'"
"Ha, father! do the lives of the Jansenists, then, depend on the
contingency of their injuring your reputation? If so, I reckon them
far from being in a safe position; for supposing it should be
thought in the slightest degree probable that they might do you some
mischief, why, they are killable at once! You have only to draw up a
syllogism in due form, and, with a direction of the intention, you may
despatch your man at once with a safe conscience. Thrice happy must
those hot spirits be who cannot bear with injuries, to be instructed
in this doctrine! But woe to the poor people who have offended them!
Indeed, father, it would be better to have to do with persons who have
no religion at all than with those who have been taught on this
system. For, after all, the intention of the wounder conveys no
comfort to the wounded. The poor man sees nothing of that secret
direction of which you speak; he is only sensible of the direction
of the blow that is dealt him. And I am by no means sure but a
person would feel much less sorry to see himself brutally killed by an
infuriated villain than to find himself conscientiously stilettoed
by a devotee. To be plain with you, father, I am somewhat staggered at
all this; and these questions of Father Lamy and Caramuel do not
please me at all."
"How so?" cried the monk. "Are you a Jansenist?"
"I have another reason for it," I replied. "You must know I am
in the habit of writing from time to time, to a friend of mine in
the country, all that I can learn of the maxims of your doctors.
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