To start with, it is known that Coleman’s correspondence did not cease, as he stated, in the year 1675. On the contrary, it was maintained down to the day of his arrest and even beyond.[90] Among others it is almost certain that he continued his negotiation with Père de la Chaize.[91] The subject of this later correspondence is debatable. It may have been concerned with a design again to establish the Roman Catholic religion in England. Or it may not; and in this case Coleman’s letters may have been filled with matters of less importance, such as are to be found in those of Cardinal Howard. This alternative however is hardly tenable. Not only are there allusions in St. Germain’s letters inexplicable except on the supposition that they refer to the hopes of the Catholics for the re-establishment of their religion, but the position of Coleman and the Jesuits rendered a continuance of their schemes virtually necessary. Early in 1676 St. Germain wrote that he had urged on La Chaize the absolute necessity of “vigorous counsels ... to produce success in the traffic of the Catholics”; in these, he said, the Duke of York took the lead, and that by the inspiration of Coleman. A month later he added that Coleman was incurring reproof at Paris on account of the violent measures he was said to advocate. The secretary of the English ambassador tried to ingratiate himself with the Jesuit by professing great zeal for the duke; was he sincere, asked St. Germain, and “has the duke all along trusted him with the secret of his affair”? On Ruvigny’s return to Paris from his embassy St. Germain had an interview with him. Ruvigny expressed the opinion that the intrigues of Coleman and the Jesuits would prove fatal to James. Their conduct was detestable not only to Protestants and the government, but to a certain section of the Catholics also, “because,” said the ambassador, “they would introduce an authority without limits and push Mr. Coleman to make such strange steps which must precipitate them into destruction.”[92] Had the policy of which St. Germain was an agent been wholly without reproach, it would be hard to ascribe an adequate meaning to expressions like these. Coleman’s anxiety to deny his correspondence would be equally difficult of explanation. Curious too would be the comment of Pomponne, the French minister for foreign affairs; for he undertook to prove the absurdity of the charges against Coleman by remarking in ridicule that he had even been accused of intriguing with Père de la Chaize, a fact the truth of which was perfectly known to him.[93] The situation of affairs argues with still greater force. The Jesuits were beyond all others the most militant order of the church. They formed the advance guard in the march against heresy. They had already borne, and were again to bear, the brunt of the battle. It was their particular business to carry war into the enemy’s camp, for this was the reason as well as the excuse for their existence.