every day. As when of two royal pretenders to a noble kingdom, the conqueror sees the crowd of his courtiers increased, not only by all those prudent persons who had waited for the result of the contest, but by a part of his former adversaries, now the most submissive and humble of all his flatterers; so the Jesuits, after they had mastered all opposition, and were in possession of power, saw themselves surrounded by a multitude of adherents and courtiers, eager to obtain their all-powerful influence. When to be a Jesuit became an honour, and the shortest way to ecclesiastical and secular dignities, persons of every sort, and especially such as were ambitious, resorted to the Society, to find the means of satisfying their several aspirations. Before Vitelleschi, the nobility had protected the Jesuits, but few of them had embraced the institute; but afterwards, the highest families in Europe, princely houses not excepted, had a representative in the Company, who gave to the order a new prestige, and imparted to it the love and veneration with which his name was regarded by the people. The houses of Lorraine, Montmorency, those of Gonzaga and Orsini, Medina-Sidonia and Abouquerque, Limberg, and Cassimir of Poland, and a thousand other great and illustrious families, respectively contributed members to the order of the Jesuits. Our space will not allow us to enter into details, and to follow the Jesuits step by step in their prosperous course. Let it suffice that we have shewn how the Society developed itself by degrees, and by what means it arrived at the pinnacle of power and greatness. We shall now proceed to shew, in its principal facts, what use the Jesuits made of their ill-gotten influence.