Tho’ you convers’d with none but impudent lousy rhimers, yet you are not ignorant, you little jack-pudding of the stage, that all comparisons are odious; and that there can be none between the confessor of a monarch, and a buffoon. But to answer your letter with the moderation and prudence of a _Jesuit_, I will suppose the first part of it not meant to me. And now to take into consideration the essential points in it: have we not proscribed heresy by sound of trumpet? And notwithstanding all the pretty books we have published, and the cajoling tricks we have used, is not heresy still the same? But to be serious, _Harlequin_, good _Roman Catholicks_ must follow no other lights than those of tradition; and they, who are so incredulous and obstinate as not to believe it, must have their eyes opened with the sword. ’Twould be a fine enterprize, wou’d it not, and very profitable to the church, to condemn images, candles, holy-water, beads, scapularies, relicks, with an hundred others, which are so many golden mines, and offer only to bigots the slovenly equipage of _Calvin_’s reformation? Devotion meerly spiritual, is too flat and insipid; therefore we must set it off with jubilees, pilgrimages, processions, drums, trumpets, crosses, banners, and all the mountebank tricks, and noble nick-nacks of St. _Germain_’s fair. If I did not know that jesting was an habitual sin in you, I wou’d never pardon you; for the _Society of Jesus_ does not teach us to forgive injuries. Tell St. _Loyola_, the first of us that shall be sent post to mighty _Lucifer_, to desire his assistance in those important affairs our great monarch has undertaken by his instigation, and which are too tedious now to relate, shall put into his portmantle some ice to refresh him, plaisters for his megrim, and ointment for his burns: tell him also, that the memory of the glorious prophet _Mahomet_, is not more respected than his; and that I am, _His most zealous, and very humble Servant_, la CHAISE. _The Duke of_ ALVA _to the_ CLERGY _of_ FRANCE.