Storia do Mogor 366.6.4

366.6.4

In the sight of people who know them not they display the intensity of a zeal which leads them to the ends of the earth; then they exalt the reverend fathers De la Chaise and Bourdaloue. From time to time they let drop discreetly the illustrious names of dukes, princes, kings, and sovereigns under their spiritual direction. On this intimacy they pretend to be able to found the fortunes of those who favour them, or the inevitable ruin of those honest men who refuse to take in hand their interests at the peril of their own souls. If you speak to them of the reverend fathers of the Jacobins, Carthusians, Benedictines, Camaldolese, or the Trappists, et cetera, and say a word or two in their praise, they reply to you with a certain air of depreciation: 'Those reverend fathers are certainly good sort of men, virtuous and worthy of their calling, but . . .' When you beg them to attend at some ceremony they make a thousand protests, asking to be left in the lowliest place; but should you forget to give them the chief place, if they do not show their resentment, they seize the first pretext and soon withdraw. I know this sort of thing from experience, having observed it on many an occasion. Tell me, gentlemen, whether I exaggerate when I say that the reverend Jesuit fathers follow the precepts of this world, and not those of Jesus Christ, which apply more to them than even to you: 'Discite à me, quia mitis sum et humilis corde.' [Folio 320 of the text is blank.]