To be accused of teaching lax morality by those who were intimately associated with and supported by such an indescribable prelate as the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, Gondi, was particularly galling to the French Jesuits, and unfortunately it had the effect of provoking them to answer the charges. "In doing so," says Crétineau-Joly, "the Jesuits killed themselves;" and Brou, in "Les Jésuites et la légende," is of the opinion that "more harm was done to the Society by these injudicious and incompetent defenders than by Pascal himself. It would have been better to have said nothing." On the other hand, Petit de Julleville, in his "Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française," tells us that one of these Jesuit champions induced Pascal to discontinue his attacks, just at the moment that the world was rubbing its hands with glee and expecting the fiercest kind of an onslaught. "I wish," said Morel, addressing himself to Pascal, "that after a sincere reconciliation with the Jesuits, you would turn your pen against the heretics, the unbelievers, the libertines, and the corruptors of morals." The fact is that although Pascal did not seek a reconciliation with the Jesuits, he suddenly and unaccountably stopped writing against them; and in 1657 he actually turned his pen against the libertines of France, as he had been asked (IV, 604). Mère Angélique, Arnauld's sister, is also credited with having had something to do with this cessation of hostilities, when she wrote: "Silence would be better and more agreeable to God who would be more quickly appeased by tears and by penance than by eloquence which amuses more people than it converts." Perhaps the entrance of the great Bourdaloue on the scene contributed something to this change of attitude on the part of the Jansenist. As court preacher, he had it in his power to refute the calumnies of Arnauld and Pascal, and he availed himself of the opportunity with marvellous power and effect. In the "Causeries du Lundi" Sainte-Beuve, who favored the Jansenists, writes: "In saying that the Jesuits made no direct and categorical denial to the _Provinciales_, until forty years later, when Daniel took up his pen, we forget that long and continual refutation by Bourdaloue in his public sermons in which there is nothing lacking except the proper names; but his hearers and his contemporaries in general, who were familiar with the controversies and were partisans of either side, easily supplied these. Thus in his Sermon on 'Lying' he paints that vice with most exquisite skill, adding touch after touch, till it stands out in all its hideousness. As he speaks, you see it before you with its subtle sinuosities from the moment it begins the attack, under the pretence of an amicable censorship, up to the moment when the complete calumny is reiterated under the guise of friendship and religion." The following extract is an example of this method.