On account of this charge of regicide, so often renewed against the Jesuits, we shall relate here a curious anecdote. It is astonishing, that among so many pieces which have called these fathers _assassins_, not one has made mention of a circumstance indeed little known, but which seems to afford a fine light to their enemies. At Rome, in their church of St. Ignatius, they have caused to be represented in the four corners of the cupola (painted about a hundred years since by one of their fathers) subjects drawn from the Old Testament; and these subjects are so many assassinations, or at least murders, committed in the name of God by the Jewish people: Jael, who, impelled by the Divine Spirit, drives a nail into Sisera’s head, to whom she had offered and given hospitality; Judith, who, conducted by the same guide, cuts off the head of Holofernes, after having seduced and made him drunk; Sampson, who massacres the Philistines by order of the Almighty; lastly, David, who slays Goliah. At the top of the cupola, St. Ignatius, in a glory, darts out flames on the four quarters of the world, with these words of the New Testament; “I came to set fire to the earth; and what would I but that it be kindled?” Methinks, if any thing could make known the spirit of the society, with respect to the murderous doctrine that is imputed to them, these pictures would be a stronger proof of it than all the passages which are related from their authors, and which are common to them with many others: but the truth is, that these principles, supported in appearance by the scriptures ill understood, are the principles of the fanaticks of all ages; and we may add, of the greater part of any sect, when they believe it to be their interest to propagate them, and that they can preach them in safety. To them an heretick and infidel prince is a tyrant, and of course a man whom religion and reason order us equally to rid ourselves of. The only thing which the Jesuits ought to be reproached with, is that of having forsaken these abominable principles later than others, after having more strongly maintained them; of making particular profession of obedience to the pope, and of a stricter obedience than the other orders; of being, on this account, so much the more to be dreaded in the state, the more they are in credit there, the more dispersed, the more addicted to the ecclesiastical function, and above all to the instruction of youth; of never having expressed themselves frankly and clearly (when they have not been forced to it) on the maxims of government, touching the infallibility of the pope, and the independence of kings; and of having given too much room to understand, that they looked upon these maxims as mere local opinions, which might be maintained either pro or con, according to the country in which they found themselves placed. We may say with truth, and without passion, that this manner of thinking breaks forth in all their works, and in those even of the