to-day, an essential part of Jesuit tactics, in the pursuit of which they are persistent and tireless. And where they have had the united aid of popes and monarchs, of Church and State, they have generally succeeded among populations not awakened by Protestant influences to a just appreciation of their own rights and dignity. In the case we have been considering they did not have very long to wait before the king, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and their allies, patronized by the pope, secured for them a conspicuous triumph over public opinion in France. The combination formed for that purpose needed their assistance in the bloody and congenial work of persecution, and this furnished a pretext for their introduction into France, notwithstanding the odium in which they were almost universally held. Nicolini says: "Soon they were called into France to help and cheer that atrocious and cruel hecatomb, that bloody debauch of priests and kings--the Saint Bartholomew."[52] Thus far a clear and distinct view is furnished of the estimate in which the Jesuits were held during the lifetime of their founder by those who were steadfastly obedient to the Christian teachings of the Roman Church. None of the opposition here noted came from Protestants, but alone from those attached to the Church which the Jesuits professed to be serving. It originated with those who had a most favorable opportunity of becoming familiar with the general character and purposes of Loyola, many of whom, in all probability, had opportunities of seeing and conversing with him, as Melchior, the Dominican monk, had done. His boasts of extraordinary sanctity, of his frequent interviews with Christ and the Virgin Mary, and his impious pretense that he occupied the place of God in the world, and, like him, possessed miraculous powers, misled very few besides those who became his minions, or those who expected to profit by alliance with him. We shall see all this still more fully in the subsequent events which attended the final introduction of the society into France, all of which combine to show the methods by which, in the course of time, it became odious to the Christian populations of Europe, was expelled ignominiously from all the Christian nations, and was, at last, when its iniquities could be patiently borne no longer, suppressed and abolished by a pope distinguished for his Christian virtue and purity of life. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 41: History of the Jesuits. By Nicolini. Page 80. History of the Jesuits. By Steinmetz. Vol. I, pp. 382-83.] [Footnote 42: Nicolini, pp. 82-83.] [Footnote 43: History of St. Ignatius Loyola. By Bartoli. Vol. II, p. 57.] [Footnote 44: _Ibid._, p. 58.] [Footnote 45: _Ibid._, p. 234.] [Footnote 46: Outlines of the History of France. Abridged from Guizot, by Gustave Masson. Pages 283-285.] [Footnote 47: _Ibid._, p. 287.] [Footnote 48: Church of France. By Jervis. Vol. I, p. 129. History of the Jesuits. By Steinmetz. Vol. I, p. 390, and note 1.]