But, in order to gain some credit
to the stories with which you have furnished him, you should not
have made him publicly disavow a fact so notorious as that of the
buffet of Compiegne. Certain it is, fathers, from the deposition of
the injured party, that he received upon his cheek a blow from the
hand of a Jesuit; and all that your friends have been able to do for
you has been to raise a doubt whether he received the blow with the
back or the palm of the hand, and to discuss the question whether a
stroke on the cheek with the back of the hand can be properly
denominated a buffet. I know not to what tribunal it belongs to decide
this point; but shall content myself, in the meantime, with
believing that it was, to say the very least, a probable buffet.
This gets me off with a safe conscience.
LETTER XV
TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS
November 25, 1656
REVEREND FATHERS,
As your scurrilities are daily increasing, and as you are
employing them in the merciless abuse of all pious persons opposed
to your errors, I feel myself obliged, for their sake and that of
the Church, to bring out that grand secret of your policy, which I
promised to disclose some time ago, in order that all may know,
through means of your own maxims, what degree of credit is due to your
calumnious accusations.
I am aware that those who are not very well acquainted with you
are at a great loss what to think on this subject, as they find
themselves under the painful necessity, either of believing the
incredible crimes with which you charge your opponents, or (what is
equally incredible) of setting you down as slanderers.
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