In the first place, it was determined to extirpate Protestantism from the imperial cities. The towns east of the Ens, which had separated from the estates of the knights and nobles twenty years before, could offer no resistance; the Reformed clergy were removed, and their places filled by Catholic priests; private persons were subjected to a close examination. A formula, according to which the suspected were interrogated, has come into our possession. ‘Dost thou believe,’ inquires one of its articles, ‘that everything is true which the Church of Rome has laid down as the rule of life and doctrine?’ ‘Dost thou believe,’ adds another, ‘that the Pope is the head of the one Apostolic Church?’ No doubt was to be endured. The Protestants were to be expelled from all offices of state; none were admitted to the class of burghers who did not declare themselves Catholics. In the universities, that of Vienna not excepted, all who applied for a doctor’s degree were first required to subscribe the _Professio Fidei_. A new regulation for schools was promulgated, which prescribed Catholic formularies, fasts, worship, according to the Catholic ritual, and the exclusive use of the Catechism of Canisius. In Vienna, all Protestant books were taken away from the booksellers’ shops, and were carried in heaps to the Episcopal court. Search was made at the customhouses along the river; all packages were examined, and books or pictures not considered purely Catholic were confiscated.[196] All throughout Germany the same proceedings were resorted to, and everywhere we find the Jesuits foremost in the reaction. There was no bishop, no prince, who went to visit a province upon religious concerns, who did not bring with him a troop of Jesuits, who, on his departure, were often left there with almost unlimited powers. POLAND.