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Pascal, Blaise

"The Provincial Letters"

You know,
fathers, that, in the year 1649, M. Puys translated into French an
excellent book, written by another Capuchin friar, On the duty which
Christians owe to their own parishes, against those that would lead
them away from them, without using a single invective, or pointing
to any monk or any order of monks in particular. Your fathers,
however, were pleased to put the cap on their own heads; and without
any respect to an aged pastor, a judge in the Primacy of France, and a
man who was held in the highest esteem by the whole city, Father
Alby wrote a furious tract against him, which you sold in your own
church upon Assumption Day; in which book, among other various
charges, he accused him of having made himself scandalous by his
gallantries," described him as suspected of having no religion, as a
heretic, excommunicated, and, in short, worthy of the stake. To this
M. Puys made a reply; and Father Alby, in a second publication,
supported his former allegations. Now, fathers, is it not a clear
point either that you were calumniators, or that you believed all that
you alleged against that worthy priest to be true; and that, on this
latter assumption, it became you to see him purified from all these
abominations before judging him worthy of your friendship? Let us see,
then, what happened at the accommodation of the dispute, which took
place in the presence of a great number of the principal inhabitants
of the town on the 25th of September, 1650.


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