[Footnote 49: Steinmetz, Vol. I, pp. 391-92.] [Footnote 50: _Ibid._, p. 392.] [Footnote 51: Steinmetz, Vol. I, p. 395; Nicolini, p. 86; _Apud_ Cretineau, Vol. I, p. 320; Coudrette, Vol. I, p. 42.] [Footnote 52: Nicolini, p. 88.] CHAPTER VI. THE STRUGGLE FOR FRANCE. The facts stated in the last chapter prove incontestably that the persistent efforts of the Jesuits to procure the establishment of their society in France as a recognized religious order were insidious and stealthy, if not incendiary, from the beginning. The Bishop of Clermont--influenced, probably, by the Cardinal of Lorraine--was favorable to them; and being the owner of a house in Paris, he offered it to them, that they might inaugurate the Jesuit method of education. But neither the French Parliament, nor the universities, nor the Gallican Church could be prevailed upon to withdraw their opposition. Consequently, in order to accomplish by indirection what was forbidden by law and the public sentiment, the Jesuits opened a college at Clermont, within the diocese and under the patronage of the bishop, and beyond the limits of the city of Paris.[53] By the time of the death of Henry II the growth of Protestantism in France had become conspicuously marked. The Jesuit historian, Daurignac, represents this as a "calamity"--as a "deplorable state of things"--which it became necessary to counteract by the most active and efficient means. But as nothing could shake the stability of the people of Paris, it was deemed necessary to reach the population of that city by gradual approaches, after the manner of military commanders. Accordingly the Bishop of Pamiers was induced to solicit the assistance of the Jesuits in his diocese, and had no difficulty in finding enough of them to engage in that mission, for they were held in constant readiness to obey the orders of their superior. These Jesuit missionaries are represented as having caused many who had professed Protestantism to renounce their "heretical errors," and as having commenced their educational plan of operations by establishing a college at Pamiers. Whatsoever else they did, they obeyed implicitly the teachings of their society, for it is boastingly said that they caused the Protestants to be treated as possessing no rights of citizenship worthy of regard; for "their books were destroyed and their preachers compelled to flee."[54] But the Jesuits were still unable, by these violent means, to obtain entrance into Paris, the combined opposition of the Gallican Christians and the Protestants--who had, by this time, become sufficiently numerous to take part in the controversy--being sufficiently formidable to keep them out.