It is certain that the Jesuits, in signing the oath which was proposed, would have greatly embarrassed the Jansenists their enemies, who sought only a pretext to get them banished, and to whom that pretext would have been wanting. It is certain moreover, that as Frenchmen and as Christians they might have signed conscientiously what was required of them: this a writer, by no means well affected in other respects to the society, has proved demonstratively, by a writing which has fallen into my hands, and which will be found in the sequel of this history: but whether it was fanaticism or reason, whether a principle of conscience or human respect, whether honour or obstinacy, the Jesuits did not what they might have done, and what it was feared they would do. These men, who were thought so much disposed to trifle with religion, and who had been represented as such in a multitude of writings, refused almost all to take the oath which was required of them: in consequence thereof they had orders to quit the kingdom; and these orders were executed with rigour. In vain several of them represented their age, their infirmities, the services which they had performed; hardly one of their requests was granted. The justice which had been done on the body, was pushed against individuals to an extreme severity, which probably was thought necessary. They wanted to take away from this society, the very shadow of which seemed to terrify even after it no longer existed, all means of springing up again one day; sentiments of compassion were sacrificed to what was deemed reason of state. Nevertheless the implacable Jansenists, irritated by the very recent remembrance of the persecutions which the Jesuits had made them undergo, thought that the parliament had not yet done enough: they resembled the Swiss Captain, who ordered the dead and the dying to be buried together on the field of battle: it was represented to him, that some of the interred still breathed, and begged only to live: “Pho,” said he, “if we were to mind them, there would not be a dead man among them.”