THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

A HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF FRANCE FROM THE CONCORDAT OF BOLOGNA, A.D. 1516, TO THE REVOLUTION, A.D. 1789.

CHAPTER XII.

THE BULL “ CUM OCCASIONE ”

The decision was finally taken on the eve of Whitsunday, the 31st of May, 1653; and eight days afterwards the bull “Cum occasione” was promulgated at Rome with the customary formalities. “Whereas ” (such is its tenor), “ on the occasion of the printing of a work entitled the Augustinus of Cornelius Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, among other opinions of that author a controversy arose, principally in France, respecting five of them; many of the Gallican bishops pressed us to enter into an examination of the said contested opinions, and to pronounce a definite judgment concerning each of them. We, who amid the manifold cares which continually trouble our mind, are anxious above all things that the Church of God committed to us may be delivered from pernicious errors which threaten its safety, and, like a ship on a tranquil sea, may pursue its course peacefully, and attain the wished-for haven of salvation; considering the importance of the case, have caused the aforesaid propositions to be diligently examined, one by one, by several learned doctors in theology, in the presence of certain Cardinals of the holy Roman Church, specially and frequently assembled for that purpose. We have maturely reviewed their suffrages, given both viva voce and in writing, and have heard the said doctors discourse at length upon the propositions, and on each one of them separately; many congregations having been held in our presence. From the commencement of these discussions we directed prayers, both public and private, to be offered for the Divine assistance, and have latterly caused them to be renewed with increased fervour. At length, by the favour and guidance of the Holy Spirit, we have arrived at the following declaration and definition.

“As to the first of these propositions, ‘Certain commandments of God are impossible to just persons who desire and endeavour to obey them, as regards the strength they then possess, and such grace is denied them as would enable them to perform them’, we declare it to be rash, impious, blasphemous, heretical, and as such we condemn it.

“The second, ‘In the state of corrupt nature internal grace is never resiste ’—we declare heretical, and condemn it as such.

“The third—‘In order to merit and demerit in the state of fallen nature, there is no need of liberty exempt from necessity, but freedom from actual compulsion is sufficient’—we declare heretical, and as such we condemn it.

“ The fourth—‘The Semi-Pelagians admitted the necessity of internal and prevenient grace for every action in particular, even for the first beginning of faith; their heresy consisted in maintaining that this grace is such that man’s will can either resist it or obey it ’—we declare to be false and heretical, and as such we condemn it.

“The fifth—‘It is a Semi-Pelagian error to say that Jesus Christ died, or shed His blood, for all men without exception’—we declare to be false, rash, scandalous; and if understood in the sense that Christ died for the predestined only, we declare it impious, blasphemous, derogatory to the goodness of God, heretical, and as such we condemn it.

“In consequence, the faithful of both sexes are forbidden, under all the pains and penalties denounced against heretics and their abettors, to believe, teach, or preach concerning the said propositions otherwise than the present constitution directs; and the diocesan ordinaries are enjoined to put the laws of ecclesiastical discipline in force against all offenders.” To guard against misconception, the Bull states in conclusion that the condemnation of these particular errors is not to be taken as conveying by implication any approval of other opinions con­tained in the writings of Jansenius.

When St. Amour and his colleagues presented themselves to take leave, the Pope complimented them warmly on the learning, eloquence, and ability they had shown in the discharge of their duty; and repeated the assurance that the Bull was not to be understood as contravening or disparaging in any degree the doctrine of St. Augustine, which was and would always be that of the Holy See and of the Church. But his Holiness was far from intending to affirm (though the Jansenists thought proper to interpret his words to that effect) that every sentiment expressed by Augustine on the deep mysteries of grace was to be regarded as forming part of the infallible tradition of the Church Catholic.

Copies of the Bull were immediately despatched to France, accompanied by briefs to the Queen Regent, to the King, to Cardinal Mazarin, and to the bishops, exhorting them to cause it to be published and duly executed. A royal edict for that purpose was issued accordingly to the prelates of the kingdom on the 4th of July; and on the 11th, those who were in Paris assembled at the Louvre to the number of thirty, three of whom, the Bishops of Valence, Châlons and Grasse, were among the signers of the letter to the Pope in deprecation of the late proceedings. After a speech from Mazarin, the Bull was accepted, though not altogether without objection; and the bishops drew up a letter to the Pope, expressing the satisfaction and gratitude with which the Gallican Church welcomed the important step taken by his Holiness. The questions lately agitated, they observed, were of the deepest moment; vital doctrines were at stake; that of the ineffable love which the Redeemer bears to the whole race of man; that of the work of salvation, effected as it is co-ordinately by the aid of Divine grace and by the free action of the human will, supernaturally aroused and sustained. These truths had been obscured by the rash lucubra­tions of Jansenius; but his Holiness had re-established them in all their former lustre by the decree, which he had just pronounced at the desire of the bishops of France, in conformity with the ancient rule of faith derived from Scripture and the tradition of the Fathers. In like manner as Pope Innocent I had condemned the heresy of Pelagius upon the report submitted to him by the bishops of Africa, so had Innocent X denounced heresy in its opposite extreme on the application of the Gallican episcopate. And as the Church of the fifth century unanimously adhered to the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff of that day, relying not only on the promises made by Christ to St. Peter, but on the acts of preceding Popes, such as those of Damasus in condemnation of Apollinarius and Macedonius; so his Holiness might be assured that in the present instance, the same supreme authority having been exerted, it would be regarded by the whole Church with the same unqualified respect. Since in this cause the earthly monarch might be said (in the language of Sixtus III) to be confederate with the King of heaven, there could be no question that the new heresy would be crushed against the immovable Rock, and would be finally destroyed.

The same prelates addressed a circular letter to their brethren, together with a form of mandement, which they recommended for adoption and publication in every diocese. The bishops in general accepted this recommendation; but some few judged it advisable to explain that the bull—in the terms of which they cordially concurred—was not designed to affect in any measure the doctrine of St. Augustine concerning efficacious grace. Foremost among those who took this course was Gondrin, Archbishop of Sens, a well-known partisan of the Jansenists; he was followed by Henry Arnauld, Bishop of Angers (a brother of the great Antoine), and by the Bishops of Beauvais, Orleans, and Comminges.

The Sorbonne, on the motion of the Bishop of Rennes, registered the Pope’s constitution without opposition; and it was ordered that any member of the Faculty who might thenceforward maintain publicly either of the condemned Propositions should be expelled from the Society, and his name be erased from the list of doctors. Corresponding measures were adopted by the provincial Universities, and by most of the religious communities. The bull was likewise accepted without hesitation in Flanders, and even by the University of Louvain, the very cradle of Jansenist theology.

It must be borne in mind that the posture of political affairs at this moment was unfavourable to the Jansenists. The faction of the Fronde—with which, whether justly or unjustly, they had been identified from the beginning of the civil troubles—had recently made its submission to the Government. Mazarin had returned triumphantly from exile; his bitter enemy, De Retz, who was generally looked upon as the most powerful patron of Port Royal; had been outmanoeuvred by the Court, and was a prisoner in the chateau of Vincennes. The minister, in this full tide of popularity, found no difficulty in carrying out a rigorous line of policy against the defenders of the ‘Augustinus,’ damaged and discredited as they were already in public opinion. The questions in dispute, in their purely theological character, were to Mazarin matters of supreme indifference; but it was his interest to conciliate the Pope, who had expressed strongly his displeasure at the imprisonment of De Retz, and the attempts made to extort from him a resignation of his see; while the preservation of his ascendency at court was an object still nearer to his heart. He saw that both purposes might be served at once by gratifying the Jesuits; and accordingly the subtle Italian lent himself willingly to the designs of the party which for the time was in the stronger position. The heads of the French Church acquiesced with more or less alacrity; and whereas the bull “In eminenti” had been the subject of endless cavils, the bull “Cum occasione” was approved almost unanimously through­out the kingdom.

The pastoral of the Archbishop of Sens was forwarded by the nuncio at Paris to Rome, where it excited grave animadversion; for the writer had enunciated in strong terms the obnoxious Gallican maxim, that the right of judging in the first instance in causes ecclesiastical belongs to the diocesan episcopate. The Pope threatened the Archbishop with excommunication; but contented himself afterwards with naming a commission of bishops to adjudicate in his stead. The Commissioners (or rather the Nuncio and Mazarin, who took the matter into their own hands) endeavoured to obtain satisfaction from the Archbishop in the shape of a letter disavowing the doctrines of his pastoral. This he declined; but consented, after much negotiation, to write to the Pope signifying in general terms his adhesion to the late constitution, avoiding, however, any precise definition of the sense which he attached to the condemnation of the Five Propositions. This ultimatum in the way of concession was tacitly accepted, and no further proceedings were taken in the case.

Notwithstanding the universal profession of readiness to bow to the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff, the excitement connected with Jansenius and his work was by no means destined to subside. At the point which we have now reached the controversy entered upon a new phase; and henceforward the course pursued by the Jansenists does little credit to their reputation for honesty and candour. The bull “Cum occasione” was manifestly intended to condemn certain opinions published and maintained by the late Bishop of Ypres. The Augustinus was the sole subject-matter of the controversy; the application to Rome had been made for the express pur­pose of obtaining a definite judgment on its contents; and the whole drift of the judicial investigation tended towards this end. The bull, however, did not declare that the condemned propositions were cited from the Augustinus; while on the other hand the Pope had privately stated that the censure by no means applied to the doctrine of efficacious grace, nor to any other part of the teaching of St. Augustine. From these two facts, the Jansenists proceeded to extract a system of evasive self-justification. They admitted that the Five Propositions were justly condemned; but they contended that Jansenius had never held such opinions; that no such statements were to be found in his work; that his doctrine on the points in question was identical with that of St. Augustine, which was confessedly unimpeached and unimpeachable; and that in consequence the Pontifical sentence was no more a condemnation of the Bishop of Ypres than of the Bishop of Hippo. The sense in which the Propositions were declared heretical, they insisted, was not that of Jansenius, but one falsely imputed to him, altogether misrepresenting his sentiments. His real belief had been explained at length by those who lately advocated his cause at Rome. It was that of an orthodox Catholic, equally far removed from the heresy of Calvin on the one side and from the Semi-Pelagianism of Molina on the other.

Such was the purport of three treatises from the pen of Antoine Arnauld (printed, however, without his name), in reply to one entitled Cavilli Jansenianorum, by Father Annat, the Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV. The bishops, who saw that if this sophistical line of defence were allowed to pass unchallenged the Pope’s bull would become utterly illusory, forth­with held a meeting, and appointed a committee to examine whether the Five Propositions existed textually in the work of Jansenius. After careful investigation, they reported, on the 26th of March, 1651, that the Propositions were indubitably contained in the ‘Augustinus; that the Pope had condemned them as having been advanced by Jansenius, and in the sense intended by that author; that the said Propositions follow of necessity from the dogma that all grace which gives the power to act rightly is invariably efficacious; and that this being notoriously the doctrine of Jansenius, the condemned heresies must, by the very force of the terms, be referred to him. The report pointed out, further, that the Jansenists were without warrant in asserting that their doctrine was identical with that of St. Augustine; that Augustine, rightly understood, was in accordance with the late Papal constitution, and opposed to the opinions of Jansenius. Augustine, undoubtedly, had taught, with regard to the subjects in dispute, what appertained to the Rule of Faith; but he had taught, in addition, other things which were not of faith, and which had been left undecided by Pope Celestine. Now, it was the misfortune of Jansenius that the opinions contained in the Five Propositions were not among those which the Church had classed as open questions, but among those which were contrary to the primitive Rule of Faith—that faith which Augustine had so triumphantly defended. No Catholic writer of an earlier date than Baius had ever inter­preted Augustine in the sense advocated by Jansenius; and Baius, as all the world knew, had been condemned for that very reason by Popes Gregory XIII. and Pius V. In conclusion, the Report referred to the Council of Trent, whose decrees had fixed definitively the true meaning of that great and saintly Doctor of the Church, whom commentators so grossly misrepresented.

This report was opposed at first by the Archbishop of Sens and other prelates; but eventually they agreed to it, with certain reservations, out of consideration for their brethren and for the sake of peace. It was forwarded to Rome, and was received by the Pope with lively expressions of gratitude. His Holiness replied in a brief addressed to the General Assembly of the French clergy, in which he stated that he had con­demned by his bull “the doctrine of Cornelius Jansenius, as contained in his work entitled Augustinus.” By the same brief he exhorted the clergy to execute a decree which he had recently issued, proscribing no less than forty different publications in defence of Jansenius. The list included Antoine Arnauld’s two ‘Apologies’ for that prelate; the famous ‘Ecrit a trois colonnes;’ a treatise, ‘De la Grace victorieuse,’ by the Abbé de la Lanne; the pastoral letters of the Archbishop of Sens and the Bishop of Comminges ; and the ‘ Catechisme de la Grace,’ attributed to a doctor of the Sorbonne named Feydeau.

These were among the last acts of the pontificate of Innocent X. He expired on the 7th of January, 1655, and was succeeded by Cardinal Chigi, who assumed the name of Alex­ander VII.

Mazarin, without waiting for the regular session of the General Assembly, called the bishops together at the Louvre in May, 1655, and persuaded them not only to receive the late brief of Pope Innocent, but also to send a circular letter to their colleagues, urging them to cause the bull “ Cum occasione,” together with the brief of September, 1654, to be subscribed by the clergy of all ranks throughout the kingdom, including the rectors of Universities’ and all persons holding public office in the Church, under pain of being proceeded against as heretics.! Such was the first mention of this ill-advised measure, the ulterior results of which were so fraught with disaster to the Church of France.

It might have been reasonably hoped that, since Rome had now spoken in a tone of authority which none could mistake or dispute, both parties in the strife would be content to lay down their arms and proclaim peace; that the victors would have deemed it wise to triumph with moderation ; and that the vanquished, on their part, would have exhibited a spirit of frank and cordial submission. Events, however, turned out very differently. The Jansenists, while professing to abjure ex animo the five heretical Propositions, persisted in their theory that, notwithstanding the recent proceedings, the doctrine of Jansenius was not in reality condemned. The dominant majority, on the other hand, abused their success; they pressed the Papal judgment to unwarrantable lengths, and converted it into an instrument of persecution. The stigma of heresy was now inflicted without mercy upon all who were known to sympathise in any measure with Jansenius; and the scourge was applied with special rigour to Port Royal, upon which ill-fated community the Jesuits resolved to wreak their malice to the uttermost

Port Royal was at this time in the meridian of its fame and prosperity. The Abbess Angelique had returned, in May, 1648, to the original cloister in the valley of Chevreuse, where the community over which she presided seldom num­bered less than a hundred, including novices and postulants. Singlin still filled the office of Director, assisted by Isaac de Sacy, one of the nephews of Antoine Arnauld. Pierre Nicole, Claude Lancelot, Sebastian Tillemont, were prosecuting their learned labours at Les Granges, a farmhouse which overlooked the monastery. The Duc de Luynes, son of the Constable, was installed in a modest mansion, the Chateau de Vaumurier, in close proximity to the abbey, where he led a life of pious and studious seclusion. It was at this period, too, that the Port Royalists received an illustrious addition to their ranks in the person of Blaise Pascal,—a name not more inseparably linked with the history of philosophical and scientific discovery than with the Jansenistic controversy. His sister Jacqueline had made her profession at the convent some two years previously, under the name of Soeur Ste. Euphemie. Her influence, added to the fervent exhortations of Singlin and De Sacy, and the impression produced by a remarkable escape from imminent danger to his life, determined Pascal to dedicate the remainder of his days to God; and he joined the Jansenist fraternity to­wards the close of 1654. Two of his intimate friends followed him soon afterwards—the Duc de Roannez and M. Domat, a celebrated advocate of Clermont

Antoine Arnauld, since the promulgation of the Bull “Chin occasione,” or at all events since it had been confirmed by Alexander VII, had taken refuge in prudential silence. He sometimes visited Port Royal, but declined as far as possible all public duty, and occupied himself in preparing a treatise in refutation of the Calvinistic doctrine of the Eucharist. But this interval of comparative tranquillity was to be abruptly terminated. The Jesuits, flushed with victory, could not resist the opportunity of dealing a fatal blow to the prestige and power of their rivals, reckless of the consequences which such a course might entail upon the national Church at large. At this moment, indeed, it would have required an uncommon share of dispassionate judgment and far-sighted wisdom to perceive that the cause of religion would be better served by conciliating the Port Royalists than by driving them to despe­ration. It was on occasion on which, if ever, it was excusable to identify the triumph of a party with the triumph of Catholic truth.

The following are the circumstances which led to the outburst of the storm.

Among the many aristocratic patrons of the Jansenists one of the stanchest was the Duc de Liancour,—a nobleman who, after wasting his earlier years in fashionable dissipation, had been won to a life of piety by the counsels and example of his wife, a daughter of the Duke of Schomberg. The Duke, when at Paris, resided in the parish of S. Sulpice,—at that time under the pastoral charge of the celebrated Abbé Olier. In January, 1655, the Duke was informed by M. Picote, one of the clergy of S. Sulpice to whom he resorted for confession, that he could not give him absolution unless he promised to break off all inter­course with “Messieurs de Port Royal”—a connection incom­patible with due deference to the late decisions of the Church. In particular, the confessor required that the Duke’s grand­daughter, who was receiving her education at Port Royal, should be removed; and that two leading Jansenists, Des Mares and Bourgeois, who were sojourning under the duke’s roof, should no longer be entertained there. M. de Liancour, staggered and offended, declined compliance, and left the confessional without absolution. He forthwith complained to his friends—Vincent de Paul among others—of the strange treatment he had met with; and the affair became speedily and widely public. It was an act of direct challenge to Port Royal, and was not likely to pass unanswered. Antoine Arnauld, with characteristic alacrity, stepped forth once more into the lists, prepared to do battle a outrance against all comers. On the 24th of February, 1655, appeared (anonymously) his Lettre a une personne de condition; in which he maintains, on the authority of St. Augustine and St. Leo, that a priest is not justified in withholding the Sacraments from any but persons actually convicted and excommunicated as heretics; and that MM. de Port Royal were by no means in that predicament. Their doctrine, he contended, was that of St. Augustine, which had been declared by successive Popes and Councils to be that of the Church. And even supposing they had fallen into error, this was a matter belonging to the cognizance of the Diocesan, and not of the parochial clergy. Arnauld moreover asserted, in the name of his whole party, that they were ready to abjure the five heretical Propositions wherever they might be found, including the writings of Jansenius, though they were unable to perceive them there. They were not committed, he said, to any private speculations broached by modem theologians; but relied solely upon the authority and universally-accepted teaching of St. Augustine.

The Molinists, well pleased to have provoked Arnauld to resume his polemical attitude, launched a profusion of pamphlets in reply, urging that mere professions of acquiescence were not sufficient under the circumstances; that divines who at one time had notoriously defended Jansenius were bound, after the decision of the Vatican, to disavow their error in express terms, and renounce the views of that author as contained, and pronounced by the Church to be contained, in the Five Propositions. Especially was this indispensable since the Assembly of the clergy of France had affirmed so positively that the Propositions were condemned as being extracted from the Augustinus of Jansenius, and in the sense intended by that prelate. If the friends of Port Royal hesitated to accept, in identical terms, these declarations of the Holy Father and of the Gallican clergy, they must not complain of any suspicions which might arise with regard to the sincerity of their present professions.

These taunts drew from Arnauld his ‘Second Letter to a Duke and Peer of France’ (the Duc de Luynes), which bore his name, and was dated from Port Royal des Champs, July 10, 1655. It was a volume in size, and contains a complete digest of the discipline of the Church as to the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist; followed, in the second part, by a bold defence of the position maintained by the Jansenists in relation to the Bull “Cum occasione,” the declaration of the Gallican clergy, the doctrine of Jansenius, and the five condemned Propositions. Arnauld transmitted this treatise to Pope Alexander VII., with a letter expressing unqualified submission to the judgment of his Holiness.

It was from this ‘Second Letter to a Duke and Peer’ that the enemies of Arnauld extracted two distinct charges, which they pressed against himself and the cause which he repre­sented, with terrible and ruinous effect. They accused him, in the first place, of denying that the Five Propositions were contained in the Augustinus of Jansenius—thereby contravening the express decisions of the Holy See; and secondly, of re­asserting, in other words, the first of the Propositions in the following statement:—“The Fathers point out to us, in the person of St. Peter, a just man to whom that grace was wanting without which we can do nothing, on an occasion when it cannot be denied that he fell into sin.” These impeachments—the former of which became known as the “question de fait” or of fact, and the latter as that of “droit” or doctrine—were formally laid before the Sorbonne on the 4th of November, 1655.

The conflict of parties now became of absorbing interest, and stirred the religious mind of France to its inmost depths. With the Jansenists it was henceforth a struggle for life or death; lor the manifest object of this new attack was to destroy for ever the character of their leader, and to leave them no ten­able standing-point within the pale of the Church.

On the motion being made for a Committee to examine Arnauld’s treatise, his friends urged that, since he had appealed to the Pope for his judgment on the work, the Sorbonne could not with propriety take any steps which might anticipate that sentence. This, however, was overruled, and it was resolved by a majority of voices to proceed with the examination. A Com­mittee of six doctors was thereupon appointed, all of whom are said to have been well known as hostile to the Jansenists.

The ancient usages of the Theological Faculty seem to have been violated without scruple on this occasion. One statute provided that the Mendicant Friars should never enjoy more than eight votes at the deliberative meetings—two for each Order. Thirty and even forty monks were nevertheless allowed to congregate in this Assembly—a number sufficient to turn the scale in whatever direction they pleased. Against this pro­ceeding sixty doctors, with Louis de St. Amour at their head, complained, “ comme d’abus,” to the Parliament; but the Court and Mazarin interposed, and the magistrates, availing them­selves of a technical difficulty, postponed their decision upon the appeal until long after the debates at the Sorbonne had concluded. The report of the Committee pronounced Arnauld censurable upon both counts of the indictment: upon the first question, that of fact—they declared his sentiments “rash, disrespectful to the Holy See, and injurious to the clergy of France.” His doctrine on the second point, relating to the fall of St. Peter, they stigmatized as heretical, and already con­demned as such by the Church.

A tumultuous contest arose when this report was presented to the Faculty. Such was the prevailing disorder, that Hardouin de Péréfixe, then Bishop of Rodez, procured a lettre de cachet for restraining the combatants within more decorous bounds; and the king ordered Seguier, the Chancellor, to take his seat in the assembly for the purpose of enforcing obedience to this mandate.

Arnauld declined to defend himself in person, since the per­mission to do so was clogged with conditions which he deemed unjust and disadvantageous. He confined himself therefore to written statements; repeating, with every variety of expression, the same tone of self-vindication—that he had carefully studied the Augustinus, without being able to discover in it the Five Pro­positions censured by the Pope; that, nevertheless, he cordially acquiesced in their condemnation, and was ready to declare them heretical in whatever work they might appear without exception; including, therefore, the writings of Jansenius. He protested that in making the statement complained of he had not in­tended anything offensive to his Holiness or the French pre­lates; he humbly craved their pardon for the unintentional affront; and he submitted that at all events such a statement of opinion could not be brought within the category of heresy.

With regard to the point of doctrine, Arnauld made consider­able concessions; in a letter to the Bishop of St. Brieux he admitted the distinction drawn by the Thomists between the different kinds and degrees of grace, acknowledging that by the former the just man possesses habitually, and as it were abstractedly, the power to keep God’s commandments, while the latter, efficacious grace, which alone moves and deter­mines the will, is not vouchsafed to all; notwithstanding which, St. Thomas teaches that without such grace no man, although regenerate and justified, can actually perform that which is good.

After eighteen sittings the Faculty came to a vote on the question of fact on the 14th of January, 1656. One hundred and twenty-four doctors, among whom were forty monks, gave their voices for the censure as proposed in the report; seventy- one took the opposite side; eleven remained neutral.

The Assembly next proceeded to discuss the question of doctrine. It had been arranged, in order to avoid needless prolixty, that no speaker should occupy the attention of the house for more than half an hour. The partisans of Arnauld found it difficult to conform to this regulation; and the Chancellor was obliged to take peremptory measures to set bounds to the torrent of their eloquence. Upon his no less than sixty doctors, after signing a protest against the infraction of their liberties, left the hall in a body, and never appeared afterwards at the meetings of the Faculty. Among the seceders was Jean de Launoi, one of the most distinguished of the doctors for talent, erudition, and zeal for the Gallican liberties. De Launoi did not sympathize altogether with the school of Port Royal; but the harshness and unfairness of the proceedings against Arnauld shocked his natural uprightness of mind, and he generously declared himself in favour of the injured party. His publications on this occasion are specially valuable, not only from their vigour and force of reasoning, but from the complete independence of the author’s testimony.

The final vote was taken on the 29th of January, when the “question de droit” was decided against Arnauld by an im­mense majority—nearly all his friends absenting themselves purposely from the division. His doctrine was pronounced “rash, impious, blasphemous, and already branded as heretical”;  and it was ordered in consequence, that unless he should make retractation within fifteen days by subscribing the censure, he should be degraded from the rank of doctor of the Sorbonne and expelled from the Society. Nor was this all. The sentence against Arnauld was made a test of orthodoxy for the future. All persons proceeding to the degree of bachelor and doctor were required to sign the censure previously; and any member of the Faculty who should preach, teach, maintain, or approve the condemned opinions, was declared liable to the same penalty of expulsion.

Arnauld, declining to give the required satisfaction, was accordingly deprived of his degrees; and the sixty doctors who had so steadfastly supported him throughout the contest suffered a like punishment.

CHAPTER XIII.

PASCAL'S PROVINCIAL LETTERS