In proposing these reflexions, I am very far from disapproving of the conduct of the magistrates; who for just reasons, without doubt, thought it their duty to act otherwise: it is proper however to remark, that several parliaments have thought it their duty, on their parts, to observe a contrary conduct; after having dissolved the institution, they have left the dispersed Jesuits all the rights of subjects: but is it not to be feared, said they, that by preserving them thus in more than one half of the kingdom, they have left to these men, who are thought so turbulent, a means of forming intrigues, so much the more dangerous as they are concealed? Once more, time alone can inform us which of the judges have taken the best method in this affair; whether the one have not been too rigorous, and whether the others, in wanting to be less so, have not buried the fire under the ashes. Some parliaments besides had pronounced no sentence against the institution; and the Jesuits subsisted still entire in one part of France. There was room to apprehend, that at the first signal of rallying, the _dispersed_ party, suddenly joining the party _united_, might form a new society, even before any should be in a condition to oppose it. The wisdom, and the honour also, of government, seemed to require, that the law, with regard to the Jesuits, whatever it was, should be uniform throughout the kingdom. These views seem to have dictated the edict, by which the king has just abolished the society throughout all France; but permitting, in other respects, its members to live quietly in their country, under the eye and under the protection of the laws. May these pacifick intentions of our august monarch be crowned with the success which they merit! It was without doubt the better to fulfill these respectable intentions, that the parliament of Paris, on registering this new edict, ordained the Jesuits to reside each in his own diocese, and to present themselves every six months before the magistrates of the place in which they shall dwell. We know not whether the Jesuits, who are already withdrawn into foreign countries, will think proper to submit to this constraint. The same arrêt forbids them to come within ten leagues of Paris, which banishes them at least six leagues from Versailles, but prohibits them not from dwelling at Fontainbleau and Compiegne, where the court resides at least three months in the year. It was thought, perhaps, that during so short a space of time, their intrigues at court would not be to be dreaded.