[114] It must be acknowledged, that this calumny has been too hastily placed to the credit of Laicus. He has not the honour of the invention. Calumny it certainly is. Whoever knows the angry temper of the parliament of Paris, in 1757, when their opposition to the king, and their fury against the archbishop De Beaumont and the Jesuits, were wound up to an uncommon height, must allow, that they would have been delighted with the detection of the slightest symptom, the most distant presumption of guilt, in any Jesuit. The wretched culprit Damiens was frequently interrogated with this view. He constantly denied that he had any accomplice, but owned, that he had conceived the idea of his crime, from frequently hearing the table talk of members of the parliament, on whom he waited; his design being, as he pretended, only to make the king more attentive to the voice and complaints of the people. Notwithstanding the certainty of this, one of the above mentioned Italian libels, written _per il minuto populo_, informs them roundly, that the Jesuits were accomplices of Damiens, and that two Jesuits were _privately_ hanged for it in the _Bastille_. But why was not Laicus equally trusted with the secrets of that state prison? Possibly he has learned this lesson from his oracle Coudrette. He cannot however glory in the invention. [115] It may be suspected, that Coudrette is really the writer, to whom, suppressing his name, Robertson so often refers his readers, in his account of Jesuits, in the Life of Charles V. Perhaps he was ashamed to name such an author. But he had already forfeited his title to historical impartiality, by acknowledging, that his unfavourable account of the Jesuits is derived from the _Comptes Rendus_ and _Requisitoires_ of La Chalotais, attorney general of the parliament of Bretagne, who, not less than Coudrette, was truly _un ennemi acharné des Jesuites_. [116] "They," said Dr. Johnson, "who would cry out _Popery_ in the present day, would have cried _Fire_ in the time of the deluge." [117] See Letter V. [118] See Letter V. [119] See Letter V. [120] The preservation of the society of Jesus in the Russian empire, in spite of innumerable solicitations, schemes, and intrigues employed to procure its suppression, would form a curious morsel of _particular_ history, highly honourable to the court of Petersburg and creditable to the Jesuits. [121] The French League. [122] Si acciderit aliquod ex peccatis (avertas id Deus), quæ sufficiunt ad præpositum officio privandum, simul atque res per sufficientia testimonia, vel ipsius affirmationem constaret, juramento adstringantur assistentes ad id societati denuntiandum.--Cap. V. art. iv, p. 440.