Storia do Mogor 338.5.6

338.5.6

But the Capuchins were now accustomed to thunders and lightnings from this quarter. In addition, they had in their minds the expectation, not to say the certainty, that all this talk was mere stratagem and invention for the object of getting from them the original documents [171] they held in their justification, and afterwards still making them have recourse to Rome — and it would not be ' for the King of France,' as we say commonly. They replied with all modesty and submission that their consciences did not accuse them of having done a single thing to offend his Excellency ; therefore they felt no obligation to ask his pardon, nor to disavow in public a boldness which had never entered into their imaginations. They would thereby confess themselves culpable, and constitute themselves criminals (which it did not suit them to do) before the tribunal of the Holy Apostolic See, to which they had appealed. As this was a thing so obvious, there was no need to say more about it ; but if the Lord Patriarch made the request in order to get them to withdraw the petition of appeal, let him send to ask it. And his Excellency having adjusted all the things lying within his power, and put them in the state they were in before his arrival, they promised and agreed to burn all the documents they held connected with this affair in the presence of whatever witnesses he chose to appoint.