in their Religion If the eye be blind the body cannot chuse but be darkned and certainly there is nothing that hath prepared many of this Realm more to embrace the reformation than this blockishness of their own Clergy an excellent advantage to the Protestant Ministers could they but well humor it and likely to be a fair inlargement to their party if well husbanded Besides this the French Catholicks are not over earnest in their cause and so do lye open to the assaults of any politick enemy to deal with them by main force of argument and in the servent spirit of zeal as the Protestants too often do is not the way Men uncapable of opposition as this people generally are and furious if once thwarted must be tamed as Alexander did his Horse Bucephalus Those that came to back him with the tyranny of the spur and a cudgel he quickly threw down and mischieved Alexander came otherwise prepared for turning his Horse toward the Sun that he might not see the impatiency of his shadow he spake kindly to him and gently clapping him on the back till he had left his flinging and wildness he lightly leapeth into the saddle the Horse never making resistance Plutarch in his life relateth the storie and this the Morall of it CHAP. XII The correspondency between the King and the Pope This Pope An Omen of the Marriage of France with England An English Catholick's conceit of it His Holiness Nuntio in Paris A learned argument to prove the Popes universality A continuation of the Allegory of Jacob and Esau The Protestants compelled to leave their Forts and Towns Their present estate and strength The last War against them justly undertaken not fairly mannaged Their insolence and disobedience to the Kings command Their purpose to have themselves a free Estate The War not a War of Religion King James in justice could not assist them more than he did First forsaken by their own party Their happiness before the War The Court of the Edict A view of them in their Churches The commendation which the French Papists give to the Church of England Their Discipline and Ministery c. WE have seen the strength and subtilty as also somewhat of his poverties at home let us now see the alliance which this French Esau hath abroad in the world in what credit and opinion he standeth in the eye of Bâ—eâ—i the Romish Hittite the daughter of whose abominations he hath married And here I find him to hold good correspondency as being the eldest son of the Church and an equal poize to ballance the affairs of Italy against the potency of Spain Oâ— this ground the present Pope hath alwayes shewed himself very favorable to the French side well knowing into what perils a necessary and impolitick dependance on the Spanish party onely would one day bring the state Ecclesiastick As in the general so in many particulars also hath he expressed much affection unto him as first by taking into his hand the Valtolin till his Son of France might settle himself in some course to recover it secondly his not stirring in the behalf of the Spaniard during the last warrs in Italy and thirdly his speedy and willing grant of the dispensation of Madames marriage of which his Papacy was so large an Omen so fair a Prognostick Est Deus in nobis agitante calescimus illi The Lar or Angel Guardian of his thoughts hastened him in it in whose time there was so plausible a presage that it must be accomplished For thus it standeth Malachy now a Saint then one of the first Apostles of the Irish one much reverenced in his memory to this day by that Nation left behind him by way of prophesie a certain number of Motto's in Latine telling those that there should follow that certain number of Popes onely whose conditions successively should be hereby expressed in those Motto's according to that order he had placed them in Messingham an Irish Priest Master of the Colledge of Irish fugitives in Paris hath collected together the lives of all the Irish Saints which book himself shewed me In that volume and the life of that Saint are the several Motto's and the several Popes set down columewise one against the other I compared the lives of them with the Motto's as farre as my memory would carry me and found many of them very answerable as I remember there are thirty six Motto's yet to come and when just as many Popes are joyned to them they are of opinion for so Malachy foretold that either the world should end or the Popedom be ruined Amongst others the Motto of the present Pope is most remarkable and sutable to the cheif action likely to happen in his time being this Lilium Rosa which they interpret and in my mind not unhappily to be intended to the conjunction of the French Lillie and the English Rose To take from me any suspition of imposture he shewed me an old book printed almost two hundred years ago written by one Wion a Flemming and comparing the number of the Motto's with the Catalogue of the Popes I found the name of Vrban now Pope directly to answer it upon this ground an English Catholike whose acquaintance I gained in France made a Copy of Verses in French and presented them to the English Embassadors the Earles of Carlisle and Holland because he is my Friend and the conceit is not to be despised I begged them of him and these are they Lilia juncta Rosis Embleme de bon ' presage de l' alliance de la France avec l' Angleterre Ce grand dieu quid ' un oecl voit tout ce que les aâ—s Souos leurs voiles sacrez vont a nous yeax cathans Descouvre quelque fois ainsi qui bon luy semble Et les moux avenir et les biene tout ensemble Ainsc fit il iadis a ce luy qui primier Dans l' Ireland porta de la foye le laurier Malachie son nom qu' autymon de l' Eglise On verra soir un jour il qui pour sa devise Aura les Lys chenus ioints aux plus belles fleures Qui docent le pinâ—temps de leurs doubles couleurs CHARLES est le fleuron de la roso pour pree HENRITTE est le Lys que la plus belle pree De la France nâ—urit pour estrâ— quelque iour Et la Reine des flâ—ures et des roses l' amour Adorable banquet bien beu reux courâ—nne Que la bonte du ciel en parrage nous donne Heu reux ma partie heu reux mille fois Cela qui te fera reflorrier en les Roys With these verses I take my leave of his Holiness wishing none of his successors would presage worse luck unto England I go now to see his Nuntio to whose house the same English Catholike brought me but he was not at home his name is Ferdinando d' Espado a
FRANCE PAINTED to the LIFE By a Learned and Impartial Hand Quid non Gallia parturit ingens LONDON Printed for William Leake at the Crown in Fleet-street betwixt the two Temple Gates 1656. TO THE READER HIstories are like Iewels not valued by their bulk but their beauty and lustre Real worth exceeds words yet this History is furnished with both t is rare for the matter method truth and use It needs no Apologie it s own furniture will sufficiently praise it especially amongst the Ingenuous and Learned here is a solid and pleasant relishment for any that desire forrain rarities The Pen-man managed his time with advantage And it may be said that a Judicious Reader may see France in this Book as well as by travel Nothing worthy observation hath escap'd the Author what hath was not worth his Pen. Thou hast as it came to hand without any adulteration a true Copy of his conceptions and labours without addition or diminution Take hereof a serious view thereby thou shalt inform thy judgement please thy fancy and be rendred able to discourse of the several places and passages therein mentioned equally with those who have in person surveyed them FRANCE Painted to the Life The First Book The beginning of our Journey the nature of the Sea a Farewell to England ON Thursday the 28th of June at the time when England had received the cheif beauty of France and the French had seen the cheif beauties of England we went to Sea in a Bark of Dover The Port we arrived at Diepe in Normandy the hour three in the afternoon the wind fair and high able had it continued in that point to have given us a waftage as speedy as our longing Two hours before night it came about to the Westward and the tide also not befriending us our passage became tedious and troublesome The next day being dedicate to the glory of God in memory of St. Peter we took the benifit of the ebb to assist us against the wind This brought us out of the sight of England and the floud ensuing compelled us to our anchor I had now leisure to see Gods wonders in the deep wonders indeed to us which had never before seen them but too much familiarity had made them none other than the Saylers play-fellows The waves striving by an inbred ambition which should be the highest which foremost precedency and super-eminency was equally desired and each enjoyed it in succession The wind more covetous in appearance to play with the water than disturbe it did onely rock the billow and seemed indeed to dandle the Ocean You would at another time have thought that the Seas had onely danced at the Winds whistle or that the Wind straining it self to a treble and the Seas by a disdiapason supplying the base had tuned a Coranto to our Ship For so orderly we rose and fell according to the time and note of the billow that her violent agitation might be thought to be nothing but a nimble Galliard filled with Capers The nimbleness of the waves and correspondency of our Bark unto them was not to all our company alike pleasing what in me moved onely a reverend and awful pleasure was to others an occasion of sickness their heads giddy their joynts enfeebled their stomacks loathing sustenance and with great pangs avoiding what they had taken In their mouthes nothing so frequent as that of Horace Illi robur aes triplex Circa pectus erat qui fragilem truci Commisit pelago ratem Hard was his heart as brass which first did venture In a weak Ship on the rough Seas to enter Whether it be that the noisom smels which arise from the saltness and tartness of that Region of waters poisoneth the brain or that the ungoverned and unequal motion of the Ship stirreth and unsettleth the stomack or both we may conjecture with the Philosphers rather than determine This I am sure of that the Cabbins and Deck were but as so many Hospitals or Pest-houses filled with diseased persons whilst I and the Marriners onely made good the hatches here did I see the scaly Nation of that Kingdom solace themselves in the brim of the waves rejoycing in the light and warmness of the day and yet spouting from their mouthes such quantity of waters as if they had purposed to quench that fire which gave it They danced about our vessel as if she had been a moving May-pole and that with such a delightful decorum that you never saw a Measure better troaden with less art And now I know not what wave bigger than the rest tossed up our Ship so high that I once more ken'd the coast of England an object which took such hold on my senses that I forgot the harmless company which sported below me to bestow on my dearest Mother this and for ought I could assure my self my last Farewell England adiew thy most unworthy Son Leaves thee and grieves to see what he hath done What he hath done in leaving thee the best Of Mothers and more glorious than the rest Thy sister Nations Had'st thou been unkind Yet might he trust thee safer than the Wind. Had'st thou been weak yet far more strength in thee Than in two inches of a sinking Tree Say thou wert cruel yet thy angry face Hath more love in it then the Seas embrace Suppose thee poor his zeal and love the less Thus to forsake his Mother in distress But thou art none of those No want in thee Onely a needless Curiositie Hath made him leap thy Ditch O let him have Thy blessing in his Voyage and hee 'l crave The Gods to thunder wrath on his neglect When he performs not thee all due respect That Nemesis on him her scourge would pluck When he forgets those breasts wich gave him suck That Nature would dissolve and turn him earth If thou bee'st not remembred in his Mirth May he be cast from Mankind if he shame To make profession of his Mothers name Rest then assur'd in this though some times he Conceal'd perhaps his Faith he will not thee CHAP. I. Normandy in general the Name and bounds of it The condition of the ancient Normans and of the present Ortelius Character of them examined In what they resemble the Inhabitants of Norfolk The Commodities of it and the Government THe next ebb brought us in sight of the sea-coast of Normandy a shoar so evenly composed and levelled that it seemeth the work of Art not Nature The Rock all the way of an equal height rising from the bottom to the top in a perpendicular and withal so smooth and polished that if you dare beleive it the work of Nature you must also think that Nature wrought it by the line and shewed an art in it above the imitation of an Artist This wall is the Northern bound of this Province the South part of it being confined with Le-Maine la Beausse l' Isle du France On the East it is divided from
in these later they onely consummate strength so say the Physitians generally Non enim in duobus sequentibus mensibus they speak it of the intermedii additur aliquid ad perfectionem partium sed ad perfectionem roboris The last time terminus ultimus in the common account of this Profession is the eleventh moneth which some of them hold neither unlikely nor rare Massurius recordeth of Papyrius a Roman Praetor to have recovered his inheritance in open Court though his Mother confest him to be born in the thirteenth month And Avicen a Moor of Corduba relateth as he is cited in Laurentius that he had seen a Child born after the fourteenth But these are but the impostures of Women and yet indeed the modern Doctors are more charitable and refer it to supernatural causes Vt extra ordinariam artis considerationem On the other side Hippocrates giveth it out definitively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in ten moneths at the furthest understand ten moneths compleat the Child is born And Vlpian the great Civilian of his times in the title of Digests de Testamentis is of opinion that a Child born after the tenth moneth compleat is not to be admitted to the inheritance of its pretended Father As for the Common Law of England as I remember I have read it in a book written of Wils and Testaments it taketh a middle course between the charity of nature and the severity of Law leaving it meerly to the conscience and circumstance of the Judge But all this must be conceived taking it in the most favourable construction after the conception of the Mother and by no meanes after the death of the Father and so can it no way if I were first President advantage the Prince of Conde His Father had been extreamly sick no small time before his death for the particular and supposed since his poison taken Anno 1552. to be little prone to Women in the general They therefore that would seem to know more than the vulgar reckon him as one of the by-blows of Henry the fourth but this under the Rose yet by way of conjecture we may argue thus First from the Kings care of his education assigning him for his Tutor Nicholas de Februe whom he also designed for his Son King Lewis Secondly from his care to work the Prince then young Mollis aptus agi to become a Catholike Thirdly the age of the old Henry of Conde and the privacy of this King with his Lady being then King of Navarre in the prime of his strength and in discontent with the Lady Margaret of Valoys his first Wife Adde to this that Kings love to fair Ladies in the general and we may see this probability to be no miracle For besides the Dutchess of Beaufort the Marchioness of Verneville and the Countess of Morret already mentioned he is beleived to have been the Father of Mr. Luines the great Favorite of King Lewis And certain it is that the very year before his death when he was even in the winter of his dayes he took such an amorous liking to the Prince of Conde s Wife a very beautiful Lady and Daughter to the Constable Duke of Montmorencie that the Prince to save his honour was compelled to flie together with his Princess into the Arch-Dukes Country whence he returned not till long after the death of King Henry If Marie de Medices in her Husbands life time paid his debts for him which I cannot say she onely made good that of vindicate· And yet perhaps a consciousness of some injuries not onely moved her to back the Count of Soison's and his faction against the Prince and his but also to resolve upon him for the Husband of her Daughter From the Princes of the bloud descend we to the Princes of the Court and therein the first place we meet with Mr. Barradas the Kings present Favourite a young Gentleman of a fresh and lively hew little bearded and one whom the people as yet cannot accuse for any oppression or misgovernment Honours the King hath conferred none upon him but onely Pensions and Offices He is the Governour of the Kings Children of Honour Pages we call them in England a place of more trouble than wealth or credit He is also the Master of the Horse or le grand Escuire the esteem of which place recompenceth the emptiness of the other for by vertue of this Office he carryeth the Kings Sword sheathed before him at his entrance into Paris the Cloth of Estate carryed over the King by the Provosts and Eschevins is his Fee No man can be the Kings Spur maker his Smith or have any place in the Kings Stables but from him and the like This place to note so much by the way was taken out of the Constables Office Comes stabuli is the true name to whom it properly belonged in the time of Charles the seventh Besides this he hath a pension of 500000. Crowns yearly and had an Office given him which he sold for 100000. Crownes in ready money A good fortune for one who the other day was but the Kings Page And to say truth he is as yet but a little better being onely removed from his Servant to his play-fellow with the affairs of State he intermeddleth not if he should he might expect the Queene Mother should say to him what Apollo in Ovid did to Cupid Tibi quia cum fortibus armis Mi puer ista decent humeros gestamina nostros For indeed first during her Sons minority and after since her redentigration with him she hath made her self so absolute a Mistress of her mind that he hath entrusted to her the entire conduct of all his most weighty affairs for her Assistant in the managing of her greatest business she hath pieced her self to the strongest side of the State the Church having principally since the death of the Marshall D' Anere Joneane assumed to her Counsails the Cardinal of Richileiu a man of no great birth were Nobility the greatest Parentage but otherwise to be ranked among the Noblest Of a sound reach he is and of a close brain one exceedingly well mixt of a Lay Vnderstanding and a Church Habit one that is compleatly skilled in the art of men and a perfect Master of his own mind and affections Him the Queene useth as her Counseller to keep out frailty and the Kings name as her countenance to keep off envy She is of a Florentine wit and hath in her all the vertues of Katherine de Medices her Ancestor in the Regencie and some also of her vices only her designes tend not to the ruine of her Kingdome and her Children John de Seirres telleth us in his Inventaire of France how the Queene Katherine suffered her Son Henry the third a devout and simple Prince to spend his most dangerous times even uncontrolled upon his Beades whiles in the meantime she usurped the Government of the Realm Like it is that Queene Mary hath
afforded us to shew us the mysterie of this silent jeâ—iculation The other addition which I observed here at the Masse though I have since been told that it is ordinrary at High Masses in Cathedrall Churches was the censing of the people which was performed in this manner Whiles the Priest was busie at the Altar there entred into the Quire at a side door two Boyes in their Surplices bearing waxe Tapers in their hands and immediately after them the foresaid fellow with the Crosse In the rare there came two of the Priests in their Copes and other stately vestments between both a young lad with the Incense pot made full of holes to let out the fume which he swinged on all sides of him with a chain to which it was fastned Having thus marched through the Church and censed the people he ascended unto the Altar there censed the Cross the Reliques the Bread and Wine the Chalice the Images and I know not what not A custome very much used amongst the Heathen Omnibus vicis factae sunt statuae ad eas thus cerei saith Tully and Jane tibi primùm thura merumque fero saith Ovid in his book de Fastis so have we in Martiall Te primùm pia thura rogent and the like in divers other writers of the Antients At what time it crept into the Churches of the Christians I cannot tell Sure I am it was not used in the Primitive times nor in the third Century after our Saviour save only in their Burialls Sciant sabae saith Tertullian who at that time lived plures chariores merces suas Christianis saepeliendis profligari quaÌ„ Diis fumigantibus Arnobius also in his first book adversus gentes disclaimeth the use of it and yet their Councel of Trent in the 22 Session defineth it to be as boldly an Apostolicall institution and tradition as if the Apostles themselves had told them so I know they had rather seem to derive it from the 10. chapter of Exodus and the 1. verse and so Bishop Durand is of opinion in his Rationale Divinorum but this will not help them Aaron there is commanded to burne Incense onely on the Altar and not to cense Men and Images Crosses and reliques as the Papists doe so that will they â—ill they they must be counted followers of the Heathen though I envy them not the honour of being Jewes From the History and Revenue of the Church proceed we to that of the Town where nothing occurreth more memorable than the great siâ—ge laid before it by the English A siege of great importance to both parties France having been totally won unto King Henry if this Town had yeelded and once so nigh it was to submit it selfe that the people proffered to yeeld themselves to Philip Duke of Burgundie then a great confederate of our Nation who had not been present in the Camp but this the English Generall would not consent unto and it was the resolution of Antigonus a long time before us Negavit Antigonus saith Justine se in ejus belli praedam socios admittere in cujus periculum solus descenderat On this determinate sentence of the Generall he was Montacute Earl of Salisbury the Town purposed to hold out a little longer and was at last relieved by Joane de Arca maid of vancoleure in Loraine whom they called la Puelle how by that excellent Soldier the Generall war slaine and the siege raised I need not relate it is extant in all our Chronicles This onely now that ever since that time the people of Orleans keep a solemn procession on every eighth day of May on which day An. 1427. their City was delivered from its enemies But the atchievements of this brave Virago stayed not here shâ— thinkes it not enough to dâ—pulse her enemies unlesse she also vanquish them armed therefore cap a pea she went to seek an occasion of battaile and was alwayes formost and in the head or her Troops Duxit Amazonidum lunatis agmina bellis Penthesilea furens mediisque in millibus ardeâ— For her first service she taketh Jargean discomfiteth the English which were in it and maketh the Earl of Suffolk Prisoner soon after followed the battaile of Patay in which the English were driven out of the field and the great Talbot taken This done she accompanieth Charles the 1. whose Angell-Guardian she was thought all Champayne unto Rhemes where she solemnly saw him Crowned all the Townes of those Countreyes yeelding upon the approach of her and the Kings Army Finally after many acts performed above the nature of her sexe which I will not stand here to particulate she was taken prisoner at the siege of Campaigne delivered over unto the Earle of Bedford by him sent unto Roven and there burnt for a Witch on the sixth of July Anno 1431. There was also another crime objected against her as namely that she had abused the nature of her sexe marching up and downe in the habit of a man nihil muliebre pâ—aeter corpus gerens of all accusations the most impotent for in what other habit could she dresse her selfe undertaking the actions of a General and besides to have worne her womans weeds in time of battaile had been to have betrayed her safety and to have made her selfe the marke of every Arrow It was therefore requisite that she should array her selfe in compleat harness and in that habit of compleat armour have those of Orleans erected those statua's all in brasse upon the middle of their bridge As for that other imputation of being a Witch saving the credit of those that condemned her and theirs also who in their writings have so reported her I dare be of the contrary opinion for dividing her actions into two parts those that precede her coming unto Orleans and those that followed it I find much in it of valour somewhat perhaps of cunning but nothing that is divelish her relieving of Orleans and courage shewn at the battaile of Patay and Gargean with the conducting of the King unto Rhemes are no such prodigies that they need to be ascribed unto Witchcraft She was not the first woman whom the world knew famed in armes there being no Nation almost of the Earth who have not had a Champion of this sexe to defend their liberties to omit the whole Nation of the Amazon's to the Jewes in the time of their afflictions the Lord raised up a Salvation by meanes of two women Deborah and Judith And God is not the God of the Jewes onely but also of the Gentiles Amongst the Sirvans Zenobia Queen of Palmira is very famous the Romans whom she often foiled never mentioning her without honour The like commendable testimony they give of Velleda a Queen amongst the Germanes and a woman which much hindered their affaires in that Countrey thus had the Gothes their Amalasunta the Assyrians their Semiramis the Scythians their Tomyres the Romans their Flavia and brave Captaines and such as
the pursuit whereof as the rest of this Fraternity are they are good proficients and much exceed all other sorts of Friers as having better teachers and more leisure to learn That time which the other spend at their High Masses and at their Canonicall houres these men bestow upon their books they being exempted from those duties by their order Upon this ground they trouble not their heads with the Crotchets of Musick nor spend their mouthes upon the chanting out of their Services they have other matters to employ their braines upon such as are the ruine of Kingdoms desolation of Countreys It was the saying of Themistocles being requested to play a Lesson on the Lute That he could not fiddle but he could tell how to make a little Town a great City The like may we say of the Jesuites they are no great singers but are well skilled in making little cities great and great ones little and certaine it is that they are so farre from any ability or desire this way that upon any of their solemne Festivals when their Statutes require Musick they are faine to hire the Singing men of the next Cathedrall as here upon the feast of their Patron St. Ignatius being the 22. of July they were compelled to make use of the voyces of the church of S. Croix To this advantage of leisure is added the exact method of their teaching which is indeed so excellent that the Protestants themselves in some places send their sons to their Schooles upon desire to have them prove exquisite in those arts they teach To them resort the Children of the rich as well as of the poor and that in such abundance that wheresoever they settle other houses become in a manner desolate or frequented only by those of the more heavy and phlegmatick constitutions Into their Schooles when they have received them they place them in that forme or Classe into which they are best fitted to enter Of these Classes the lowest is for Grammar the second for the composition or making of Themes as we call it the third for Poetrie the fourth for Oratory the fifth for Greeke Grammar and Compositions the sixth for Poesie and Rhetorick of that Language the seventh for Logick and the eighth and last for Philosophy In each of these Schools there is a severall Reader or Institutor who onely intendeth that art and the perfection of it which for that yeare he teacheth That yeare ended he removeth both himselfe and Schollars with him into the Classes or Schoole next beyond him till he hath brought them through the whole study of humanity In the last Forme which is that of Philosophy he continueth two yeares which once expired his Scholars are made perfect in the Universality of Learning and themselves are manumitted from their Tutors and permitted their private Studies Nor doe they onely teach their Scholars an exictnesse in those severall parts of Learning which they handle but they also endeavour to breed in them an obstinacy of minde and a sturdy eagernesse of spirit to make them thereby hot prosecutors of their own opinions and impatient of any contrary consideration This it is which maketh all those of their education to affect Victory in all their controversies of Wit and Knowledge with such a violence that even in their very Grammaticall disputations you shall find little boyes maintain arguments with such a fierce impatience that you would think it above the nature of years and all this they perform freely and for nothing the poore Paisants sonne being by them equally instructed with that of the Noblesse By this meanes they get into their Society great honour and great strength Honour in furnishing their Schooles with so many persons of excellent quality or nobility of whom afterwards they make their best advantages for their strength also As for those of the poorer sort they have also their ends upon them for by this free and liberall education of their children the common people doe infinitely affect them besides that out of that rank of their Scholars they assume such into their Fraternity whom they finde to be of a rare wit an excellent spirit or any other way fitted for their profession Thus do they make their owne purpose out of all conditions and refuse no fish which either they can draw into their nets or which will offer it selfe unto them Si locuples quis est avari sunt si pauper ambitiosi quos non oriens non occidens satiaverit soli omnium opes atque in piam opur affectu concupiscunt Galgacus a British Captaine spake it of the Souldiers of the Roman Empire we may as justly verifie it of these Souldiers of the Roman Church they being the men whom neither the East nor West Indies can satisfie and who with a like fervency desire the education of the needy and the wealthy Moreover by this method of teaching they do not onely strengthen themselves in the affections of men abroad but also fortifie themselves within their owne walls at home for by this meanes there is not one of their society who hath perfectly concocted in his head the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of knowledge but hath gained unto himself the true art of speaking and readinesse of expressing what he knoweth without the least demur or hesitancie the greatest happinesse of a Scholer To conclude then and say no more of them their abilities for virtus in hoste probatur it is thought by men of wisdome and judgement that the planting of a Colledge of Jesuits in any place is the onely sure way to re-establish that Religion which they professe and in time to eat out the contrary This notwithstanding they were at the first institution of them rightly opposed no where more vâ—olently than in the University of Paris An Vniversity that standeth much upon its liberties privileges to which this order was imagined to be an hindrance it being lawfull for them to take any degree in their owne houses without reference to any publique exercise or examination In the year 1554. at which time they first began to set foot in France the Colledge of the Sorbonists made a long Decree against them in the end whereof are these words and they are worth the reading Videtur haec societas in negotio fidei periculosa pacis Ecclesiae perturbativa Monasticae religionis eversiva magis ad destructionem quam ad aedificationem A censure too full of vinegar and bitternesse Afterwards in the yeare 1564. they preferred a Petition to the Vniversity that the Colledge which the Bishop of Clermont had built for them might be incorporated into the Vniversity and every the immunities of it Upon the Vniversities deniall of their desire there arose a suit between them and the Vniversity in the High court of Parliament Peter Versories pleading for the Jesuits and Steven Pasquier for the other party in the end they were admitted though upon terms of wonderfull strictnesse Anno