However, the bull of which the Jesuits had been the promoters, and which had met with so much opposition when it appeared, came insensibly to be received by all the bishops. The French nation, which clamours so readily, and which more readily still grows tired of clamouring, was familiarized to a production which it had at first called _monstrous_: every one received it, with an interpretation according to his own liking; for such is the wonderful privilege of these kinds of decisions of the church of Rome, that people may, by all means, understand them just as they please, and submit to them at the same time that they continue in their own opinion. Jansenism, heretofore maintained (in spite of reason) by men of real merit, had no longer for its support any defenders, but such as were worthy of such a cause, a few poor and obscure priests, unknown even where they lived: the phrensy of convulsions, which had raised dissensions in the party itself, had rendered them completely contemptible, by rendering them ridiculous: in short, this sect, now expiring and despised, was at the last gasp, when an unforeseen chain of circumstances restored it to a new life, which it hoped not for. The viper which the Jesuits thought crushed, had strength enough to turn back its head, to bite them in the heel, and to kill them. The reader is here presented with the succession of causes, by which this strange event was produced. The parliaments, which had opposed the society from its birth, had but too much reason for persisting in the same sentiments with regard to it. They were justly offended at the advantages of power and credit, which it had obtained in spite of them: they were above all hurt by the constitution _Unigenitus_, the acceptance of which the intrigues of the Jesuits had forced them to register; an acceptance which they thought, as we have seen, contrary to the rights of the crown; and in order to break forth, waited only for a favourable occasion, without perhaps presuming to flatter themselves that it would ever occur.