing suddenly its appearance at the end of two centuries by the strict and unhoped-for union of the houses of France and Austria; the consequences of that union, all contrary to what it was natural to have expected from it; the king of Prussia withstanding alone five formidable powers leagued against him, and issuing from the bosom of the storm victorious and covered with glory; an emperor cast headlong from his throne; the king of Portugal assassinated; France terrifyed at a like attempt, and trembling for a life the most precious; lastly, the Jesuits, those men who were thought so powerful, so firmly established, so redoubtable, driven from the former of these two kingdoms, and destroyed in the second. This last event, which is, for certain, neither the most melancholy, nor the greatest of those which we have just recapitulated, is perhaps neither the least surprising, nor the least susceptible of reflexions. It is for philosophers to see it such as it is, to shew it such as it is to posterity, to make known to the sages of all nations, how passion and hatred have, without knowing it, assisted reason and justice in this unexpected catastrophe. In order to explain myself with impartiality on the destruction of the Jesuits in France, the object of this treatise, we must begin very far back, and reascend to the very origin of this famous society, place in one point of view the obstacles which had been opposed to it, the progresses which it has made, the blows which it has given and received; lastly, the causes apparent and secret, which brought it to the brink of the precipice, and which have terminated by throwing it from thence. It is somewhat above two hundred years since the society of Jesuits took birth. Its founder was a Spanish gentleman, who having had his brain heated by romances of chevalry, and afterwards by books of devotion, took it into his head to be the Don Quixote of the Virgin[1], to go and preach to infidels the christian religion which he knew nothing of, and to associate himself for that purpose with those adventurers who should think proper to join him.