Is it not shameful, fathers, that you should venture to produce these words to make it be believed that Lessius condemns the opinion that it is lawful to kill for a buffet? and that, on the ground of this single proof, you should chuckle over it, as you have done, by saying: “Many persons of honor in Paris have already discovered this notorious falsehood by consulting Lessius, and have thus ascertained the degree of credit due to that slanderer?” Indeed! and is it thus that you abuse the confidence which those persons of honor repose in you? To show them that Lessius does not hold a certain opinion, you open the book to them at a place where he is condemning another opinion; and these persons not having begun to mistrust your good faith, and never thinking of examining whether the author speaks in that place of the subject in dispute, you impose on their credulity. I make no doubt, fathers, that to shelter yourselves from the guilt of such a scandalous lie, you had recourse to your doctrine of equivocations; and that, having read the passage _in a loud voice_, you would say, _in a lower key_, that the author was speaking there of something else. But I am not so sure whether this saving clause, which is quite enough to satisfy your consciences, will be a very satisfactory answer to the just complaint of those “honorable persons,” when they shall discover that you have hoodwinked them in this style. Take care, then, fathers, to prevent them by all means from seeing my letters; for this is the only method now left you to preserve your credit for a short time longer. This is not the way in which I deal with your writings: I send them to all my friends: I wish everybody to see them. And I verily believe that both of us are in the right for our own interests; for after having published with such parade this fourth Imposture, were it once discovered that you have made it up by foisting in one passage for another, you would be instantly denounced. It will be easily seen, that if you could have found what you wanted in the passage where Lessius treated of this matter, you would not have searched for it elsewhere, and that you had recourse to such a trick only because you could find nothing in that passage favorable to your purpose. You would have us believe that we may find in Lessius what you assert, “that he does _not_ allow that this opinion (that a man may be lawfully killed for a buffet) is probable in theory;” whereas Lessius distinctly declares, at number 80: “This opinion, that a man may kill for a buffet, _is_ probable in theory.” Is not this, word for word, the reverse of your assertion? And can we sufficiently admire the hardihood with which you have advanced, in set phrase, the very reverse of a matter of fact! To your conclusion, from a fabricated passage, that Lessius was _not_ of that opinion, we have only to place Lessius himself, who, in the genuine passage, declares that he is of that opinion.