or to expel them in a more absolute manner, using against them all the rigour and severity that can be thought of to prevent them from ever approaching either my person or my estates; on which supposition there is no doubt but that we shall drive them to despair, and to the resolution of attempting my life, which would render it so miserable to me, being always under the apprehension of being poisoned or murdered (for those people have correspondents everywhere, and are very dexterous in disposing the minds of men to whatever they wish), that I think it would be better to be already dead, being of Cæsar’s opinion, that the sweetest death is that which is least expected and foreseen.”[212] In conformity with this opinion, Henry, in 1603, issued letters-patent for the re-establishment of the Jesuits, and _forced_ the reluctant parliament to register them. To Acquaviva he wrote a warm letter, assuring him of his friendship, and expressing to the then convened congregation his wishes that the original Constitutions should not be altered, and this letter in great part checked the influence of the Spanish party, who asked for a reform, and were supported by the Spanish court.[213] In the affair of Venice, the two courts shewed the same dispositions. It does not enter into the plan of this work to narrate the particulars of this famous contest, except in so far as the Jesuits were concerned in it, and it belongs to their history; and this we proceed to do as shortly as possible. Long had the difference lasted between the Roman See and the Venetian government, the first asserting many privileges of the Church over state affairs, the latter denying them. The Jesuits upheld the exorbitant pretensions of Rome with the utmost pertinacity. Now, it happened, while both parties were exasperated against each other, two priests, accused of infamous crimes, were, by order of the Venetian government, arrested, and delivered up to the ordinary tribunals. The Pope was highly incensed at this proceeding, and contended that the republic had no right to arrest any ecclesiastic, who was subject to none but ecclesiastical authority. The Jesuits were the most zealous of the clergy in maintaining this principle. The famous Bellarmine asserted, that “the priesthood has its princes who govern, not only in spiritual, but also in temporal matters. It could not possibly acknowledge any particular temporal superior. No man can serve two masters. It is for the priest to judge the emperor, not the emperor the priest. It would be absurd for the sheep to pretend to judge the shepherd.”[214] The republic, on the other hand, asserted her sovereign rights. Paul V. was in the Papal chair, a man who considered the canonical law as the word of God, and was ready to excommunicate whosoever dared to disregard its authority. He laid Venice under an interdict, which, as most of our readers are aware, would have shut up all the churches, and prevented the performance of all religious