“If you knew the temper of people,” replied my friend the doctor, “you would talk in another sort of way. Their censure, censurable as it is, will produce nearly all its designed effect for a time; and although, by the force of demonstration, it is certain that, in course of time, its invalidity will be made apparent, it is equally true that, at first, it will tell as effectually on the minds of most people as if it had been the most righteous sentence in the world. Let it only be cried about the streets: ‘Here you have the censure of M. Arnauld!—here you have the condemnation of the Jansenists!’ and the Jesuits will find their account in it. How few will ever read it! How few of them who do read, will understand it! How few will observe that it answers no objections! How few will take the matter to heart, or attempt to sift it to the bottom?—Mark then, how much advantage this gives to the enemies of the Jansenists. They are sure to make a triumph of it, though a vain one, as usual, for some months at least—and that is a great matter for them—they will look out afterwards for some new means of subsistence. They live from hand to mouth, sir. It is in this way they have contrived to maintain themselves down to the present day. Sometimes it is by a catechism in which a child is made to condemn their opponents; then it is by a procession, in which sufficient grace leads the efficacious in triumph; again it is by a comedy, in which Jansenius is represented as carried off by devils; at another time it is by an almanac; and now it is by this censure.”[115] “In good sooth,” said I, “I was on the point of finding fault with the conduct of the Molinists; but after what you have told me, I must say I admire their prudence and their policy. I see perfectly well that they could not have followed a safer or more judicious course.” “You are right,” returned he; “their safest policy has always been to keep silent; and this led a certain learned divine to remark, ‘that the cleverest among them are those who intrigue much, speak little, and write nothing.’ “It is on this principle that, from the commencement of the meetings, they prudently ordained that, if M. Arnauld came into the Sorbonne, it must be simply to explain what he believed, and not to enter the lists of controversy with any one. The examiners having ventured to depart a little from this prudent arrangement, suffered for their temerity. They found themselves rather too vigorously[116] refuted by his second apology. “On the same principle, they had recourse to that rare and very novel device of the half-hour and the sand-glass.[117] By this means they rid themselves of the importunity of those troublesome doctors,[118] who might undertake to refute all their arguments, to produce books which might convict them of forgery, to insist on a reply, and reduce them to the predicament of having none to give.