On banishing the Jesuits by its first arrêt, the parliament of Paris had assigned them pensions for their subsistence: this mitigation to their exile appeared to many people a contradiction. Wherefore, said they, facilitate a retreat into foreign countries to subjects reputed dangerous, apostles of regicide, enemies of the state, and who, by refusing to renounce the society, prefer their Italian general to their lawful sovereign? There is no cause, however, for blaming with severity this apparent contradiction; though we should disapprove, in logical rigour, of what it is not our province to decide upon, we ought still more to excuse it, on account of the law of nature which existed before there were Jansenists and Jesuits. Those who have hampered themselves in the institution of the society, did it altogether under the protection of the publick faith and the laws: if they have refused to renounce it, it may be thro’ a delicacy of conscience ever to be respected, even in men who are wrong. On sacrificing them to the necessity which was thought indispensible, of no longer permitting Jesuits in France, it would have been inhuman to deprive them of the necessaries of life, and to forbid them even the air which they breathe. As to the rest, these reflexions, whether well or ill founded, have no longer place, from the moment that the Jesuits are permitted, without requiring any thing of them, to remain in the kingdom: after having deprived the society of its effects, it is right to furnish its members with the means of subsisting, inasmuch as it is thought possible, without inconvenience, to restore them to the state to which they belong. Let us not forget, before we conclude this narrative, a singular circumstance, extremely proper to shew, in its true point of view, the pretended concern for religion, with which several of its ministers seek to bedeck themselves. Some bishops, who reside in their dioceses, joined themselves, by their mandates, to the archbishop, defender of the Jesuits: other bishops (who reside not) were ready to join themselves also. The parliament made a shew of wanting to renew, and causing to be observed with rigour, the ancient laws respecting residence: these bishops then were silent, and their menacing zeal expired on their lips. Disconcerted and humbled at their impotence against the enemies of the Jesuits, they will seek perhaps to indemnify themselves, by falling upon the philosophers, whom they accuse, very unjustly, of having communicated to the parliament of Paris their pretended liberty of thinking: even already some of these prelates, we are assured, have taken this sad and feeble revenge; like that wretch, on whom, as he was passing, a tile fell from the top of a house, the roof of which was repairing; and who, to revenge himself, threw stones up to the first story, not having strength, as he said, to throw them higher.