attacked the Jesuits, now become the unconditional supporters of all despotism and tyranny. In this sense, and in this sense alone, it is true that the Encyclopædists largely contributed to the overthrow of the order. The pamphlets and books printed and widely circulated at that time against the reverend fathers were mainly a mass of evidence exposing their iniquity, and tending to effect their ruin in the opinion of Europe. Nor did the Jesuits, blinded as they were by past success, oppose any efficacious resistance to the torrent which threatened to sweep them away. Without changing their conduct in the least, they had recourse to expedients, and thought that a little patience and cunning would suffice to shelter them from the passing hurricane. This was their general practice. However, not to be altogether passive spectators in the contest, they made an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the sceptical and profligate Philip of Orleans, regent of France, not, indeed, by granting him absolution, which he cared very little for, but by negotiating for him with the Papal Court, by discovering to him the secrets of Philip V. of Spain, who had intrusted to his confessor his intention of abdicating, and by procuring for the libertine and ignoble Dubois an episcopal seat and a cardinal’s hat. But if D’Orleans, for political ends, seemed to be the Jesuits’ friend, he was not assuredly the man to use his authority to defend them; and they were, from 1716 to 1729, deprived of the exercise of every ecclesiastical function, having been interdicted by Cardinal de Noaille. Under the sensual and voluptuous Louis XV., the Jesuits attempted again to regain their lost influence, and, as far as the favourable hearing of the sovereign was concerned, they in part succeeded. They contrived to insinuate to him that their cause was the cause of religion and of the throne, both menaced by the philosophers; and, to a certain extent, they persuaded many that such was the case, and their enemies did not remain unmolested. But while the parliament and the court, in their official capacities, condemned the Encyclopædists to the Bastile, and their works to be burnt, they individually read with avidity whatever epigram was aimed at the Jesuits and the Christian religion, and Louis XV. was not the last to participate in the sneer.