“I am happy,” says Nicole, in a note, “to state here an important fact, which confers the highest honor on M. Arnauld. A work of considerable size was sent him before going to press, in which there was a collection of all the authorities, from Jesuit writers, prejudicial to the life of kings and princes. That celebrated doctor prevented the impression of the work, on the ground that it was dangerous for the life of monarchs and for the honor of the Jesuits that it should ever see the light; and, in fact, the work was never printed. Some other writer, less delicate than M. Arnauld, has published something similar, in a work entitled _Recueil de Pieces concernant l’ Histoire de la Compagnie de Jesus, par le P. Jouvenci_.” Footnote 264: Surely Pascal is here describing the Church of Christ as she ought to be, and not the Church of Rome as she existed in 1656, at the very time when she was urging, sanctioning, and exulting in the bloody barbarities perpetrated in her name on the poor Piedmontese; or the same Church as she appeared in 1572, when one of her popes ordered a medal to be struck in honor of the Bartholomew massacre, with the inscription, “_Strages Hugonotarum_—The massacre of the Hugunots!” Of what Church, if not the Romish, can it be said with truth, that, “in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain on the earth?” Footnote 265: _Providing for their consciences_—that is, for the relief of conscience, by confessing to a priest, and receiving absolution. Footnote 266: See Letter xiii., p. 264. LETTER XV.[267] TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS. SHOWING THAT THE JESUITS FIRST EXCLUDE CALUMNY FROM THEIR CATALOGUE OF CRIMES, AND THEN EMPLOY IT IN DENOUNCING THEIR OPPONENTS. _November 25, 1656._ REVEREND FATHERS,—As your scurrilities are daily increasing, and as you are employing them in the merciless abuse of all pious persons opposed to your errors, I feel myself obliged, for their sake and that of the Church, to bring out that grand secret of your policy, which I promised to disclose some time ago, in order that all may know, through means of your own maxims, what degree of credit is due to your calumnious accusations.