and who, according to Arnauld, “was the most cruel tiger that prowled through Paris.” In fact, after his arrival, the Jesuits became still more audacious, and engaged in more criminal proceedings. After Henry IV. had abjured the Protestant faith, and when he was at Melun, a man was arrested on suspicion of having come thither to make an attempt upon his life. Barrière—such was the assassin’s name—to escape the torture, acknowledged his guilt. He confessed that having consulted with Aubrey, a curate of Paris, regarding his project, he was highly commended, and sent to Varade, the rector of the Jesuits, who confirmed him in his praiseworthy resolution, and gave him his benediction; that next morning he confessed to another Jesuit, and received the communion. Barrière repeated on the scaffold the declaration he had already made; and Pasquier, who was at Melun at the time, declares that he had examined the culprit, had read the informations and depositions, and even handled the knife with which the crime was to have been perpetrated.[183] Mezarai confirms the testimony of Pasquier in the most unequivocal manner. “When the king,” says he, “had reduced Paris to submission, he gave a safe-conduct to the Cardinal of Plaisance, who had acted with so much energy against him, and granted him permission to take with him Aubrey, curate of St André des Arcs, and the Jesuit Varade, although culpable of participating in the horrible assassination of Barrière.”[184] Barrière was executed, but his fate did not deter other fanatics from making similar attempts, nor the Jesuits from giving them encouragement. A few months after Henry had made his entrance into Paris, a youth of nineteen, named John Chastel, raised an impious hand against the king. The blow was aimed at his throat, but happening to bend his head at the instant to salute one of his courtiers, it only wounded his lips. Chastel was a student of philosophy in the Jesuits’ College under Father Gueret. He confessed that “in the Jesuits’ house, he had been often in the chamber of meditation, into which the Jesuits introduced the greatest sinners, where they were shewn the pictures of devils and other frightful figures to induce them to lead a better life, and, by working upon their spirits, to induce them by these admonitions to perform some extraordinary deed.” He further confessed that he had heard the Jesuits say “that it was lawful to kill the king, since he was out of the Church; and that no one ought to obey him, or acknowledge him as king, till he should be approved of by the Pope.”[185] The murderer, on his examination, boldly maintained this last proposition; and “this avowal,” says Mezarai, “joined to the injurious libels against Henry III. and the reigning king; joined to the ardour which the Jesuits had shewn for the interests of Spain, and to the doctrines their preachers had propounded against the security of the king, and against the ancient law of the