This, however, they have done in the most unequivocal way. M. de Sainte-Beuve,[324] king’s professor in the Sorbonne, censured these propositions in his published writings long before the pope; and other Augustinian doctors, in various publications, and, among others, in a work “On Victorious Grace,”[325] reject the same articles as both heretical and strange doctrines. In the preface to that work they say that these propositions are “heretical and Lutheran, forged and fabricated at pleasure, and are neither to be found in Jansenius, nor in his defenders.” They complain of being charged with such sentiments, and address you in the words of St. Prosper, the first disciple of St. Augustine their master, to whom the semi-Pelagians of France had ascribed similar opinions, with the view of bringing him into disgrace: “There are persons who denounce us, so blinded by passion that they have adopted means for doing so which ruin their own reputation. They have, for this purpose, fabricated propositions of the most impious and blasphemous character, which they industriously circulate, to make people believe that we maintain them in the wicked sense which they are pleased to attach to them. But our reply will show at once our innocence, and the malignity of these persons who have ascribed to us a set of impious tenets, of which they are themselves the sole inventors.” Truly, father, when I found that they had spoken in this way before the appearance of the papal constitution—when I saw that they afterwards received that decree with all possible respect, that they offered to subscribe it, and that M. Arnauld had declared all this in his second letter, in stronger terms than I can report him, I should have considered it a sin to doubt their soundness in the faith. And, in fact, those who were formerly disposed to refuse absolution to M. Arnauld’s friends, have since declared, that after his explicit disclaimer of the errors imputed to him, there was no reason left for cutting off either him or them from the communion of the Church. Your associates, however, have acted very differently; and it was this that made me begin to suspect that you were actuated by prejudice. You threatened first to compel them to sign that constitution, so long as you thought they would resist it; but no sooner did you see them quite ready of their own accord to submit to it, than we heard no more about this. Still, however, though one might suppose this ought to have satisfied you, you persisted in calling them heretics, “because,” said you, “their heart belies their hand; they are Catholics outwardly, but inwardly they are heretics.”[326]