It would be needless for us to touch these propositions, even by way of explanation. We have endeavoured to state them from the original Latin as clearly as we can, so that they may bear some definite meaning even to the non-theological reader. But their very statement bristles with controversy, and the half-extinct meanings of old questions that go to the root of Christian thought lie hid in their language. All the propositions were condemned without reserve, but two points were left unsettled. It was not asserted that the propositions were to be found in the ‘Augustinus,’ and that they were condemned in the sense in which Jansen held them, and in no other. The course of the controversy and the fate of Port Royal in the end mainly turned upon these points. The Papal Bull condemning the five propositions was speedily published in France, and the triumph of the Jesuits was undisguised. A great blow had been struck, and for a time all seemed inclined to bow before it. Political reasons combined with others to give effect to the Papal verdict. Cardinal Mazarin, in possession of the favour of the Queen-mother, had imprisoned his enemy, Cardinal de Retz, who had so long waged in the intrigues and wars of the Fronde a restless conflict with them; and as the latter in his prosperity had shown a certain favour for Port Royal, this was enough to stimulate, on the part of Mazarin, an interest on behalf of the Jesuits. Yet he was reluctant to move actively against the Jansenists. M. d’Andilly still had his ear in matters of State, and by his intervention and that of others the project of an armistice was for a time entertained. Port Royal was to keep silence, if its enemies did not push their triumph to an extremity. Even the indefatigable Arnauld seems to have promised to be quiet. But the Jesuits were too conscious of their power, and too relentless in their hostility, to pause in their determination to crush their opponents. They had recourse both to gibes and to active persecution. They printed an almanac with the figure of Jansen as frontispiece, flying in the guise of a winged devil before the Pope and the king into the arms of the Huguenots. They assailed the Duc de Liancourt, and refused him absolution in his own parish church, for no other reason but that he was on friendly relations with Port Royal, and would not withdraw, at their demand, his granddaughter from its protection. This affair, which appears to have been deliberately planned, caused a great sensation, and became, strangely, the indirect occasion of the ‘Provincial Letters.’