The jubilee of the year 1676 brought about what certain historians call the _conversion_ of Louis XIV. This prince experienced deep remorse that he had caused so much scandal at court and in his kingdom by his public adulteries. He resolved, so he promised his spiritual directors, not to revisit Mademoiselle de Montespan. But he had not the firmness to keep his word. His conscience became thereupon disturbed, and he had troubles of mind and of heart, which were skilfully turned against the heretics by Father La Chaise, who had been promoted about a year before to the office of the king’s confessor. The Reformed were made to atone for the faults of the monarch, and to reconcile him with his offended God by their abjuration, or their ruin. The religion of Louis XIV. was of this kind. If he had not sufficient piety to conquer his passions, he had enough bigotry to imagine that he could expiate his errors by the reduction of heretics to the Roman unity. Louis XIV. received his first religious ideas from a Spanish mother, who, very ignorant herself, had impressed his mind with many petty scruples, and but little enlightenment on faith and Christian morality. The Jesuits had continued her work, by inspiring their pupil with sentiments, which might subserve for the accomplishment of their designs. Having understood at a later period how badly he had been educated, he remodelled his education as to those matters which most interested the dignity and authority of his crown. Unhappily, he remained just where he was in respect of religious matters, and his habits were no better than his spiritual convictions. “He never had a proper idea of his duties,” says M. de Sismondi. It was not only his amours which deserve censure, although the scandal of their publicity, the dignities to which he raised the children of his adultery, and the constant humiliation to which he subjected his wife, add greatly to his offence against public morality. He made himself besides deeply guilty by the merciless cruelty with which he shed blood, at one time by such executions as those he inflicted upon the Bretons to punish them for having defended their privileges, at another by the ruin of entire populations. No respect for engagements, no notion of right or wrong, regulated either his public or his private conduct. He violated treaties just as he violated his domestic engagements; he seized the property of his subjects, as well as that of his cousin, Mademoiselle de Montpensier. He acknowledged in his judgments, and in his rigour towards his people, no rule but his own will. At the very moment that his subjects were dying of famine, he retrenched nothing from his prodigalities. Those, who boasted of having converted him, had never represented to him more than two duties, that of renouncing his incontinence, and that of extirpating heresy in his dominions.[88]