Columbia 5anttJtm'tP 
 
 THE LIBRARIES 
 
THE 
 
 NUNNS' COMPLAINT 
 
 AGAINST THE FEYARS, 
 
 BEING THE CHARGE GIVEN INTO THECOUKT OF FRANCE 
 BY THE 
 
 NUiNNS OF ST. KATHERINE, 
 
 NEAR PROVINS, IN FRANCE, 
 
 AGAINST THE 
 
 FATHERS C O R r) E L I E ii S, 
 THEIR CONFESepU^S. 
 
 SEVERAL TIBfES ,PRO^;?ED IN "W^NCHj/aN D NOW 
 FAtlieVrL'LY D'JKE INJO EI^GLISH. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 flUNTED ^Y E. H. AND KOUEllT PAWLKTT, AT THt; IJILLl , 1> 
 CHANCKRY LANE, NEAR PLKET STREET. 
 
 1676. 
 

 CHELTENHAM : 
 
 EEPEINTED BY ALFEED HAEPEE, 
 
 EEEE PRESS OFFICE, 
 
 1865. 
 
TO THE TRULY HONOURABLE 
 
 BELLALMO. 
 
 Most Dear and Honoured Sir, — 
 
 It is now long since, that I have 
 desired your Commands, when I was about leaving 
 England, I must confess, it was rather to testifie m>' 
 esteem of those uncommon Qualifications in you, that 
 have gained you the affections of the best of men, and 
 laid the charm of respect upon all, than to perswade you, 
 that I had any considerable service in prospect to gratify 
 you withal. But being loath to return without any 
 signes of having ever been mindful of what I had made a 
 profession to you of, I sought for some opportunity to 
 continue you in the assurance I had given you, of my 
 constant disposedness to do any thing that I thought 
 might be agreeable to you ; and which I look'd upooi as 
 , an acknowledgment due from all honest men to persons 
 X^so eminently virtuou?. And therefore after 1 had met 
 with these Religious Ladies, and understood the nature 
 of their grievances, and the use that might be made of 
 - their information, 1 imagind that this might be no 
 
 1. ti O I J ~ <J 
 
IV. 
 
 unacceptable Present to you. since I found that they were 
 Strangers in England, and scarce suffered to look abroad 
 in France. For I found them under as great restraint 
 in the shops of the Stationers of the Sorbonne, as ever 
 they were in their Cloysters, and no leave allow'd them 
 to take the air, but with such as would pay well for their 
 Company. They were indeed, at first, very publickly sold; 
 so that I have seen three several Editions of them, and 
 have at present two of them in mine own hands. But 
 after that the Nunns had gained their cause, and the 
 Cordeliers were cashier'd their house ; to put a stop to 
 all further scandal amongst the people, the Copies, that 
 were printed, were order'd to be suppress'd, and a watch 
 set upon the Sellers. From this severe confinement, I 
 did very much desire to deliver them, and to bring them 
 into a freer air, where their conversation would be 
 acceptable and courted. And I knew so well your kind 
 reception of all Strangers, of whom you might learn 
 anything, that I question'd not but that these would find 
 a welcome from you. I have reason to think, that you will 
 find them very good company, and afibrd you a variety of 
 entertainment. It may be, they will gratifie your curiosity 
 by making you a spectator of such lives, as are design'd to 
 be withdrawn from the common view, and amongst which 
 possibly you will meet with such new Scenes of Action, 
 as all your converse never before represented to you» 
 The innocent Gallantry of the Nunns and Fryars in some 
 
pages may n;ive you a very agreeable divertisement ; and 
 their excesses, and disorders in otliers, if they raise less 
 agreeable feelings in you^ yet will furnish you with true, 
 and certain accounts, how the Profession of Monkery is 
 reduced to practice. But whatever effect you find in 
 yourself by it, I hope you will be confident, that my 
 great designe in recommending this new Acquaintance 
 to you, was to assure you, that I am very zealously, 
 without any fiction but what you approve of, 
 
 Most Excellent Bellalmo, 
 
 Your most devoted humble servant, 
 
 LAELIO. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE TRANSLATOR TO THE READER. 
 
 Certainly never had a Book more need of a Preface 
 than this. For, to set no less than eighteen angry 
 women in the front of it, all full of talk and story, must 
 needs endanger the frightening away all readers that have 
 any respect to their understanding. So that it looks like 
 a malicious design against the Stationer, kindly to present 
 him with a Copy, and put him to the expence of the Press, 
 hut to lay such a spell upon it, as no body should dare 
 to touch it. I thought it therefore necessary fairly to 
 bespeak the Customers, and to draw this curtain before 
 the terrible scene, till T had stroak'd the readers into 
 some tolerable Gentleness, It may be, when I have 
 taken off the fear of this thing with the rattle, the Birds 
 will come in with more freedome. 
 
 Know therefore, Courteous Reader, that the Fair 
 Strangers, which I here offer to you, are above the 
 ordinary rate of the Sexe. By their way of life they 
 are under very solemn Obligations to silence. They 
 have vow'd to God that they will never speak any- 
 thing, but what is Necessary, or Useful. The things, 
 that they come to acquaint you with, are things of im- 
 portance, but not all the impertinencies that were done, 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. VIL 
 
 when they were in France. They will caution some 
 against publick inconveniences, and alarm others to look 
 to their Families, and Relations. Indeed, I know no sort 
 of men, whom they may not profitably instruct, nor any 
 whom they should oifend, but such as by the Lawes of 
 the Land are not suppo.«,'d to be amongst us. The asser- 
 tors of the Priviledges of the Gallican Church, and the 
 Bishops there, have given them their applause already, 
 and the Seculars never thought themselves better justi- 
 fy'd against the Regulars, The Hugonots look'd on, 
 and car'd not much what pleasure others took in it, but 
 were pretty sure it was one of the best arguments for 
 their wives, that they had ever met withal. I could not but 
 hope that they would be full as useful here, as they had 
 been at home, and so resolv'd that they should travel 
 with me for the benefit of the Nation. But I must 
 affirm, That if any party among us be more particularly 
 oblig'd by it than others, it must be those of the Roman 
 Communion. All others can pretend to no greater ad- 
 vantage by it, but only that they have a confirmation of 
 what they thought themselves sure of, before, and had been 
 long in the practice of. But these Gentlej?ienaie taught new 
 Truths about their nearest Interests the concerns of their 
 Families, the Education of their Daughters, their :Sisters, 
 their Cosins, or their Aunts. For, if these Nunnes are 
 to be believed, we may easily see to what kind of Edu- 
 cation those Young Ladies are committed, that are 
 
Vlll. THE NTTNS AGAINST THE FEYAES. 
 
 ordinarily sent over from England into the Convents 
 of the Poor Clares in France, and Flanders. It may 
 be, that upon Examination, they will be found to be far 
 the greatest number of those that go over into Religious 
 Houses. Over this Order it is, that these Cordeliers pre- 
 tiend a particular Jurisdiction by their^* first foundation 
 and which nothing but their scandalous behaviour 
 has depriv'd them of, not only in this, but in several other 
 Convents in France, as appears at the conclusion of 
 this Factum. And had not the affairs of the Kingdom 
 favour 'd the Interests of the Episcopalian party amongst 
 them more particularly in this present Age, these Nunns 
 might have groan'd much longer under their Tyranny, 
 as well as have made so many fruitless attempts to shake 
 it off, as they did for some considerable number of 
 years before. We find that those who are thus sent to 
 ^^Pension^' amongst them, are not exempt from ihecommon 
 fate^ but are as liable to the pursuits of these rude and 
 unruly Friars, as the rest. What can we think will 
 become of those early Principles of Virtue and Inno- 
 cence, that the care of their Parents had planted in them, 
 when they see such different practices, as these, authoriz'd 
 by the persons that are not only their Guides, and In- 
 structors, but also more particularly devoted to God, and 
 set apart from the World by solemn Vowes, and the Ob- 
 servance of rigorous and severe Impositions, for an 
 
 * See Sections 5, 6, &c. 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. IX. 
 
 instance, and tryal of what the Principles of this Religion 
 could do ? But, the 7nore especially, when they see all 
 this so customary a fashion amongst them, as to get the 
 authority of their Batchelors, Doctors, Superiours, and 
 Provincials, and all the men of greatest note amongst 
 them. What other effect can it naturally produce in the 
 best dispos'd amongst them, than what we see ordinarily 
 done in the world ; that is, an intimation of those actions 
 which they see constantly practis'd by the most Regular, 
 and best reputed ? Surely it must make them look upon 
 an innocent and sober life as a mere notional thing, and 
 not to be found in nature, when they find so general a 
 corruption of manners (as these Nunnes have attested) 
 amongst those, who are bound up by all the solemn 
 Obligations imaginable, and sequestered thereby from all 
 the impediments of common life, to attend to nothing but 
 Divine Inspirations, and extraordinary Sanctity. In all 
 these reflections they will be still much more confirm'd, 
 when they come to hear them justify themselves in their 
 practices by false Principles of New Morality ; when 
 they hear them nicely state, how much may lawfully be 
 permitted to their new relation (their -Bow Amy); how much 
 must be allowed to their present state and Natural Incli- 
 nations ; when they are inform'd by them, what are the 
 only necessary requisites to qualify them for a plenary 
 Absolution ; and how easie compensations for their past 
 offences will bribe the Divine Goodness to a reconcile - 
 B 
 
X. THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTARS. 
 
 ment, and purchase them an Intimacy, and Friendship 
 with God. In short, when thej are acquainted, what 
 blessed Priviledges their Church is endowed withal ; that 
 by the virtue of its Indulgences, upon the performance of 
 some small bodily motions, they can confer an Imputative 
 Saintship that shall be equal to a true one. If then they will 
 take a true prosjiect of all these considerations together, 
 and find licentiousness allow'd by Principles, and made 
 a case of Conscience ; or, if more exorbitant, clear'd off 
 by Absolutions, without the trouble of Reformation ; or, 
 if yet attended with anxiety, and uneasiness, turn'd into 
 a Traffick with the Divine Justice by Commutations of 
 Penances, which also may be exchang'd yet farther foi 
 greater Ease ; what can we expect, but that they should 
 make themselves Votaries to so agreeable a state of life, 
 as soon as might be, and abhor the regularity of true and 
 sincere Virtue, all the precepts of which they must needs 
 now look upon as fantastic Rules for impracticable 
 things, and iitted only for Naked Ghosts, and another 
 World? Locks and Barrsand Iron Grates may raise solemn 
 Imaginations in a Stranger, but they will prove very weak 
 securities for tlieir very natural Honesty, when there are 
 Keyes, or a free access for the Cordelier Confessour. 
 
 By this time, I .suppose, the Reader will fairly con- 
 clude, by my zeal, That the Timaretta, whom I ador'd, 
 was put to school to a Convent, and that I was basely 
 choused of her by a Fryar. I wholly discharge the 
 
THE NUNS AP.AINST THE PRYARS. XI. 
 
 Fathers of any such imputation, yet as I would be loath 
 to trust them, so, in charity, I bid my Neighbours 
 look to themselves. I forewarn them of sending their 
 Wemen to Conventicles beyond sea, when we see such ill 
 effects of it at home. And as I shall be glad to have 
 oblig'd those that take it for a courtesie, so my revenge 
 upon those, that will not take my counsel, shall be, to 
 commend those that do. 
 
 But my Countrymen of the Reformation, I hope, 
 will make better use of this advantage. They will 
 now reflect with more pleasure upon the Prudence of 
 their Ancestours, whom now we may suppose to have 
 warily examin'd the behaviour of the Monasticks. 
 yTis very likely that they saw, that the Religious did 
 not always spend their time in devotion or study, or 
 acts of charity, or bodily labour, or innocent Divert ise- 
 ment ! It may be, it was not so much One Anne 
 Bolen, as thousands of Melitas, and ten thousands of 
 Thyrsises,that caused the mine ot thefamousest Structures 
 in the Land. And it's probable that the scandalous dis- 
 orders of such an order of men, as these, who had all the 
 advantages that men could have, to observe their Vows of 
 Celibacy, might make our sober Governours conclude, 
 that those Arbitrary and Unalterable Resolutions were 
 necessary causes of very dangerous consequences. We 
 see, in the present case, that here has been a general cor- 
 ruption of a whole order of Regulars,even of their verySu- 
 periours and Provincials, and this for a very considerable 
 
Xll. THE NUNS JLGAINST THE FEYARS. 
 
 number of years together ; and yet this Order is esteemed 
 ) one of the severest and strictest of all the Regulars. 
 I Their Founder, St. Francis, was the most extravagant of 
 any, (both in his own practice, and in the Rule he left his 
 Disciples,) for the rigidness of his Injunctions. He 
 cbligesthem to Beggary, to such Self-denyal, and Morti. 
 f cation, and Discipline, as one would imagine should 
 make them insensible of any kind of worldly pleasure. 
 And all this they have solemnly sworn to observe, and, in 
 order to it, have withdrawn themselves from the noise, 
 and business of this World, and, to confirm themselves 
 in their first Resolutions, have deliberately ty'd them- 
 selves, before God, never to alter their present state. The 
 Church, and State, where they live, oblige them, under 
 penalties of the highest nature, to keep close to the ob- 
 servance of what they had vow'd, and puhlick Infamy 
 alwayes attended the violation of it; yet all these ill 
 consequences are not able to secure them. But, as if there 
 were some Magick in nature that was too irresistible for 
 all these provisions and precautions, we see them deliver'd 
 \ up to the uncontrollable power of their natural inclina- 
 tions. And mtieec?, when we consider not the frame of 
 our Natures, nor the dependencies of our beings upon the 
 variety of objects, that act upon us; but will, contrary to 
 the Laws of our Creation, pretend in a very wrong notion 
 to take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence, and forc'd 
 Methods, and bind ourselves unalterably to such Iiaws in 
 
THE NUNS AOAINST THE FRYARS. XUl. 
 
 the doings of it, as shall contradict those inclinations 
 that God has planted in us, and, (it may be) given that 
 power and force to, in some, that they shall not be coun- 
 termanded, but by the ordinary Provision, that he has 
 made for them ; it is no wonder, that we find ourselves 
 rashly foolish, in endeavouring to be wiser than he that 
 made us, and instead of being extravagantly Divine, 
 prove at last to be ridiculously brutish. But on the other 
 side, were the designe of these Religious retirements 
 from the world so manag'd, as that they should be free 
 and voluntary, both for the beginning, and continuing 
 of them, and made serviceable to the Public, either as 
 convenient Seminaries of such as should be any ways in- 
 fluential abroad, or as Receptacles for such, whose 
 former Merits should claim their Alimony, and Writ of 
 ease from the places which they had oblig'd, they would 
 be so far from being dislik'd that they would seem to be 
 by all means encourag'd and promoted. 
 
 Before I dismiss this whole cause, I think it not unsea- 
 sonable to invitethe Intelligent Reader to take a small view 
 of the present State of the Roman Church. We know, 
 that the Regulars are the Janizaries of the Court of Rome; 
 That they have their exemptions from the Jurisdiction of 
 the Clergy of those particular Kingdoms, where they are, 
 and so have no dependance upon their Natural Prince 
 or Bishop. And yet, to the care of some of these are 
 almost all the youth of Europe committed. It was the 
 
XIV. ffHE NUNS AGAIJTST THE FETAES. 
 
 complaint of the University of Paris in 1643, That the 
 Jesuits had ruin'd all the Universities in France, by drain- 
 ing all the youth into their schools, so that the two (Jesuit) 
 Colledges in Paris had more than all the Colledges besides: 
 And that almost all the other Universities had scarce 
 Auditors for their Professors. 'Tis well known at present 
 that the Colledges of the Jesuits are almost as many as 
 the Grammar Schools, in France. Their teaching gratis 
 being a great invitation to a People that has so many 
 public Impositions upon them, and so little money. 'Tis 
 as well known,that the first Lesson which they endeavour 
 to insinuate into their Disciples is, to be firm and constant 
 in the Maximes that they instil into them ; which indeed 
 we find is a natural effect of that Relation betwixt Tutor 
 and his Scholar, when there are not mighty precautions 
 us'd to prevent it. But if we be at all acquainted with 
 the affairs of those men, *tis still much better known what 
 those Principles are that not only particular men, but 
 such as have the Subscriptions of the Deputies of the 
 whole Order, have publickly own'd in print, about moral 
 Theology and the Government and the conduct of our 
 Lives. The Provincial Letters* have sufficiently 
 shewn by an infinite number of Quotations out of their 
 Principal and Leading Men, all LicensM by the Authority 
 of theirOrder, what deductions they have made from that 
 Principle of Directing the JntenHon, so as to indulge all 
 
 * By Pascal. 
 
THE NUNS A.GAIN6T THE FRYARS. XV. 
 
 manner of Immorality; killing men for a box on the 
 ear, though they would run away from them ; Theft, 
 Uncleanness, I^.ying in the gross sense, Killing of Judges 
 and Witnesses ; bare-faced Simony ; Covetousness, so as 
 to wish the death of persons that stand in their way ; 
 assisting of Superiors in things known to be directly 
 vicious; palpable Cheating; and all this, with this only Pro- 
 viso,that th; y be all the while such to ell'meaning men,that 
 they look only at the Good, that may arise from the 
 thing to their advantage, not the hurt and damage that 
 will follow upon it to their Neighbours, though the latter 
 may far exceed the former. The collection of these 
 Maximes have been done by many out of their Writings : 
 some very pernicious ones, by the faithful Grotius in his 
 Book de Jure Belli Sf Pads. But to remove all suhter- 
 fuges^ and scruples from those who have not leisure to 
 examine these Casuists, the Learned Author of those 
 Letters, one of their own Church, has perform'd it ; the 
 weakness of their Answers to him have established it, and 
 giv«Q authority to what he has affirmed. Excepting there- 
 fore that small party of Seculars, which never had their 
 Education under these men, and those few, that became 
 Converts afterwards from the Principles that they had 
 once sucked in [no very ordinary thing ;) shaW we not 
 conclude, tlat the remaining body of the Church is in a 
 very deplorable condition, and it may be, so yniversally, 
 that it may almost endanger the visibility of the other 
 little remnant ? 
 
XVI. THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAHS 
 
 Next to the Jesuits, in power and interest, our Francis- 
 cans are esteemed the most prevaihng Party ; and as the 
 Jesuits have got the vogue for the only Masters of 
 Learning J so these come in for their claim of the greatest 
 Exemplariness of life. For there being two necessary 
 requisites for all practical Sciences, that is, Mules, and 
 Instances of the practice of those Rules for particular 
 circumstances ; it was thought fit, by the then governing 
 party of that Church, to set up a certain order of men 
 retired from the common converse of the rest, who should 
 be as so many convincing Experiments to demonstrate the 
 power, and efficacy of the Rules of their Religion ; and 
 these were always thought to be more necessary for their 
 publick influence upon the lives of the people, as the 
 power of Example exceeds that of Precept^ or as a true 
 sire does that of a Picture.* Of this kind are our Fran- 
 ciscans, of all other Orders, by the severity of their 
 Institution, most likely to answer their Churches inten- 
 tion, both for the evidencing the Principles of it by their 
 practice, and for persuading Imitation by their Examjtles. 
 See then the utmost of what such a Pieligion can do, 
 and what Fruits are to be expected from such as imitate 
 them. If Jesuits have given dangerous precepts, cer- 
 tainly the Fryars have given greater strength to them by 
 their lives and practice. So that they must still have 
 that pre-eminence, so often boasted of, of being at won- 
 
 * A Portrait, 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. Xvil. 
 
 derful Unity with one another, of having a perfect confor- 
 mity betwixt their Rules, and Examples and (consider- 
 ing the indefatigableness of both for promoting the 
 common interest) of spreading their Doctrine, and Party 
 almost Universally. This seem to be the present Re- 
 presentation or state of the Church, and alarms all 
 Christian Princes since Christianity is almost lost in 
 Christendom, to recover this Holy Land out of the hands 
 of this Usurping Leviathan, and to settle new Teachers 
 of Old Morality, and let punishment distinguish 
 between the ordinary sober practice of Virtue, and 
 Pharisaical Impurity, or Holy Cheats. There cannot 
 be a more glorious Design, than to take care against 
 the debauching of Natural Principles by a false 
 Religion, and of advancing their Power by the happy 
 assistance of a true one : Nor a greater security of the 
 Civil Government, than by excluding all other Indepen- 
 dent Authorities from the over-ruling of natural Consci- 
 ence, the 8pring of all human actions, that tend to the 
 Publick good, and the preservation of Commonwealths. 
 The distinct Jurisdictions may otherwise clash with one 
 another, in which contest we may well think, that the 
 Conductors of the Conscience will have the superiority. 
 The experience of this has been fatal to the persons of 
 Princes, and does always make them liable to bold 
 Assassins in their greatest security. If there happen 
 to be any Disputes about Civil Rights in a 
 C 
 
XVIU. THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 State, the way ordinarily taken to determine them is, by 
 open and generous Methods ; but if once Bulls of Ex- 
 communication are pass'd or it be generally suppos'd, 
 that the Prince is an ill friend to some Usurpations, or 
 ill conduct of the Church, he is no longer secure in his 
 Privi/ Chamber, nor in the midst of a well arm'd Guard 
 of Swiss. The Desperate Religionist is ambitious to 
 oblige God, and his Church by murdering his Prince, 
 and losing his own life in the most exquisite tortures. 
 In one Age we have no less than two instances of this 
 nature from France, and a third attempt without effect. 
 Is not this a sufficient forfeit of their Liberty and Toler- 
 ation, that maintain this opinion, and have often Evi- 
 denc'd it by their practice for more than 800 years, not 
 only to the prejudice of the Princes person, but frequently 
 also to the dissolution of his Government? I leave 
 the instancing in known Stories to those that have made 
 it their particular study. It is, I confess, no easy thing 
 to remove an established Power ^ that has a general In- 
 terest to second it, and Henry the Fourth uho foresaw 
 the danger (which at last had its effect upon him) when 
 often solicited to banish the Jesuits, who were become 
 insolent upon their Restoration, was afraid that they 
 would send him out of the world, before he could send 
 them out of France. And therefore sure they should 
 applaud, and relish their present Condition, that are far 
 from fearing the power of such men as they would 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. XIX. 
 
 hardly be able to get rid of ; and encourage all endeavours 
 that are us'd to prevent the increase of them. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this tragical and true representation, 
 that I have drawn of the present/ace of things, I cannot 
 but take a notice of a particular Mystery oi Providence, 
 that has layd such strong and sensible obligations (in the 
 frame of our mind, and the state of things without us) 
 to a right, and due behaviour of ourselves, and does 
 moreover so second them with peculiar influences of his 
 good Spirit, that we often see good men secur'd from 
 most of the ill effects of pernicious Principles and that 
 they contradict their Belief hy their Actions. This has 
 made me have respect for many of that Party of men, 
 (whom I have here been so free with,) such namely, as 
 have given all outward proofs of Innocence, Justice and 
 (which is strongest) of Universal Benignity ^ and Charity, 
 And the like observations I have very much pleas' d my- 
 self in, when, in all the converse that I have had with the 
 several varieties and sects of Religion, I could not but 
 perceive, that in all kinds, and sorts of them, there were 
 some very signal instanees of Good and Virtuous Tem- 
 pers. But then, the Designe of Religion, and Rules of 
 Practice being to lay firmer, and closer Engagements to 
 Reformation of Life, and Manners, than the Ordinary 
 helps of our natural dispositions, it follows, that what- 
 soever Religion contradicts this puts, men in greater 
 danger, than if they were ^vithout it. And consequently, 
 
XX. THE NTJNS AGAINST THE FETAKS 
 
 that many of those, who in other circumstances would 
 obey the motions of their good Inclinations, when back'd 
 and encourag'd by the learned, and the grave, of that 
 Religion, will make no scruple of taking the Determina- 
 tions of the Church for Guides, and conductors to a more 
 easie, and pleasant, though a very mischievous, way. 
 
 After all this long Discourse, the main of which 
 is grounded upon the truth of things that are 
 alledg'd in the Factum, it may be scrupled by some, whe- 
 ther it were not either a contrivance of the Archbishop 
 of Sens, or an excess of passion in the Nunns, that trans- 
 ported them beyond the bounds of truth, and honesty, to 
 depose such things of the Fryars, as never were done* 
 To both which I shall reply, That, after that the com- 
 1/ position of the Factum had been charg'd upon the Arch- 
 bishop, the Nunns call'd the Notaries of the next Town 
 over to them, and there made a Protestation to them, 
 which (which as all publick Acts usually are) was re- 
 gistered by them ; in which they vouch that writing to be 
 their own : and add besides, that they have fa* more 
 horrible things to depose against them, if they still per- 
 sisted to molest them. That the Nunns did all this 
 deliberately, for a great continuance of time together. 
 That they were the gravest and oldest among 
 them ; That there were not less than eighteen of them : 
 That by their Quality, the Testimony of one of them is 
 estetm'd of aqual validity with that of many others put 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE PRYARS. XXI. 
 
 together, since, when there is no evidence to the contrary, 
 their integrity is suppos'd to be more strictly preserv'd, 
 and secur'd by the Solemn Consecration of themselves to 
 God's service : That they exposed their own reputation to 
 the Censure of the world, by thus doing, and weresensi' 
 ble of it before they did it. That they themselves were 
 Actors^ and Parties in most of the things, that are deposed. 
 And is not all this sufficient to qualify them to be witnesses, 
 and make it clear, that they did both know the matters, 
 which they testified ; and ^\^ faithfully deliver the matters 
 which they knew ? What Judge can desire more suffici- 
 encie in a witness, than Knowledge and Integrity. But 
 yet to this I add, that the fact was so notorious, that the 
 Court of France thought fit, notwithstanding the Great 
 Scandal that must needs arise upon it in those CatJiolick 
 Countries, to discharge the Cordeliers of their office, to 
 deprive them of Jurisdiction, that they had enjoy'd for 
 many hundreds oj years. That this could not be pre- 
 vented by all the Interest all the Fryars could make, 
 although 'tis well known that they are the most numerous 
 of all the Orders of the Regulars, and the most powerful 
 (except that of the Jesuits,) and notwithstanding 
 that they had made use of all their Arts of Address, and 
 all kind of Sollicitations both in the Courts of Rome 
 and France to prevent the Execution of the Sentence 
 against them. 
 
 For the care taken in the Translation^ I have 
 only this to say, that I make no question, but that 
 
XXll. THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTAKS. 
 
 upon the comparing of the Copies, it will appear that 
 I have very industriously avoided all manner oi liberty^ 
 that in any way might endanger the true meaning of the 
 Testimonies, and have purposely omitted all the Orna- 
 ments, that would, it may be, be requisite for the recom- 
 mending any other Writing to the Reader. For I imag- 
 ined that where Religious persons are brought in to accuse 
 one another, all care ought to be taken that their v^ords 
 be faithfully related ; and if made to put on a foreign 
 Dress that it do not disguise the Natural Mien, and Air 
 of the Parties ; That the Translation be as little differ- 
 ent, as may be, from the Words, and Connexion, that 
 were made use of in the Original Narration. So that I 
 believe, it will be found, that I have here foUow'd the 
 style of a Court of Justice^ rather than that of the Modish 
 part of the Town, or Theatre. For the whole Design 
 of it being a matter of Fact, I thought a Verbal Trans- 
 lation would the best suit it, lest the altering of the words 
 should cause a misrepresentation of the true Sense, 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAKS. XXUl. 
 
 A C H A r T E R - A C T 
 
 OF THE 
 
 RELIGIOUS SISTERS OF THE ROYAL MON- 
 ASTERY, OF ST. KATHERINE, NEAR 
 PROVINS, 
 
 TO OWN THEIR FACTUM AGAINST THE CoRDELIERS, AND 
 ALL THE MATTERS OF FACT CONTAINED IN THE SAME. 
 
 This clay, Monday, the fourth day of the month of 
 April, one thousand six hundred and sixty seven, about 
 three of the Clock in the Afternoon, We Notaries, Here- 
 ditary Notekeepers, and Registrars to the King, under- 
 signed, at the request of the Sisters, Margaret Le Cocq 
 de Chauvigny, Magdelaine Pilon, Susan Gaultier, De 
 Flovigny, Gedouin, Darzillers, Paris, De Beaufort, Du 
 Pas, Bourdault, De La Salle, Rohault 1' Ainee, Rohault la 
 Jeune, Vessiere, Bourgouin, Guignet, Des Plasses and 
 D'Aguerre ; all of them Nuns professed in the Royal 
 Monastery of the Mount Saint Catherine near Proving, 
 are come over to the said Monastery, where being, the 
 said Religious Sisters being assembled according to the 
 usual manner, they made a Declaration to us, " TAaZ having 
 
Xxiv. THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAES. 
 
 understood that the Fathers Cordeliers, notwithstanding 
 and to the prejudice of the Procuration, that they gave of 
 it, intended, and endeavoured to make the Factum, that 
 that they had composed for the defence of their Causes 
 against the said Fathers Cordeliers, be reputed to be, 
 *' a piece without any consent to it on their part," and ot 
 which my Lord Archbishop of Sens was the Authour ; 
 That so, after their having being the causes of an infinite 
 number of disorders in their monastery, as well in theit 
 Spiritual as Temporal concerns, they might by this 
 means still frustrate the design that the Religious Sisters 
 had, to publish the particular accounts of them, (though 
 with a great deal of regret, and confusion of spirit,) Since 
 that, they have learnt at last by God's mercy to prefer the 
 salvation of their souls before all temporal and worldly 
 considerations. They do now acknowledge and declare, 
 That they made the said Factum, that they gave the 
 copies and Originals of it, and that they are read respec- 
 tively, and every one in particular for her own part, to 
 maintain the said Factum in all the things that it con- 
 tains, and moreover to add to them things much more 
 horrible, which also have been already declared by them, 
 and are in the hands of the said Lord Archbishop of 
 Sens, if what is contained in the said Factum be not 
 thought sufficient. Moreover, They have told us and 
 declared to us, that the widow Du Gast could not truly 
 say, that the Lord Archbishop of Sens did compose the 
 said Factum, that be gave her the Papers, and Manu- 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. XXV. 
 
 scripts of it, and took the Sheets back again; but only, that 
 the person, Avho was intrusted to carry it to be printed, 
 did, it may be, make use of the name of the said Lord 
 Archbishop to secure himself, and to avoid the having it 
 seized upon by the Fathers Cordeliers, in case it had been 
 printed in the Nuns name. As, in effect, notwithstanding 
 all kind of precaution they could use to prevent it, they 
 have been acquainted, that they, the said Fathers Cordeliers 
 did seize upon some of the sheets of it, which they would 
 have put into the hands of Monsieur, the Lieutenant 
 Criminal of Paris, to hinder all their designs and inten- 
 tions Of the which present Declaration thus made by 
 the above-named Religious Sisters, after they had been 
 heard separately, bc'ng assembled together, as is aforesaid , 
 those Religious Sisters did demand an act of US4 And to 
 them this present one is given, and granted, to serve for 
 what it is proper. 
 
 This was done, passed, and despatched in the said 
 monastery : And all the said Religious Sisters before- 
 named, and appearing in their own persons, have 
 signed upon the copy of these presents, together with us 
 Notaries signed underneath, it remaining in the possession 
 of Bruyant. Signed Bruyant, and I)e Huchy, each of 
 them a paraph e. 
 
 Compared with the Original by the King's Council/or 
 Secrttury of the House of the Crown of France (Hi (I of 
 the Finances. 
 D 
 
A FACTUM 
 
 OB 
 
 DECLARATION IN COURT, 
 FOR THE RELIGIOUS SISTERS OF St. CATH- 
 ERINE NEAR PROVINS, 
 AGAINST THE FATHERS CORDELIERS. 
 
 It is with a great deal of regret, that the Reh'gious 
 Sisters of Saint CatTierine, near Provins^ see themselves 
 forc'd to give an account to the Publick of the suits which 
 they make at Court against the Fathers Cordeliei^s. But 
 the injustice, with which it has pleas'd those Fg^thers to 
 traduce their best intentions, and to make the unanimous 
 consent of the greatest and soundest part of their com- 
 munity pass for a Faction, and a Caball only of some 
 private persons, will not allow them to hold their peace ; 
 and they might well fear, if they dissembled their sense of 
 this injury, that they might seem to authorize all their 
 other disorders. It is nothing then but the bare necessity 
 of defending and justifying themselves, which moves thorn 
 to speak. And whatsoever mischiefs these Fathers may 
 have done in their House, whatsoever scandals they may 
 have occasioned ; yet nothing does more nearly affect 
 them, than the force which they now constrain them to 
 
I THE NTTNS AOAINST THE FRYARS, 
 
 put upon themselves to publish such things, as they could 
 have wish'd for the interest of God and his Church, for 
 the honour of that whole order, as well as upon account 
 of their own reputation, to have buried in an eternal 
 silence. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE NUNNERY. 
 
 Section I. 
 
 Whai gave occasion to the .mils, which the Nuns of 
 St. Catherine make at Court against the F. Cordeliers, 
 
 The Monastery of the Nuns of St. Clare, near Provins, 
 was founded in the year 1237, by Theobald the Fourth, 
 King of Navarre, and Eail of Brie and Champaigne. 
 The Traditions of this Monastery say, that this Prince 
 caus'd it to be built in honour of St. Catherine, upon oc- 
 casion of a vision, which he had in his Castle of Provins, 
 from whence he had, several nights together, seen upon 
 the Hill, where the Monastery now stands, a bright 
 shining light, in the middle of which he discovered a 
 Lady of extraordinary beauty, who with a point of a 
 sword mark'd out the compass of this House. This 
 Prince, who bad a great devotion for St. Catherine, was 
 persuaded that it was she, that thus designed out the 
 place, where God would be served under her good guid- 
 
THE N-OTNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 3 
 
 ancc. He rcsolv'd therefore to build a Nunnery there, 
 to endow it, and to settle those iVwwns.there, whom Saint 
 Clare, who was then living, had sent him from Assize, 
 from whence the fame of her great sanctity had dif- 
 fused itself all over the World. These Holy Maids lived 
 in his Castle of Provins, the space of four years, at the 
 end of which, the house being compleatly finished, they at 
 last took possession of it. 
 
 Theobald the Fifth, who succeeded him, had not less 
 affection for this Monastery, than his Father, who had left 
 his heart there for a pledge of his love. He gave these 
 Nuns great eiidowmen ts, granted them great priviledges, 
 and at the sollicitation of Isabella^ the daughter of St. 
 Lewis, whom he had married, he procured of Pope Urban 
 the fourth a permission for them to take the Rule, 
 which at the desire of Saint Lewis he had made for the 
 Nuns of Long-Champ, who had been founded by this 
 holy King twenty two years ofter the Monastery of St. 
 Catharine. Theobald the Fifth, dying as he returned 
 from the voyage, that he had undertaken wdth Saint 
 Lewis his Father in law beyond Sea, would 
 be buried in this Monastery ; the Princess Isabella his 
 wife, who died the same year, chose likewise this place 
 for her interment ; and accordingly their ashes lie here 
 to this day. This is all that is known of the History of 
 this Monastery. The several fires that have happened, 
 and the care that the Cordeliers have taken to make away 
 all the Titles and "Writings, hinder us from being able to 
 
4 THE NUNS AGAINST THE IHYARS. 
 
 give any further light into it. There is nothing but a 
 Bulloi Alexander the Fourth, which escaped them, which 
 shall hereafter in its place be mentioned, and a permission 
 from the Archbishop of Sens to beg in the Diocese for 
 the rebuilding of the Church of Saint Catherine, which 
 had been burnt down by the English ; so that one cannot 
 precisely determine the time, when these Cordeliers first 
 intruded themselves into this Monastery. All that is 
 known for certain, is, that about a hundred years since, 
 this House, having been again consumed by Fire, was a 
 while after rebuilt by the care of Lady Margaret De 
 Billy, of the Illustrious House of Prunay, then Abbess of 
 ' it, who retired in the meanwhile into the Castle of Proving, 
 as her Predecessors had done upon the like occasion. 
 
 Five or six and twenty years after, Madam de Osonville 
 being chosen abbess, and finding the House in horrible 
 irregularities occasioned by the conduct of the Cordeliers, 
 who had made themselves Masters of it, set herself about 
 
 \ applying some remedies against it. She got a Nun of 
 Amiens^ where the Bule was observed, to come over to 
 her for this purpose, to teach it to her Nuns, to give them 
 example of it and to be assistant to her, to deny those 
 Fathers entrance into the House. God preserv'd her 
 forty years in this charge in spite of all the attempts and 
 
 \/\ persecution of these Fryers^ during all which time they 
 frustrated all her good designs, and all the regulations 
 which she had made for settUng the Disciphne according 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE PRYARS. 6 
 
 to the advice of many learned Divines. So that, as the 
 greatest number of the ISuns were habituated to these in- 
 famous communications, she could never draw them out 
 of it, notwithstanding all the precautions she could make 
 use of. And the disorder did still more increase after her 
 death, which happened in 1636 ; which was the time, 
 when the Cordeliers bethought themselves of making 
 the Suns accept of the Triennial, that the Abbesses 
 might be in greater dependance upon them, that they 
 themselves might be absolute Masters of the Elections, 
 and that they might with the more ease and success op- 
 pose the good designs of those that should be elected. 
 They exercised their Tyranny in this House till the year 
 1648, when many of the Nims, abhorring their extrava- 
 gancies, did make suit in Parliament to be discharged of 
 their conduct. But Father Le Fort, who was then ap- 
 pointed Commissary and who rul'd all in this Monastery, 
 imagined that now was the most favourable opportunity 
 offered him, to advance himself higher in the esteem of 
 those of his own Order, and to make himself still more ab- 
 solute in this House. He thereupon gives such advice 
 to each of the Parties, as was most proper to foment the 
 Division ; and in the Chapters, which he call'd no less 
 than three times a day, be loaded them with such horrid 
 and injurious language upon their intending to withdraw 
 themselves from under their direction, calling them peo- 
 ple of sack- cloth and cord; Souls oi Brimstone and Salt- 
 
b THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 Petre ; that those Maids being terrified with it, seeing 
 that, unless they were assisted in it, they could not yet 
 shake off this so intolerable a Yoke, were contented to 
 let them make some new regulations, and to let the late 
 Monsieur Coqueret be named by the Parliament to draw 
 them up for them. And thus they continued under the 
 same Government, but yet hoping withal that the Regu- 
 lations that were made for them, would give some remedy 
 at least to the evils that they laboured under. But these 
 Regulations were never put in practice, nor so much as 
 communicated to the Nuns, the Cordeliers being always 
 resolved to retain to themselves the same power, and the 
 same facility to commit the same disordef s. At last in the 
 year 1663, the ISuns, seeing that the Abbess, who had 
 then finished her Triennial,dindi who would never have been 
 advanced to that charge but by the factious arts of the 
 Cordeliers, would, if she were longer continued, wholly 
 consume both Temporal and Spiritual incomes of the 
 Monastery to satisfie the greediness of these Fathers, 
 were resolved to make choice of another The Corde- 
 liers were well aware of this design, and omitted nothing 
 to continue this Nun in her Government. They made 
 use of all ordinary artifices in order to it ; the Provincial 
 took those f^r Associates, Scrutatour and Secretary whom 
 he knewto have m ost power overtheinclinationscf the Aw?z5 
 They had private Conferences with them, some of which 
 were continued till two-a-clock in the morning. They used 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAES. I 
 
 the assistance of kindred, and Friends abroad, who openly 
 made parties for her. They spared not for either pro- 
 mises or threats. Some of the Nunif a great while 
 before, had, by the PhysitiarCs orders, desired leave to go 
 out to take the waters. They were now offered to have 
 it, upon condition that they would give her their Votes : they 
 had refused it them for two years before, foreseeing what 
 use they might make of it at the time of the Election, 
 They gave them, and many others, notes to signe, that were 
 wrot by a Cordelier, to assure themselves of their votes, 
 and of their faithfulness of what they had promised : 
 they took away the office of Scribe from her, to whom it 
 did belong, according to the order of the House, And 
 in fine, after all these precautions, proceeding to an elec- 
 tion, after that the scrutiny had been renewed no less than 
 nine times, without being able to overcome the Resolution 
 which the best inclined amongst them had taken, never to 
 consent to the Election of a person who was so directly 
 contrary to the good of their House ; they advised her to 
 give her vote for herself, and the Provincial also gave 
 her his, a practice never before heard oi amongst them ; fo 
 that, of thirty-three votes, counting that of her own, and 
 another of the Provincial's, who had no manner of right 
 to give any, she had in all but seventeen. Although this 
 Election was against all forme, yet they were forced to 
 suffer it : but not without this provision, that the Treasur- 
 ers should be joined with the ^66fM in the management of 
 
 B 
 
8 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FBYAKS. 
 
 of the Temporal revenue, and should signe the acquit' 
 tances, which nevertheless was never put in execution, no 
 more than all those other things, which the Society has 
 demanded from time to time for the settling of good 
 Order, and which these Fathers, to draw them to consent 
 to their desires, promised them, but did afterwards 
 make sport at it, when they had obtained their ends* 
 So that all things have ever since continued in greater 
 confusion, and disorder. But at last, God, being weary 
 of the insolence with which these Religious abused the 
 easie natures of these poor Maids, did so provide, that 
 a person, unknown to them, who was deeply affected for 
 the loss of so many souls consecrated to God, presented 
 a Remonstrance to the late Queen Mother, wherein was 
 declared in short to her Majesty a part of the excesses, 
 which the Cordeliers committed in their House, and the 
 necessity there was of removing those Directors from 
 the Nuns. That Princess was concerned at those dis- 
 orders ; She testified her indignation against the Authors 
 of them, and got a letter of the King^s Privy Seal, to 
 command the Provincial to set things in right order 
 again. 
 
 In this Uemonstrance there was mention made of two 
 Nuns, to whom the Cordeliers had given leave to go out 
 of the House. My Lord Archbishop of Sens, upon the 
 scandalous reports that were spread abroad concerning 
 them, had advised the Provincial to make them come 
 
THE NTJNS AGAINST THE EEYAKS. 9 
 
 home again. That Father therefore commanded them 
 to return to the Monastery. They obeyed him, and be 
 himself went over thither a little while after, to punish 
 them for the pretended scandal they had given. And do to 
 it after a more exemplary manner, this severe JudgCj 
 and sage Eeformer, as those Nuns themselves report 
 it, set himself to caress them for three days together, to 
 entertain them with a thousand expressions of fondness, 
 and an infinite company of idle professions of love, and 
 to turn all that had been said of them abroad into 
 raillery. After all which, the Secretary made them sit^ne 
 a paper, which, upon the faith of the Provincial, they 
 were made to believe was a declaration of their Inno- 
 cence, as indeed they had all reason to believe ; since that 
 one of them maintains, that in a discourse, which he 
 had with her for a good part of the night, and in which 
 he had made her a thousand foolish caresses, so as 
 several times to desire to Kisse her : that he had then de- 
 clared to her, that he was not at all persuaded, that 
 either she or her companion had deserved any punish- 
 ment, but that what he did in it, was only to take off all 
 blame from their Order out of the Queen Mother s ap- 
 prehension : Adding, that he would not have her trouble 
 herself for what he should do the next morning, which 
 he had not so much as acquainted his secretary withal; 
 And that the excommunieation, ichich he mus] of ne- 
 cessity pronounce against her, should be but a forma 
 
10 THE IfTJNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 shew, a counttrfeit anger, and apiece of Mummery, 
 
 But the next morning, having entered the House, and 
 called these two ^wns to a Chapter, to make them confess 
 that they had j5wi off their habit, and consequently incurred 
 the penalty of Excommunication, for which he would 
 have them desire Absolution in full Chapter, that Nun, to 
 whom the Provincial had made so many professions of 
 Friendship, and who made account, she had signed him a 
 certificate to the contrary, was so touched with this kind 
 of procedure, that she withdrew from them, instead of 
 coming on forwards. The Provincial thereupon com- 
 manded his Secretary to goe and seize her, and to bring 
 her upon his back ! Those were his very words. 
 
 The secretary pressed her with a great deal of earnest- 
 ness to doe what was desired of her, and to make her 
 more tractable, and to free her apprehension of the fear 
 she might have of some ill-usage, he had the impu- 
 dence to embrace her, and to Kiss her by force in the 
 presence of all the Nuns, and said to her aloud, My 
 heart, My Dear, My Friend, be our deliverer with the 
 Queen Mother, thou wilt oblige us more than I am able 
 to express. But seeing that all this could not 
 incline her, he fell down on his knees before 
 her, and protested to her, that as the Provincial had 
 promised her, all that they did was but a piece of Mum- 
 ^^^ry, and that they would null the sentence immediately 
 after it was pronounced. All these extravagant submis- 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE PBYARS. 
 
 11 
 
 sions not being able to overcome the resolution of this 
 Nun, the Provincial gave sentence against her and her 
 corapanion, by which he deprived them of activs and 
 passive vote, of the offices of the Religion, of the free- 
 dom of conversing at the grate, and this for as long a 
 time as he and his successours should think fit, and told 
 her particularly that had shown so much stiffeness, that 
 he excommunicated them : And in effect, the Cordehet 
 cojifessour of the House would not since that time 
 admit them to the Sacraments, 
 
 These Nuns seeing themselves condemned to such 
 rigorous severities without other form of process^ 
 without bringing in either charge or information 
 against them, and without confronting them with 
 witnesses, notwithstanding that they pleaded that 
 they had witnesses of their Innocency, thought them- 
 selves obliged to seek for redress at Court by way of 
 appeal for redressing of Abuses, and to make known their 
 grievances there, as well as for their making of factions 
 at the Election, as for the disorder/^ conduct of the Cor-^ 
 deliers, and the ill government of the Abbess, both as to 
 the Spiritual and Temporal concerns of the House. 
 Upon these complaints the Court, by a Decree of the 
 15th of May, 1664, remitted them to My Lord Arch- 
 bishop of Sens, their natural Prelate, and ordained that 
 whatsoever should be done, and ordered by him, should 
 be put in execution, notwithstanding any opposition or 
 
12 THE NUNS AGAINST THE PRTAKS. 
 
 appeal whatsoever to the contrary. These Nuns, in 
 conformity to the wise provision of this Decree, pre- 
 sented their request to my Lord Archbishop of Se7is, 
 that he would please to come over to them and do them 
 Justice. Then it was that many of the ^^uns in the House, 
 who had for a long time groaned under the disorders that 
 the Cordeliers had committed in their House, and who 
 had very passionately wished, that it would please God to 
 withdraw them from under their Tyranny, now thought 
 themselves obliged to declare themselves, and to 
 make use of this favourable occasion, which God 
 had put into their hands, for the regaining of 
 their liberty. They united themselves therefore with 
 their Sisters, and with them did unanimously present a 
 new request to this Prelate, to beseech him, in execu- 
 tion of the Decree, to come over to their Monastery to 
 inform himself of the disorders of the Eeligious Fathers 
 and of the truth of those things which they had speci- 
 fied in their request. But neither did they stop there. 
 Their nnmber being encreased according as their good 
 intentions came to be better known to their Sisters, they 
 drew up a Solemn Act, signed by the hands of seventeen 
 Nuns of the Quire the most ancient amongst them, by 
 which they voted amongst themselves." To petition 
 my Lord Arch-bishop of Sens, in all humility, to receive 
 them under his jurisdiction and conduct, seeing that 
 the disorders of the Cordeliers both in their (Spiritual 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE PRYARS. 13 
 
 and Temporal concerns were grown to such an height. 
 In this Act they also mutually engaged not to separate, 
 or disunite themselves in the good design which God 
 had put into their minds to establish good discipline in 
 their House ; and for this end, to make all earnest en- 
 deavour and suit to effect it, to give unanimous consent 
 to all that should be thought necessary for it, and to 
 beseech my Lord Arch-bishop of Sens not to forsake 
 them in this good design, and to give them his protec- 
 tion for the compleat execution of it. My Lord Arch- 
 bishop of Sens, considering it the duty of his Character to 
 watch over these Religious Maids for the good of their 
 Souls, and that he ought to be so much the more sensi- 
 ble of this obligation, as they were more earnest in beg- 
 ging his assistance in their extremity, came over to their 
 Nunnery, began his Visitation there the 3rd of Septem- 
 ber, 1664, drew up their Declaration; and seeing that 
 a part of the disorders of the House proceeded from an ill 
 management of the Temporal revenues, and from driving 
 a Trade of blanching of linnen by the Servitour Sisters 
 for people abroad, he took care to remedy that by wise 
 and most judicious Orders. But as it had been no great 
 matter to have made good provisions for the Temporal, 
 if he had not applyed his charitable cares to reform 
 their Spieitual condition, especially after he had par- 
 ticular information from the Beligious Nuns, of the 
 State of their Monastery, and of the danger they were 
 
14 THE NitTNS AGAINST THE FEYARS. 
 
 obnoxious to, if they were not put into a perfect liberty 
 of Spirit, and if the Authors of so many horrible scan- 
 dals were not removed from them, this Prelate thought 
 himself obliged in fatherly Charity to furnish them with 
 Divines which he approved of, who should have the care 
 of their conscience^ wlio should assist them in all their 
 necessities, and administer the Sacrament to thera, and 
 to forbid the Cordeliers doing any function of their 
 ministry without his express permission, and that under 
 his hand. This he did by a new Order of the 10 th of 
 February, 1666, by which he enjoyned the Nuns to re- 
 ceive for their Confessour, Monsieur Bourree, Dr. of the 
 Faculty of Paris^ whose ability, life, exemplary manners, 
 and charitable zeal were fully known to him ; and com- 
 manded the Cordeliers forthwith to leave the House, 
 which they had involved in such horrible disor .'ers. 
 The greatest and soundest part of the Nuns submitted 
 with joy and comfort to the Orders of their Prelate. But 
 some others, to the number of nine or ten of the Quire^ 
 engaged by nobody knows what false ^laximes, to say 
 no worse, to the interest of the Cordeliers, made opposi- 
 tion against them, together with the Servitour Sisters 
 whom the Cordeliers had managed for such a kind of 
 design a long while before, and whom they had won over 
 to their party, by making them equal to the Religious 
 of the Quire against all order, and by allowing them all 
 kind of Liberties^ against their Vows of Confinement and 
 
THE NUNS AQAIUST THE IBTARS. 15 
 
 Poverty f and against the particular obligations of their 
 quality. Upon the refusal of these nine or ten Maidi 
 there was issued out a decree of the 24th of March, 1C66» 
 by which it was enjoyned, that the Orders of my Lord 
 Archbishop of Sens should be put in execution accord- 
 ing to their form and tenour. This Decree was backed 
 with another of the 14th of A-pril following, by which 
 the united Mins, being received as Appealers from the 
 abuse of a pretended obedience to the Commissary General 
 given to F. Houdry^ a Cordelier, and of certain pretend- 
 ed Bulls of exemption from the Jurisdiction of the Ordi- 
 nary, in favour of the Religious Maids of St. Clare, de- 
 nounced to them under the penalty of Excommunication 
 to the prejudice of the Decrees of the Court, the orders of 
 my Lord Archbishop of Sens were confirmed a-ne w, and the 
 Lieutenant General of Provins enjoyned to give his 
 assistance to the execution of those Orders. Those 
 absolute commands, which came from an Authority 
 which all ought to reverence, instead of opening the eyes 
 of these nine or ten Beligious Maids, and making them 
 listen to the reasons that persuaded the Court so effect- 
 ually to maintain the Order of my Lord Archbishop qf 
 Sens, served to no better purpose, than to make them give 
 clear evidence of th^t Spirit of Rebellion, with which 
 the Cordeliers had inspired them. It was therefore 
 necessary to have recourse to the Lieutenant General of 
 Frovins, and that the eldest Councellor of that Court, 
 
16 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FEYAES. 
 
 should come oyer to the Monastery of St. CatJierine^ihe 
 18th of April, in Execution of this last Decree, to settle 
 the Sieur Bourree in the Ordinary Souse of the Con' 
 feasors of this Monastery^ in spite of all the opposition 
 of these nine or ten Nuns. Such a publick contempt of 
 My Lord Archbishop of Senses Orders, and so notorious 
 a violation of the just Authority of his sacred character, 
 could not but raise a very reasonable Indignation in him, 
 and one would think should have drawn down upon the 
 heads of these nine or ten Nuns, the Thunder which God 
 had put into his ha/nds. But this Prelate, considering that 
 their Obstinacy proceeded from their Errours, and the 
 false Maxims that the Cordeliers had instilled into them, 
 rather than from any deliberate malice, resolved to try 
 all possible wayes of Sweetness and Charity, to reduce 
 thera to a sense of their duty. He therefore took care 
 to have that particular obedience to which they were 
 obliged by their Vows, and the hainousness of that Sin^ 
 which making them violate those Vows would make them 
 lose the quality of Spouses of Jesus Christ, represented 
 unto them. He moreover provided to have it remon- 
 strated unto them, how unwarrantable those strange heats 
 were, and that Violence of Spirit, which they had added 
 to this disobedience, and which deserved an Exclusion 
 from the graces that God has united to the Sacraments 
 of his Church; and a separation from the Society and 
 Communion of his holy family. And finally, he made it 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FKYAKS. 17 
 
 be declared to them, with that fatherly Autliority wliich 
 God had given him for their concern, That he was most 
 tenderly inclined for their Spiritual welfare; butwithall, 
 that he did most perfectly abhor their Eebellion : Tiiat 
 he would root that out to the preservation of their Souls, 
 and that after he had waited for their Repentance with 
 patience, and used the admonitions with Charity required 
 of him, he should be constrained at last to make use of 
 the sharpest remedies to penetrate into, and so to 
 dissipate that hard Tumour of their hearts. 
 
 But all these Charitable Bemonstrances were wholly 
 ineffectual. The Servitor- Sisters continued their unlawful! 
 commerce, and the nine or ten Sisters of the Quire 
 remained still as pertinacious, and obstinate in refusing 
 to acknowledge Mounsieur Bourree their Confessour. 
 And, as if the Cordeliers were afraid, lest these Maids, by 
 doing their duties, and frequenting the Sacraments, 
 should come to be sensible of the precipice they had 
 engaged them in, they perswaded them to absent them- 
 selves wholly fiom them : and all the care that My Lord 
 Archbishop of Sens could use to make them come to 
 these Solemnities, and the goodness he shewed them in 
 offering them Confessours of any of the other BeUgious 
 Orders to draw them to it, could not prevent them from 
 letting Easter-Day pass without receiving the CammU' 
 nion. That Brelate threatened them with the penalties 
 incurred by the Holy Canons, if they acquitted not them- 
 
18 THE NffNS AGAINST THE PRTAllS 
 
 selves of a duty which he made appear to them was so 
 indispensable. They had three Admonitions for it accor- 
 ding to the custome. They returned no other ans\Yer to 
 all this, hut injurious language and contempt. And in 
 fine, after a tedious Expectation of their Repentance, 
 having declared to them in the usual form, " that they had 
 incurred Excommunication," they behaved themselves so 
 haughtily, that their Sisters, who were more sensibly 
 affected at that violent and stubborn Deportment with 
 which they opposed the good Order that was intended to 
 be settled in the House, than at the particular Injuries 
 which they had received from them, having informed the 
 Court of it, and presented a Petition, to which was joyned 
 a Declaration of all that had passed; the Court, by a Decree 
 of the 5th of September, 1666, remitted them to My 
 Lord ArchhisJiop of Sens, to be redressed by him by all 
 wayes due and reasonabla, and even to the carrying away 
 of such J^uns as he should think fit, into other Monas- 
 teries : did enjoyn the Lieutenant General of Provins, 
 and others the King's officers, to assist the said Lord 
 Archbishop with the Secular Arme, and the King's 
 Deputy Attorney to give his Ayd. My Lord Arclilisliop 
 of Sens, seeing himself forc'd by their obstinacy to put 
 this Decree in Execution, did cause some of them to 
 be carried into other Monasteries. They then began to 
 abandon their former stubbornness, and to acknowledge the 
 Toyce of their true Pastor. And as they were now no 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTARS 19 
 
 longer beset with the Cordeliers, who made them stop their 
 Ears, and who encouraged them in this their JRebellion, 
 they had no sooner had the taste of this happi/ liberty, 
 which was procured them by delivering them out of a place 
 where they were held Captives, but they acknowledged 
 the need that their House stood in of the Remedy, which 
 was apply 'd to those wounds that the Beligiotis Fathers 
 had given to their Bisipline ; the necessity of My Lord 
 Archbishop of Senses Orders, and the Justice of the 
 Decrees of the Court that had confirmed them. They 
 therefore presently wrote to this Prelate to beg his pardon 
 for the disobedience which a false zeal for their Bule had 
 made them commit, and to assure him of the good dis- 
 position they were in to submit themselves to his Orders, 
 and to acknowledge him for their lawful Superior, And 
 not only those who were carried out to other Monas- 
 teries, but even those who stayed still at St. Catherine's, 
 did, by publick Acts, and before Notaries, protest the 
 Nullity of all that they might have done, or signed, to the 
 contrary. But the Cordeliers, who, whilest these nine or 
 ten Nuns did make profession of so much resolution to 
 retain them still in their House, had several times made 
 a shew of leaving them to themselves, not considering 
 with themselves, that these Nuns, being no longer 
 managed by them, would soon return to their duty, and 
 would not fail to execute that themselves, which the 
 Mithers did but make a show of doing, betook themselves 
 
20 THE NUNS AQAINST THE PBLTAHS. 
 
 to Other artifices to maintain themselves in the Usurpation 
 they had assumed, in making themselves the Directours 
 of this Monastery. For this purpose they undertook 
 two things equally contrary to the Laws of the Land, the 
 Priviledges of the GaUicane Church, and to the Autho- 
 rity of Parliament: the one, under the name of the Procu- 
 ratour General of the Order ; and the other, under the 
 name of the ]}funs of St. Catherine. Under the name of 
 JProcuratour General of the Order, they addressed them- 
 selves to the Congregation of the Regulars at Rome, 
 where, thinking to elude the Execution of the Decree of 
 the 15th of May, 1664, and of those others issued out 
 since, by which the Nuns of St. Catherine are remitted 
 to the Archbishop of Sensy they procured a Decree bear- 
 ing. That that Fr elate should have a time assigned him 
 to be heard. That in the meanwhile the Censures 
 pronounced by him should be taken off, and that the 
 Monastery should continue under the conduct and juris- 
 diction of the Cordeliers* 
 
 Under the name of the Nuns of St. Catherine, they 
 obtained of their General a Commission, by which JFa^f^er 
 JBinaulty Warden of the Great Convent at Paris, is fully 
 empowered to reform the Nuns of St. Catherine, to 
 correct them, to govern them, and to give them Religious 
 Fathers for Confessours ; And ihey are all commanded 
 under penalty of JExcommwnication to obey him, and to 
 acknowledge him Commissary ; which is, in plain terms t 
 
THE NTTNS AGAINST THE FRTAHS. 21 
 
 to make all that is dependent and undecided in the 
 Court, to be judged at Borne by their General, without 
 any cognizance of the cause, and without hearing of the 
 parties. 
 
 The Religious >S'w#er5 of St. Catherine, being acquaint- 
 ed with the private intrigues of the Ccrrdeliers, met in 
 Chapter on the 5th,February, 1666, and did, to the number 
 of twenty of tTiem, all Nuns of the Quire, resolve to pre- 
 sent a Petition at Court to get a Decree^ by which My 
 Lord Archbishop of Sens should be declared Superiov/r 
 of their House, with a prohibition to all others to disturb, 
 or hinder him in the possession and Jurisdiction of this 
 right. And the 4th of August, the same year, it being 
 noised abroad, That " Father Finault, Warden of Paris ^ 
 had got the Kings Letters Patents upon the pretended 
 commission of the Father General,'* they presented a 
 new petition to My Lord Archbishop of Sens, signed by 
 twenty Nims, all professed of the Quire, to request him 
 in all humility, to receive them once more under his Pro- 
 tection, and immediately to come over to their Monastery, 
 to settle the Regulations there, which he should find 
 necessary, as he had already began to do. And that they 
 might omit nothing that might contribute to the procur- 
 ing them so powerful an Assistance against the Mischiefs 
 with which they saw themselves over-run ; on the twentieth 
 of the same Months they opposed the Registering of the 
 Letters Patents, which might have been imposed upon them 
 
29 THE NTTNS AGAINST THE FETAES. 
 
 upon this pretended commission from the General. And 
 on the J 3th of November they appealed as from the 
 abuse of this same Commission ; and on the seventeenth? 
 they signified their appeal to Father JPinaulU But, be- 
 cause they had not as yet made their appeal as from an 
 al)use of the pretended Decree of the Congregation ob- 
 tained by the Procurator General of the Order, not ima- 
 gining that, in France^ there ought any regard to be had to 
 a Grant, so contrary to the rights of the Bishops, and to 
 the Maxims of both Civil and JScclesiastich Law ; they 
 presented a new petition to the Court on the 29th of the 
 same Novemlei^ 1666. Upon which, by a decree of 
 Becemher the second, they were received Appealants, as 
 from an abuse of the before mentioned pretended decree 
 of the Congregation, and it was ordered in these terms : 
 That the Declaration of the Visitation and Hearings of the 
 said Beligious Sisters made and received by the said 
 Archbishop of Sens, shall within a month be brought to 
 the Civil office of the Court, the Qlerk to be obliged to do 
 it by all due and reasonable ways ; and in the meanwhile 
 prohibited to put the said Decree of the Congregation in 
 Eocecmtion, as also against the Ai'chbishop'' s making his 
 appearance upon any such assignations, which might be 
 set him in vertue of that Decree ; and ordered that those 
 undernamed, Hubert, Apostolic Notary, Brugare and 
 Messagio, Notanes ofFrovins, who signified that Decree, 
 thall be appointed to appear at Court, to answer to the 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FHYARS 23 
 
 Articles that the Attorney-General may draw up against 
 them, for having dared, against the duty and obligation of 
 their place, to signifie a Decree which does so openly 
 wound the Liberties of the Qallicane Churchy and the 
 Laivs of the Bealm. This is the State of the Affairs of 
 the Nuns of St. Qatherine^ and whither all the suits they 
 have made at Qoiirt for these two years do tend, that is, 
 to he discharged of the direction of the Cbrdeliers, and 
 to return under that of my Lord Archbishop of Sens^^ho is 
 their lawful ?^n^N'atural Superior. And this is that which is 
 here designed to be justified, by making it appear, that 
 these Two Pleas are agreeable to all the Bules of the 
 Clmrcli, and to the particular obligations of these Nuns ; 
 that the State and lleiigion are concerned in it, and that 
 Reasons, which lo them seem invincible, and which re- 
 spect the Glory of God, and the good of their Souls ^ 
 will not suffer them to neglect them. 
 
 Section II, 
 
 The first plea of the Nuns of St. Catherine, which iSf 
 to return under the Conduct and Jurisdiction of My 
 Lord Archbishop of Sens, their Lawful Prelate. 
 
 The Nuns of St. Catherine have such powerful rea- 
 sons to live under the Government and direction of 
 my Lord Archbishop of Sens, their lawful Prelate, that 
 one can scarce comprehend how they came to be engaged 
 under any other Conductors, nor by what charm they 
 
24 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTAR6. 
 
 have been kept in subjectiou to tliat of the Cordeliers^ 
 who have made themselves Masters of the Government 
 of their House. For besides the rea&ons in general, 
 which do submit, as shall be made appear, all Religious 
 Homes to the BisJiopSy they have such particular ones 
 from the nature of their Order, and the Maxims of their 
 Holy Founder, that the extravagant disorders, which 
 have been committed in their Monastery under these 
 mercenary and self-interested PastorSf as we shall after- 
 wards show, cannot but be attributed to the Violation of 
 all these Holy Rules — (Here follows a discourse of 
 about eighty pages to prove that of Right all Reliaious 
 Houses belong to the jurisdiction of the Bishops f and not 
 V to any Monastical Superiors, which, being likely to prove 
 very tedious to English Readers, was thought fit to be 
 omitted. The heads of those Chapters are these that 
 follow^) 
 
 Section III. 
 That Religious Houses cannot be withdrawn from 
 under the Jurisdiction of the Bishops, and that whatso- 
 ever exemptions have been granted them, the Bishops, 
 notwithstanding, are their lawful Superiors. 
 
 Section TV, 
 That the Order of St. Francis was, in its first Institu" 
 tion, submitted to the Bishops ; and that it was the in- 
 
THE NUNS AGA.TNST THE PRTAR8. 25 
 
 tention of that Holy Founder, it should always continue 
 under that subjection 
 
 Section V. 
 
 That it is far from the mind of St. Francis, that the 
 Religious Sisters ot St. Clare should be under the conduct 
 of the Friers Minors. 
 
 Section VI. 
 
 That although the Friers Minors, a little after the set- 
 ting up of the order of the Nuns of St. Clare, did insinu- 
 ate themselves into the Government of their Monastery, 
 they were, notwithstanding, always under thejurisdicuon 
 of the Bishops. 
 
 Section VII. 
 
 That the Nuns of St. Catherine, were, at their first 
 Institution, submitted to the Archbishop of Sem. 
 
 Section VIII. 
 
 The Bulls, alledged by the Cordeliers to maintain their 
 pretended jurisdiction over the Monastery of St. Cathe- 
 rine, are answered. 
 
26 THE ND5S AGAINST THE FRTAES. 
 
 Section IX. 
 
 The second plea of the Nims of St. Catherine, which 
 h, '^ To he discharged of the Direction of the Fathers 
 Cordeliers. 
 
 "Tis not enough to have proved, (as has been done.) 
 That if the Cordeliers have had aoy jurisdiction in the 
 Monastery of St. Catherine, they have usurped it against 
 the Bights which the Soli/ Scriptures, the Councils, and 
 all Tradition, do give my Lord Archbishop of Sens, and 
 against the indispensable obligations that lye upon the 
 Nuns, according to the mind of St. Francis, and the 
 Rule of their Foundation, to live under his conduct and 
 Authority. It must besides be made appear, that they have 
 rendered themselves unworthy upon the account of those 
 HorrihU Disorde?'s committed by them in their House, 
 and that utter Impossibility there is, of ever resettling anv 
 ffood Discipline there. 
 
 Section X. 
 
 That the Cordeliers have rendered themselves wnworthy 
 of governing the Nuns of St, Catlieoine hy reason of those 
 hoiTihle Disorder's theg have committed in their Monastery . 
 
 'Tis a certain Maxim in Law, that *'he that abuses a 
 priviledge granted him, deserves to lose the power he has 
 in vwtue of that Priviledge." JPrivilegium meretur amit- 
 tere, qui permissa sihi ahutitur potestate. There need then 
 nothing else be done but to bring into open view the abuses 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTARS. 27 
 
 that the Cordeliers have committed of this pretended 
 jurisdiction over the Monastery of St. Catherine^ to give 
 undeniable proof that they deserve to lose it, although 
 they have been unlawfully possessed of it : and that they 
 are wholly unworthy of bearing the stile of Pastoicrs to 
 these Holy Sisters; having all the characters of those 
 misernh]e3Iercenaries, those False Prophefs,tho^e Thieves, 
 those Bohhers, who are mentioned in the Holy Gospel, "To 
 whom the sheep belongeth not, who are cloathed like 
 Sheep, but within are ravening Wolves; who enter not 
 by the gate of the Fold, that is, by the Order of the 
 Bishop, but climb over, another way, that is, by the way 
 of Exemptions and Priviled^eSf and come for nothing but 
 to steal, devour^ and destroy. Fur non venit, nisi ut 
 ficretur,Sfc. 
 
 Section XL 
 TMe Disorder's tTiat the Cordeliers have committed in 
 the Souse of St. Catherine, as to the opiritual Concern. 
 
 It were to be wished for the Honour of the Church, 
 which suffers by all her disorderly children, that the 
 Cordeliers would have made good use of the moderation, 
 which had been exercised towards them till now. There 
 would, then, have been no necessity at this time to declare 
 things which Charity, that covers a multitude of sins., 
 has so long concealed, and which seemed to have kept 
 them secret from her own view, lest Zeal should oblige 
 her, iu Justice, to prosecute the Authors of them. But 
 
28 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FETARS. 
 
 'tis found to plain, as it shall soon be shown, that this 
 long patience hath served to no other purpose than to 
 make them the more insolent^ and to give them liberty to 
 carry their Excesses to such a height, as has rendered 
 them the scandal, not only of (yne Townf or one Provincey 
 but of the whole GhurcJi. 
 
 To be able to conceive an idea of it in general, one 
 need but represent to one's fancy all the mischiefs that 
 human passions are capable of producing, when they are 
 covered with pretences of Piet^, and abuse the most J5b?y 
 and Sacred things to satisfy their own inclinations, and 
 as much as in them lies, to corrupt poor innocent Souls. 
 One need but fancy all the most shameful and base ways, 
 that may be made use of, to overthrow good discipline in 
 in a Beligious Souse, In fine, one need but imagine all 
 the abuses, which people, that are not restrained by the 
 fear of God or Man, can commit, of an Authority which 
 they have usurped^ and which they employ to inspire 
 Viciousness, and to set up Wickedness in full power. 
 And one need not fear that these general Ideas should 
 be either too high or too large, seeing that these Fathers 
 have this unhappy advantage, that the Wit of man is 
 not capable of imagining, that which they are capable of 
 eommitting, For that reason, as their Extravagancies 
 exceed all imagination, there shall b:; nothing said of 
 their disorders here, but what is faithfully drawn out of 
 of their own writings, and the depositions of a great number 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTA.R8. 29 
 
 of the Kims, And besides there phall be so much condes- 
 cension shown ill their behalf, as not to name them openly y 
 whenever it shall appear necessary to particularize any 
 of their disorders : and those Actions shall be suppresed, 
 which could not be mentioned without doing violence to 
 Modesty. 
 
 The Kdu cation op Pensioners. 
 
 The first care of those, who design to make vertuous 
 and Beligious JVims, is, to bring them up as soon as possi- 
 ble in the fear of God, and to withdraw them in their 
 tenderest years from the Vanities of the World. But as 
 the Cordeliers, who have had the direction of the Monas- 
 tery of St. Catherine, have had ends far enough distant from 
 this, so have they taken diflferent measures ; and their 
 first care, on the other side, has been to inspire the Yoimg 
 Virgins, who were sent to pension in this House, with a 
 spirit of Wantonness and Libertinism, and to incline them, 
 from their tenderest infancy, to love to be caressed and 
 courted. See how one of these Sisters speaks, in one of 
 her depositions. ''The Education they gave was most 
 •' pernicious. The Confessours spent their time in cares- 
 " sing the Pensioners, that were sent them to be in- 
 " structed for the HolyCommunion,and entertaining them 
 " with all kinds of ridiculous Stories. When, upon 
 occasion, they went to the Fatliers Convent, they used 
 ^WYm^^ oi umeemly privacies with them, to take away 
 
30 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FETAKS. 
 
 ** from them that Modesty that is natural to their Sex, 
 *' and so early enough dispose them to be afterwards 
 " more complaisant to them. 
 
 " The Ancientest and the most Meverend amongst 
 " them, appointed their Novices to entertain thosePe^i- 
 •' sionerSf whose inclinations were most suited to theirs : 
 **They gave them names of kindred, and, from time to 
 " time, made them give them Visits, to foment their In- 
 " timacy, and to give one another mutual assurances by 
 " Words, by Presents, and by Collations. This was the 
 " foundation upon which they laid their Education of 
 " YoutJi, and which, in my opinion, might easily convince 
 " them of what has been done since in their riper years, 
 ** having taken such timely care to persuade the Young 
 " Virgins that all these things were innocent." 
 
 Education of Novices. 
 
 *' They were not content to instil such dangerous in- 
 " cHnations as these into the Young Virgins, but took 
 '* care also to foment and cherish them, according as they 
 " advanced in years. And whereas, in other Monasteries, 
 *' the time of Noviciate is that, wherein they apply them- 
 " selves most to those, who design to enter into the 
 " Beligion, and acquaint them with all the least appear- 
 " ance of a Religious Severity; the Cordeliers, on the other 
 * side, made it their business to divert the Misstresscs of 
 " the Novices from informing them of the obligations of 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FKYAKS. 31 
 
 a Religious Life, which they conceard from them with 
 a great deal of care, that whilst they put them upon 
 some trifling ordinary observances, they might not lose 
 anything of that spirit of wantonness and vanity, which 
 they had endeavoured to inspire into them before the 
 time of their novitiate. I can affirm, as having assured 
 knowledge of it, that three Novices,ready to be professed, 
 having been with Father N. Coufessour, to be instructed 
 in order to this sacred action, he made them an 
 hundred idle compliments of Love, and gave every one 
 of them a token of his affection, obliging them to wear 
 them ; gave them very earnest advice to get them good 
 intimates amongst the Fathers, telling them that it was 
 very convenient for the Fathers, keeping them from 
 going to the tavern, and diverting entertainment for 
 themselves to make tj^em passe their time pleasantly, and 
 gave them very particular silly Instructions about the 
 way to manage these Intimacies. He desired one of 
 the three to retire privately, that he might acquaint her 
 with the Passion he had for her, when he gave her 
 Holy Water at the great Grate of the Church ; that he 
 reserved himself for her ; that if it were the rule of the 
 house, that the Nuns should not come to the Grate till 
 four years after they had been professed, he should wait 
 till then to have her for himself. He told another 
 Father, who had also an Inclination for this Novice, 
 that he had reserved her for himself. But not having 
 
32 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FEYARS. 
 
 found in these Novices all the compliance he could have 
 wished, he threatened to stop their profession, as indeed 
 he did endeavour, but to no purpose. The Sisters, being 
 nigh the time of their profession, were often sent to 
 Father N. the Confessour, to be instructed by him in 
 the obligations of the religion. But he, instead of ac- 
 quitting himself of this duty, talked to them of nothing 
 but Love, and to effect it with more success, he often 
 entertained them in private, and gave them medals with 
 knots of Ribbons of divers colours, according to the 
 variety of his inclinations, making them promise him to 
 wear them for his sake. And perceiving once that they 
 had not put them on, he was in such a rage, that he 
 threatened to keep them from their profession, which he 
 set himself on work to do, by perswading their mistress, 
 that they were not well instructed in the things which 
 were necessary for them to know. He called Sister N. 
 his Inclination ; Sister N. his Sweeting ; Sister N. his 
 faithful confident. These were the subjects of his dis- 
 courses with them. Some Novices having been sent to 
 receive instruction of the Confessour, he, instead of pre- 
 paring them to the sacrament of a true religious voca- 
 tion, gave them for a constant rule, to make themselves 
 eensible of the Love he bore them. For tokens of the 
 ardent zeal of his Love to them, he gave them Ribbons 
 of Fire-colour, blue, gretn, and other colours, that were 
 significative of his passion, engaging them above all to 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FETARS. 33 
 
 come to the Holy Water, the better to encourage him to 
 sing mass. And that he might have them daily at his 
 Grate, he blamed the Mother Governess for the unpre- 
 paredness of these Novices, to oblige her to send them to 
 him, under this false pretence of piety. 
 
 Or THE YoTTNG Pboeessed Ntjns. 
 One may judge by Tvhat has been said about the 
 manner of the Cordeliers instructing the Novices, what 
 measures they took with the young Professed Nuns. In 
 eflect, it were strange if they should not have taken all 
 kind of liberty before them, since now they feared not, 
 hat modesty would make these Maids leave the House 
 to avoid the mares that were laid for their chastity. 
 " A young Professed Nun, who had taken very strong 
 resolutions, (by the assistance of God's grace, and the 
 instructions of a Divine, that was a friend of her 
 family,) never to entertain any communication with the 
 Cordeliers, upon one occasion found herself obliged to see 
 one of them, and to entertain him. And because she 
 stood very cautiously upon her guard, this Cord§li«r 
 gave her an hundred reproachful taunts. He told her, 
 that such a kind of reserved life was fit enough indeed 
 for meer Innocents ; but that it was a pity, that she 
 should afi'ect such preciseness. That she was too well 
 onade, both in body and mind, to hide herself from the 
 world. That when she came to be a little more advanced 
 in years, she would run into despair for not having 
 
34 TTTF. NTTNS AGAINST THE "FRYARS. 
 
 improved lier parts, or had the pleasure of being loved; 
 and to this he added all that might make impression 
 upon the inclinations of a young virgin. 
 
 Books Allowed. 
 
 But yet they thought it not sufficient to make use of 
 such kind of discourse as this, to draw off the young 
 Nuns from doing their duty, and insensibly to engage 
 them in vitious inclinations. They brought them 
 Romances and Plays to read, and all other books that 
 might check the sentiments of piety in them, and make 
 them easily sasceptible of the affections which they endea- 
 voured to cherish in them. Their Passion besotted them 
 so far, as to make them give the Nuns " The Maxims 
 of Love," " The School of Maids," '' The Catechism 
 of Love^'^ which are most abominable pieces, and which 
 one may say, were suggested by the Devil of Impurity. 
 Nay, they have even given them books of Magick, full 
 of an infinite number of infamous and diabolical secrets. 
 And one of them was so beastly, as to give a 2^un a 
 Character, to write nasty things withal. 
 
 Instetjctions. 
 To these books they added Instructions, which were 
 not less impudent. " They have been heard at the Grate, 
 an infinite number of times, to sing lascivious songs, 
 and one could scarce go thither when they were there, 
 without hearing some sottish thing or other. Once, in a 
 
THE NTTNS AGAINST THE FRTARS. 35 
 
 pretty round corapanj^, upon a refusal made by a Nun to 
 put her fingers through to one that desired her, he fell 
 to abuse her, and told her, that she must know, that all 
 from the middle upwards, was so wholly at the disposal 
 of their particular friend, that he was not to be refused, 
 neither the sight nor the handling of them. Our 
 Mother Governesses have assured me, and many other 
 of our ladies, that the Cordeliers gave them this for a 
 lecture that was to be well practised, ''That the Bosome 
 the Mouth, and the Hand must be their particular friends. 
 A Sister complaining to a Cordelier, that they talked sj 
 freely of immodest things, he told her, "that it was not 
 so great a sin as she made account of; that in the 
 Primitive Church every one gave the Kisse of Peace, 
 and it was not forbidden, but upon the account of 
 those that abused it." The same person telling another 
 Father, that she wondered that Priests dare present 
 themselves before the Altar, in the midst of such com- 
 munications ; that " for her part, the mere shame of 
 confessing such actions, were enough to withhold her 
 from them ;" he told her, " that, these things, being not 
 done for any ill end, but only to express the tenderness 
 of their friendship, it was, at the most, but a venial sin. 
 
 Peesents. 
 These Instructions were backed with Presents, which 
 relisht of nothing but Vanity and Lihertinisme. Father 
 
36 THE NTTNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 N. (when our Gonfessour,) desired often to speak with 
 two I^uns, to enlertaine them with professions of his 
 friendship, and gave them wet and dr^ sweetmeats, to 
 oblige them to comply with him, and to satisfy his un- 
 lawful desires. Father N. (the rival of Father N,) gave 
 his picture, drawn as di. gentleman, to Sister N. and made 
 that Lady to be drawn as Fallas, Others, as great 
 Gallants as these, gave them Bings, Gloves trimmed 
 with Bibhons, Watches, Looking Glasses, Seals wherein 
 they engraved their Ciphers, and the first letters of their 
 names, interwoven with motto's and emblems that ex- 
 pressed their passion. And for fear that they should not 
 comprehend the Mysteries of them, they accompanied 
 them with passionate Letters and Verses, which did un- 
 riddle them. See, how one of the most reputed amongst 
 these Fathers, has explained them in one of his Posies, 
 and dear Letters, which is under keeping. 
 
 Letter. 
 
 " My Heart is wholly yours, ivholly in you, and wholly 
 for you, seeing it lives only for you. Doubt not of it, no 
 more than of those Oaths which I have made to you, and 
 which I now renew to you, to Honour you without egiual 
 and without end. 'Tis the Device, which I have caused to 
 be graved upon one of the seals which I send you, of the 
 Ciphers of our names interwoven; which, in its first part, 
 expresses the high and singular esteem I make of your af- 
 
TE NUNS AGAINST THE FEYAES 37 
 
 fection ; the other part expresses the duration of it, which 
 shall have no end, no more than the ardour of my affection, 
 and the absoluteness of my submission, shall have bounds. 
 As you have most affectionaUly* given me up your ArmSj 
 and as I have received thenj, and kept them by me, be- 
 cause the Casque becomes not your sex, which ought never 
 to conceal the charms of their faces and eyes ; and be- 
 sides, because I should be sorry that those that should set 
 upon N. should find him unprovided of his Arms, and not 
 able to defend himself, so now I send you them back in an- 
 other seal. As they consist of two flames and a hell^ the 
 first of which make themselves sensible by the eff"ects of 
 heat, and the other by sound and noise, I have put for 
 the Device^ ^'rnore of fire;' suppressing the rest, which 
 would make up a perfect sense : '' More of Mre than 
 Sound,^' that is to say, more of effects than loords, more of 
 fruits than noise, more of passion than talh, more of love 
 in the heart than in the mouth. The hell also is enclosed, 
 and covered with a Chevron, and though provided of its 
 clapper, yet it is at rest, to signifie,that it says not a word. 
 The ribbon that ties them together with its three colours 
 expresses the quality of our affections. You love iliQAsh 
 Colour, which signifies the infinity of your love, I have 
 a fancy for the White and Green, the one signifies ^t?eZ%, 
 candour and sincerity, the other, hope and encrease* So 
 that, beginning at your's, they sing: My love has no 
 boundSi hecause my fidelity alwaies encreases. Begin- 
 * Amoureusement. 
 
38 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAES. 
 
 ning at the White ; " My fidelity shall alwaies encrease. 
 and therefore my Love shall ha te no end.^' And 
 at the Blew; **' Iho^e that my fidelity will acqiiire me a 
 Love loithout end.'* These artificial pieces of the work- 
 man, and these weak productions of my own fancy, will 
 however acquaint you with that Sovereign Empire you 
 have over my will, and what constant employment you give 
 my heart, which thinks of nothing but of my Conqxieress 
 and Soveraign, I protest to you, most amiable Melita, 
 it is true, and if it were in my power to give you any 
 considerable proofs of this truth, I would soon put your 
 mind out of a capacity of ever doubting of it, and your 
 heart in a condition of feeling as constant and tender 
 inclinations for Thyrsis, as he now wishes for his happi- 
 ness and repose. I conclude with these ten ill-made, but 
 TBUE lines, speakiDg to this pitiful Present." 
 
 Vous partez Avortons ? Vous osez hazarder ? 
 Allez foibles efforts d'un Coeur plein de courage, 
 Si Melite, pour vous aussi bonne, que sage, 
 A la bord seulement daign vous regarder, 
 Votre bonheur, digne d'Envie, 
 Allumera ma jalousie. 
 Ne me derobez rien, ny du Coeur, ny des Yeux, 
 Dites-luy seulement, que, je suis tout en Elle, 
 Et jurez-luy pour moi, sur le plus grand des Dieux, 
 Que je serray constant, autant que ellc est belle. 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FBTARS. 39 
 
 Or,- 
 
 Dare you, Abortives, thus your fortunes try ? 
 Go then, weak sallies of a generous mind ; 
 
 If you, as Good as Wise, Melita find. 
 Tallow you but one glance of a kind eye. 
 Your happy fortune will in me, 
 Kindle the flames of Jealousie. 
 Eob me not either of her heart, or eye, 
 
 Tell her, in her I only live ; and swear. 
 Swear for me by the greatest Deity, 
 
 That I'll be full as constant as she's fair. 
 But these Fathers were not contented only at this rate? 
 to employ such stufif as this, to win the hearts of these 
 Heligious Sisters. There was nothing that appeared 
 anything glorious in the world, which they did not make 
 use of to corrupt them. See ! how one of them has turned 
 the entry of the King and Queen into Paris, into appli- 
 cations of flattery to his Correspondent, where, he says, 
 he was with the body of the University in his rank of 
 Boctour. 
 
 Letter,— ExTRAYAGANT Allusions, 
 •'Seeingthe Queen under the Canopy of State, and upon 
 the Throne, I wished her the shape and mien of my 
 Soveraign. Hearing the publick Acclamations, and the 
 solemn vows they made for her, I wished that the merit 
 of Melitahud been as much revealed. Nay, sometimes, 
 when I s^ the King enter his City, I felt the transports of 
 
40 THE -NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS 
 
 rmj "heart, and the urgent efforts of my Soul carried forth 
 to wish myself a like happiness, which would have com- 
 pleted my felicity, if it had been with less Fomp^ and 
 with more secrecy. Thus this whole pompous day was 
 spent in a continual commerce betwixt my eyes and my 
 heart, applying all the glorious representations that 
 charmed the one, to the Charms that triumphed over 
 the other.' ' 
 
 Theses. 
 
 They have sometimes employed even things, which 
 common decency and piety seemed to have secured from 
 the attempts of their wicked passion. For to signalise 
 it the more, they have even dared to dedicate TTieologi- 
 cal Theses to them, borrowing to this purpose, after 
 a new invented sort of impiety, the pictures and 
 qualities of the saints, whose names they bore. This 
 possibly could hardly be believed, if the very Extracts of 
 their own Letters were not here produced. 
 
 Letter. 
 
 ** I am just now going to carry my Theological Theses 
 to the Printer. I must defend it the 6th of October 
 and I intend it shall bounder your patronage. If I did 
 not apprehend the talk of the people, I would set out your 
 name and merits in publickupon the Title, and the Epistle 
 
9 
 
 THE NT7NS AGAINST THE FBYABB. 4l 
 
 Dedicatory of the same Theses. But I will content myself 
 to dedicate it to you tacitly, for the picture putting a 
 Magdalen, and for the Titley these words — Multum 
 Biligentif that is, "To her who loves much." 
 
 Thisis the design,see now the execution of it in another, 
 
 Lettee, 
 
 " My Beloved Heart, I desire you, immediately upon 
 the receipt of this, to send to Monsi&u/r MicJiels, {lie 
 is the Messenger of Provins,) you shall there find that 
 which I promised you, that is, a piece of Satin with a 
 dozen of Theses, which I send you, to give to your friends. 
 Send me word whether you have received them all, and 
 if there be nothing spoiled, especially the Satin. If I were 
 with you, I would have a frame made to put it in. You will 
 find, at the opening of the pacquet, a piece of my hand, 
 which is an Epistle Dedicatory. I would have put it all in 
 French, with your name in the Press, and would have 
 printed it so. But it is not time yet to take such 
 Liberties. I believe you know the reason why. Al- 
 though there be but one Title upon the Theses, yet it 
 makes a great many people talk, who know the mystery 
 of it, and to declare their sense about it, and to say, that it 
 is to you that I dedicate it. They must have very little 
 wit, if they should judge otherwise, since the title makes it 
 clear enough to them. Totestifie, then, that it is to you 
 *• dedicate it, I was not content to put those two words 
 
42 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTARS. 
 
 only, which I sent you notice of. I should not have 
 thought that I had sufficiently gratified the ardour of my 
 love. And so 1 would put in all the Title, which you may 
 now see, together with a picture of her, whose name 
 you bear. See then the Explication of the Title— To 
 both the Discij)Ie and Mistress of the Sacred Love, Mary 
 Magdalen, who, as a mark, has been struck with the 
 aoTOW of love, and who, reciprocally, as another Arrotv, 
 has struck another mark. To the Well-heloved : To her 
 who has loved muchj and does love much ; To the Well- 
 chosen; To her who has made choice of the letter part^ 
 which shall never he tahenfrom her. This is the Expli- 
 cation of the Title, which may be understood of the 
 Magdalen in respect of Jesus Christ, of Jesus Christ in 
 respect of the Magdalen. But I understand them of 
 you and myself reciprocally. Let them talk of it that 
 will. 'Tis too long a'while since, that I could but only 
 wish for an opportunity of giving you a testimony of 
 the sincerity of my heart. And these are the least testi- 
 monies I could give you of it. I hope, one day, to do 
 more to assure you that I loye you in reality, and not 
 in appearance only, and that I am. 
 
 My Beloved Heart, 
 
 Your engaged for ever." 
 
 One must be very cuiious about profanations and im,' 
 pieties, not to be satisfied with this j for 'tis not very easie 
 
THE NXTN8 AGAINST THE rBTABS. 43 
 
 for impiety to go higher, than to abuse the words of the 
 Gospel, and of Jesits Christ himself, to express a scandal- 
 ous criminal passion by ; and to borrow the Idea of the 
 chastest and purest Love that ever was, for to dedicate 
 and sacrifice, as one may say, the truths of Divinity/ to 
 a ridiculous and abominable love. And yet these are 
 the least testimonies of affection, that these fathers 
 thought they could give the N'uns, and made use of 
 Frofanations yet still more impious and exorbitant. 
 
 Seemons. 
 
 How frequently they have made the talent, that 
 God gave them to preach His word, serve to entertaine 
 their infamous commerces ? How often have they 
 endeavoured by a most execrable profanation of this 
 Divine Ministry to make the I^uns believe, that it ivas 
 they ■ that animated them in their preaching, that en- 
 couraged them to undertahe it, that upheld them in this 
 painful worlc, and that they proposed to themselves no- 
 thing else lilt the glory of pleasing them" See how 
 one of them, when about to perform the Lent-Course 
 in a very considerable town, has expressed himself in 
 one of his letters. 
 
 Letter. 
 
 *' This does testifie to you. Most Dear Melita, that 
 Thyrsis loses no opportunity, whereby to assure you of 
 
44 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 the extraordinary pleasure he finds in entertaining him- 
 self with her, whom he loves more than himself. His 
 constitution, which is none of the strongest, fills his mind 
 with terror^ as often as he thinks of the approach of a 
 five weeks labour, under the toil of which he foresees 
 either the shame of sinking, or the danger of death it- 
 self. He shuts his eyes against these disasters, and stops 
 his ears against the complaints of his head, and his 
 lungs, by the strength of that desire he has to see, before 
 and after these hardships, the object that will animate 
 Urn to undertahe them, and that will give him a sweet 
 consolation after all his langour. If you are very well 
 acquainted with the incomparable Melita, you may assure 
 her, that it is none hut her, that can effect these wonders 
 in a heart that is more her's than its own. Nothing 
 refreshes this languishing creature in his continual indis- 
 positions, but the Idea of her perfections. 'Tis to that, 
 that he makes the mo^t pompous sacrifices. 'Tis to that, 
 that he addresses his most solemn vows. ^Tis that 
 where he places his most affecting delights. 'Tis upon 
 that, that he intends to set up his rest, and without end, 
 and without change." 
 
 Marriages. 
 
 But they wef e not thus satisfied with the Profanation 
 of a Ministry that ought to be so much reverenced. They 
 carried their sacriledge yet higher, by profaning the 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FEYAE8 45 
 
 Sacraments and the most Holy Ceremonies oi the Church. 
 They had taken care so to contrive it, that there sliould 
 not he one Nun in the House, that from her Noviceship^ 
 that is, in an age. and at atime when she durst not oppose 
 tliem. had not some Cordelier for her particular friend, 
 and with whom also she was made to contract a very 
 intimate Alliance. This was done with all possible 
 solemnity ; and as for the future they were to call them- 
 selves Hiishand and Wife^ according to an order long 
 since established by them in the Nunnery, When they 
 would make any new Intimates, they observed the same 
 formalities which were used in Common Marriages. The 
 new lovers addressed themselves to the kindred and 
 friends of those, that they desired to incline to them. 
 They gave pledges of their Affection, made demands and 
 conventions. They assigned days to draw up the 
 Articles,to make the Contracts , and at last, the MarriageS' 
 where there \\?i^ jollity audi feasting ^ and a thousand im- 
 pertinencies uttered. 
 
 It is noAv sixteen or eighteen years since, tha^ 
 Father M., Cordelier and Doctour of Paris, being 
 come to court a Sister, and to take her for his 
 good friend, {that loas their ordinary character,) did 
 scarce part from her for three days together, the time 
 that he staid there. Ke advanced his discourse with her 
 by degrees, made insolent propositions to her, allcdged 
 those unwarrantable liberties that he had taken with the 
 
46 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FEIAES, 
 
 Ladies of the N. Cordeliers, to her ; and such freedom 
 as many of his Order had told him they had taken in our 
 Kouse, at which, without the particular Ch'ace of God, 
 she had yielded to him. Another Sister, after being 
 courted a long while by Father N. at present Warden of 
 
 , had all solemnities provided for her marriage^ A 
 
 Cordelier, as the Father of F. N., demanded her of AL 
 N. the Ahdess, who passed for the Mother oiih\sSister\ 
 Father N. Cordelier served for the Notary to pass the 
 Contract ; they published the banns at the Grate of the 
 aforementioned Lady, and in the Hall below^ Father 
 N. served for Curate, making them say the very icords, 
 and he, for his part, reading the same players, and using 
 the saine Ceremonies, that are observed in ordinary 
 marriages. There was a Ming given, and put upon the 
 finger of the Bride, Sister N. disguised like a Cordelier 
 made them an exhortation about the duties of Marriage? 
 and after t' at, he and she were sent alone to another 
 Grate, to consummate the marriage together. 
 
 Entertainments. 
 
 These solemnities, which w^ere almost continual, never 
 passed without all the froliclcest humours that these 
 Fathers could put themselves in. They eat together at 
 the Grate. They drank together in the same glass with 
 hollow reeds. They drank healths on their knees, and 
 Irohe the glasses after they had drank them off. They 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAES. 47 
 
 made use of little Artifices to lift up the Sisters' ^neck 
 cloths. They reproached them, that they were meer 
 geese in comparison of the Ladies of the N, Cordeliers, 
 in whose Nunnery ten or twelve Cordeliers did constantly 
 lodge ; and after that, cited the debauches that were 
 practised in other Houses of their Order, to excite them 
 to imitate them. 
 
 From these JEntretie?is they proceeded to Discourses, 
 that were yet more licentious and impudent. They danced 
 their parts to tunes that were sung to them. They threw 
 oflf the Cordeliers habit, and dressed themselves in 
 Suits of Satin, and trimming of Coloured Bihhon. Some- 
 times the Cordeliers gave the Nuns their habits, and the 
 Nuns theirs to the Cordelie?'S' Some of the Nuns, at 
 the Friers entreaty, disguised themselves like Seculars, 
 and appeared before them at the Grate, with their Necks 
 naked, and set thick tvith patches, as well as their faces. 
 Others of them disguised themselves like Comedians, and 
 acted Flays before them. And others were to be seen with 
 necklaces of Amher, Yellow Tiffany Soods, with their 
 hair curled upon their foreheads, and with neckcloths 
 and vails of silk. In this condition they played for 
 kisses at cards, and other idle games, til five o'clock in 
 the morning. They Irake the very Grates to do things 
 with more ease, and they spent whole days and nights in 
 these kinds of entertavnments. 
 J 
 
48 THE NTTNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 If they were obliged to be long absent from this 
 Monastery, they took care to maintain their corres- 
 pondence by Letters, where nothing was forgot, that 
 would serve to express the heighth of their most 
 shameful passions, or to debauch a mind, and make 
 it sensible of amorous Inclinations. There are great 
 numbers of these Letters in keeping, whose language is 
 full of ^roplianeness and impurity, and in which these 
 Meligious fathers talk of nothing but of destiny, and fate, 
 and of good and bad fortune. Nothing but expressions 
 of the bitterest and most invective jealousie, protestations 
 of fidelity and services, complaints of the cruelty and 
 indifference of those to whom they write." 
 
 LoYE Letters. 
 
 " One of them there treats her he writes to, with the 
 title of his Mistiness ; and another, with that of Ms 
 Soveraignness ; another calls his, his Dutchess ; another, 
 his Princess; another calls his, his Beloved; another stiles 
 his, his Dear Heart ; another his, his Dearest Gallantf 
 and another his, his Dear Confident; another writes to ''his 
 Dear CowrffJe;" another, to his Beloved Seart; another, 
 to his Little Dove; another, to his Incomparalle One, 
 that makes the subject of his adoration. 
 
 The superscriptions are] "To her tvhom I soveraignly 
 honour.''^ To my Amiable Cruel One" To the Victorious 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTAES. 49 
 
 Melita!' " To my dear Child." " To tlie only suhject 
 of my most tender Affections." ^'To her ivhom I think of.'^ 
 ''To my new conqiiestr '''To the Loadstone that draws me 
 to yourself, my Dear'"* To tlie most Amiable^ and most 
 beloved of the Nymphs of the Sacred Mount.''' 'Tis not 
 hard to judge of what stile the letters might be, that were 
 wrote to Virgins, to whom they gave such qualities 
 as these : and Avhom they ordinarily called Mardana^ 
 or Mariana, or Timaretta, or Cleopatra, or Melitttf 
 according as the Friers fancied them to have any 
 resemblance with these Heroines in 'Romances. There 
 shall be here some extracts of them set down, or at 
 least some of them that are the least impudent, and 
 i\i^most z'«^e?zzo?(r5 amongst them, and such as are written 
 in the most respectful terms. For, as for the rest, they 
 are too beastly and impious to be exposed to the view of 
 all the world." 
 
 Letter. 
 
 " It is but just, Madam, that you should serve for a 
 Sanctuary for my complaints to fly to, since that you 
 gave them birth, and that they tend to no other end, but 
 the cause which produced them. I beseech you then 
 condemn me not, if I open my pain to you, and if I force 
 myself to give you a small intimation of my Love. Give 
 my Spirit, that lives only for you, some encouragement 
 
50 THE NT7NS AGAINST THE PRYARS. 
 
 to its pursuit ; and if Love has made so fair a composi- 
 tion as to unite my heart to yours, I hope to enjoy loith- 
 out Hival the Glory of calHng myself " 
 
 Letter. 
 ** II « This must be the subject of one of your 
 
 letters, if you desire to make the happiest man that lives : 
 you must acquaint me, if the Incomparalle Timaretta 
 has not altogether forgot the unfortunate Sesostris.** 
 
 Letter. 
 «« J 'Tis not only, as you tell me in your's of the 
 
 sixteenth of May, the effects of my good nature and 
 Generosity. No, you make other kind of impressions upon 
 me. But I duo'st I ell you them, that I might not be con- 
 tradicted in a thing, which I do tenderly cherish, and 
 the bare Idea of which gives me satisfaction enough, for 
 ever suffering myself to be diverted from it, or to be un- 
 deceived.*' 
 
 Letter. 
 
 *'Is it possible, Incomparalle and Dear Timaretta 
 that you should be strangely surprised at the sight of my 
 character. And is my misfortune so great, that, for an 
 involuntary, and forced silence, you could be able to do 
 me the injustice to think, that I could live without 
 wholly yours, and wholly sacrificed to your service.^' 
 
the nuns against the fryars. 51 
 
 Letter. 
 
 " See now, we are in all appearance sioe score 
 
 leagues distant one from another, and consider whether I 
 be as near you here, as I was at JProvins. I know not 
 whether I myself stai/ed heJdnd in that place, as I have 
 hroiiglit you hither along ivith me into this. However, I 
 dare say, you ought to have stopped me, and kept me 
 there, to be revenged of my stealing you away, and that 
 you might have near you, one full of Bespect, Esteem, 
 and 'Bemrence for your merit. 
 
 Letter, 
 
 "-^^ You may assure her, whom you know, that 
 
 there is nothing in this world that is letter Moved, more 
 tenderly thought of, nor more religiously adored, than she 
 is, in the heart of that other person, of whom I am 
 speaking. 
 
 Letter. 
 
 « Whatsoever Idea your Imagination may 
 
 frame of my Zoi'e, believe it '^ ovy dearest,'^ it must be 
 less, than the reality of that passion that I have for you. 
 Injure me not so far as to doubt of it. Chear up your- 
 self, my amiaUe One, and let me bear all the burden of 
 this Affliction. It is not reasonable, that I should be the 
 occasion of tho least trouble to her, who makes up all 
 
52 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FETAES. 
 
 tJie siveetness of my life. For mine own part, I'll 
 endeavour to sweeten the trouble, by reflecting upon your 
 worth, and your relation to me, and the faithful testi- 
 monies you have given me of it. 
 
 Letter. 
 
 " But my candle is all melted. Midnight has struck. 
 
 I'll go see if the Organ can give me an entertainment 
 anything nigh those agreecMe delights, which you have 
 made me relish in your charming conversation.''^ 
 
 Letter. 
 ** Though my heart swims in the midst of the 
 
 ivaters, and laths and minerals, which I drink ; yet I feel 
 not, that they have quenched the least sjparh of those 
 fires, which your's has kindled there. Alas ! that it 
 should not be as ahle (puissant) as affectionate ; without 
 doubt I should live with more content, if it weie so, be- 
 cause I should give you more satisfaction." 
 Letter. 
 *' Do not bemoan me, fair ^. The tears that 
 
 Seaven s^e^ something too plentifully at the time of our 
 short interview, and the many waters that fell, could not 
 quench the flames, which 2^ flash of Lightning from you 
 had kindled in my Spirits. None but myself should be 
 concerned at my troubles, because I did imprudently 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAES. 53 
 
 search for the occasion of them : but the cause of them 
 is too lovely to he sorry for the effects." 
 
 Lettek. 
 
 *« 1 have but this moment — to protest to you, 
 
 that if I had as many hearts as hairs, I would carry them 
 all to be lodged in the hosom of my dearest, and most 
 amiahle Melita*^ 
 
 Lettrr. 
 
 *< Our Daughter has done very prettily, to send me 
 
 those t^vo little glasses. But I am not satisfied with so 
 little sweetness, and do not let her think to persuade me 
 that she has every thing little. {Que elle ait tout petit.) 
 rie doubt of it, till I have found it so by experience. Our 
 Son's ink is frozen, and I hear no talk of him. Let her 
 know, he shall be soundly whipt, as soon as he appears, 
 and I do not know whether she can escape it." 
 
 Letter. 
 
 " Time is a great workman, as he is a great 
 
 Master. It has taught me a great many things, but it 
 was never so favourable to me, as when it made me know 
 Melita, and her true value, by the sweetness of her 
 Conversation, and what she ean do, if she pleases, to 
 oblige those persons that she has engaged to her, ^V hat- 
 soever she may merit, though she had as many Adorers^ 
 
54 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAES. 
 
 as she has liairs, that is, Chains, upon her head, and as 
 many as she has rays, that is, darts, in her eyes ; yet 
 Tliyrsis has the vanity to think, and say, that he alone 
 Avill not yield to all that troup. That his heart contains 
 as many fires in it for her, as all those put together could 
 do : although he should yield to them in merit, and good 
 fortv/ne, he thinks, with justice,that he should carry it from 
 them all in love 2LnA. fidelity : so that it will always be true, 
 that, as the amiable Melita is icithout equal, so the re- 
 spects and tenderness of Thyrsis shall he loithout End 
 'Tis by these mysterious words, my Queen, betwixt us 
 two, that I would for the future conclude all my Letters, 
 and I desire the same favour of you. The first of these 
 mottos represents (to) me the object of my happiness, and 
 the second intimates the extent of the devoirs of your 
 faithful and inviolable subject. Adieu, my Queen, good 
 morrow, my Soveraign; goodnight, thou most fiaithfiul Iq 
 the happiest of Shephe7'ds. 
 
 Lettee. 
 
 *' You have, my amiable Melita, a very particular Grace 
 in tickling the 4)assion of yoMX faithful and sincere Thyrsis, 
 by the charming assurances you give him, of preferring 
 him before a Cavalier much worthier, and a fitter object 
 for your Love, than that poor Shepherd, whom age, melan- 
 choly, and infirmities, have already made gray. 'Tis this, 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FEYARS, 55 
 
 that would make hira assure you of all his affections, if he 
 could have reserved anything when he sacrificed his heart 
 upon your Altars. Live then, my Soveraign, in full 
 security of this possession. Put Thyrsis amongst your 
 conquests, though none of the richest indeed, yet doubt- 
 less the most alsolutely gained, and believe that neither 
 death nor time shall ever interrupt the duration of an 
 engagement, that this SliepJierd makes accompt is 
 eternal. Keep youself in good humour, and think upon 
 the bounties which you design, fair Melita, to Yow*s, 
 wholly Your's, Thyrsis.'* 
 
 Letteb. 
 
 " Speak the truth, she resembles you, She is 
 
 fair, all naked, as you." (EUe est belle, toute nue comme 
 vous.) 
 
 Lettee. 
 
 '* If the cold hinders you from writing, 'tis no 
 
 matter, provided that it be not at the lieart. For my part» 
 I am never cold in the hidden parts, (aiix parties 
 cacJiees") 
 
 Letter, 
 
 '* The reading of your last has excited a greater 
 
 passion of joy in my heart, than I have felt these ten years, 
 I know not, whether I ought to except even the moments 
 
56 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FETAES, 
 
 i enjoyed in the happiness of seeing and conversing with 
 you. For, in fine, My Dear Sister, I am of opinion, tha* 
 there is more sweetness in a little correspondence, than 
 in a larren, dry visit, (une visite sterile) to her that one 
 loves, And it is always the peculiar talent of your sex 
 to make fewer advances in conversation, than upon the 
 paper, (sur la papier.) I am not at all ungrateful, yet I 
 know very well, that I am not yet where I would he, since 
 you condemn the irregularity of some of my thoughts,*^ 
 
 Letter 
 
 " -You reproved me, for having wrote,*^Iwill,** and, 
 
 "J will not,^^ and you call me presumptuous. I remember 
 very well, Melita, how I made use of those imperious 
 words. But in short, if you had but once in your life 
 been in love, you would have found, in this manner of 
 expression, more of tenderness than authority, more of 
 sweetness than arrogance. — You are in the right, Melita, 
 You are to give laws for all things, not only for what 
 passes betwixt you and me, but to my lohole destiny also. 
 — You would have me believe, that you are full of ac- 
 knowledgment, and an enemy to ingratitude. Alas ! If 
 you love me for no other reason, but to avoid that base 
 vice, you love me little enough, and after a very languid 
 mg/nner. However, I will acknowledge my obligation to 
 vou for that. How small a part soever you can allow 
 
THE NUNS AOAINST THE FRTAEB. 57 
 
 me in your favour, I cannot claim it as due to me, and it 
 is a pure free gift. 'Tis true I had reason to hope for 
 sotnething more^ and I had all manner of jprobalility for 
 it. But what ? Appearances are very deceitful, espe- 
 cially appearances drawn from the discourse of women' 
 Allow me this expression of my anger and trouble. One 
 and t'other have reduced me to a condition, that would 
 make you pity mOf if you saw it." 
 
 Letteb. 
 
 " Although you be the Soveraign of my will, you 
 
 have given birth to I know not what Rebellious motions 
 in my heart, which will not he satisfied by you, with such 
 things as you undertake to stifle them with. If it be 
 so, Melita, and that I am not able to rule them after 
 your way, be so good as to indulge something to tlieir 
 Belellion, and to suffer them, for the future, to show 
 themselves.''^ 
 
 Lettee. 
 
 '* There are so many marks of your goodness in 
 
 the last lines you wrote to me, that, if my passion were 
 never so little regulated, very likely it would have nothing 
 more to pretend to. And yet, I find I know not tvhat, 
 that enclines me to desire of you something beyond the 
 passions of honour, esteem^ and gratitude. And, Sister, 
 
58 THE NUNS AGAINST THE PRYARS 
 
 do not ohject tome that injurious veil, that coyers a part 
 of your graces. TJie little god, wliom you hnoiv, has his 
 veil too, as loell as you, ivhich suffers him not to tahe 
 notice of the austere hahit which encloses you*''' 
 
 Sacrilege, and Profanations. 
 
 'Tis but too true, that the passion, that possessed these 
 Beligious Fathers^ has blinded them to such a point, as to 
 make them an hundred times forget themselves, and, as 
 often, those to whom they discoursed. In effect, can 
 one, without an extraordinary blindness, say to a iVw^ 
 in the very Tribunal of Penitence, " My dear sweeting, 
 be confident," SLud then, sighing, ''Confess you of yonr 
 cruelty, my dear heart'' Can one, without an extraor- 
 dinary blindness and impiety (demanding the Ornaments 
 to say Mass withall,)/«ZZ down upon his knees to a Nun, 
 and tell her, that ''she is the first Deity that he would 
 sacrifice to'? 
 
 Can one, without extraordinary blindness, impiety, and 
 beastliness, when he is Confessour, and sees a Penitent 
 give reasons for scrupling that amorous passionateness, 
 and those insolent transports, that he acquaints her with, 
 and that she protests, ''she could not yield any compliance 
 to what was proposed to her, not hiowing hoiv to confess 
 herself of such infamous contacts (attouchemens) if she 
 should allow him, thereupon offer himself to learn her 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FBYAB8. 69 
 
 liow to do it, and to give her a forme in writing^ to help 
 her to confess herself of it^^ 
 
 Enteies. 
 
 "There shall be no particular mentioii here made of 
 secret and nocturnal entries into the Garden, and Monas- 
 tery, by the help of false keys^ or ladders of cord, and 
 in hashets ; of such as were made in oj^en daylight upon 
 frivolous pretences ; of dancings, performed in the Be- 
 factory, and other regular places : nor, lastly, the inso- 
 lencies committed at the Nuns' funerals. It was 
 common for the Cordeliers, before, and after, these kind 
 of Ceremonies, to run after thote they fancied, to take 
 them in their arms, to kiss them, to carry them from one 
 place to another, to play the fool with them, to go into 
 private Nuns' chambers, to feast it there, and be frolic, 
 to stay whole hours there, a Father and a Nun alone by 
 themselves, and a little pensioner set, as sentinel in 
 foolery, to keep the door. 
 
 Nothing was ever alio to put a stop to these insolencies, 
 and they have scarce ever gone in to confess the sick, or 
 to administer the sacraments, without committing neio 
 
 " There have been some of them, who, after they had 
 '' heard the Confession of one sick Nun, tvere upon a led 
 "with others, and after they had spoken some devoid 
 
60 THE NUNS A.GAINST THE RTA.RS. 
 
 ^^ words aloud to them, laid tTiemselves down again to hiss 
 *' tliem, and would JioA^e put their hands into their hosoms. 
 
 *' There have been some of them, who, after they had 
 *' given the Uictreme Unction to a sick JVun, and entred 
 **in again to assist her at her death, instead of perform- 
 "ing this duty, have conducted other Nuns to their 
 " chayribers^ and there cooped up themselves together in a 
 *' small closet. 
 
 There have been some of them, who, after they had 
 " sate up a night with one that was dangerously ill, 
 ^^made themselves to he carried into the Dormitorg, to go 
 ^' into the Nuns' chamhers, to see, as they said, thei^ 
 ^^ Loves in their beds before them» 
 
 ''In fine, there have been of them, that, at the very 
 
 ''^ foot of the Altar i did violence to a Novice upon the 
 
 " Soly Day of Good Friday itself who had been ordered 
 
 " to go out into the Church, to take down the Beposier, 
 
 "according to the custom of this Monastery. She was 
 
 *' kissed by force ^ and her nechcloth was torn off , and 
 
 ^' she was oftentimes very rudely handled (plusieurs 
 
 " attouchemens) ,'^ 
 
 Insolencies. 
 
 "It is fit, now, to conclude the representation, that 
 " was undertaken to be given of these horrible disorders. 
 That which remains is too abominable, and our tongue is 
 too chaste, to he able to express it. Not but that a just 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE PRYAR8. 61 
 
 regret and indignation has made the greatest part of 
 these Religious Sisters find terms to declare such things 
 iu their Depositions, as, to use their own words, pass all 
 imagination^ and the hare mentioning of which onahes 
 them blush. But it is enough that they have been once 
 wrote, that they are under the hands of the Judges of 
 the Court, and that, time has not been able to blot them 
 out of the memory of those, who have seen them them- 
 selves, in the time of their youth, or hy eye-witnesses 
 have been acquainted with the names of those Nums, 
 whom the Fathers have engaged in the last Act of 
 Incontinency (dans le dernier Desordre)^ with the 
 number of Children that they have had ; the horrid con- 
 trivances (les artifices criminels) that they have made 
 use of, to hinder these crimes from mahing a noise abroad, 
 and other abominable circumstancea of most horrible 
 corruptions (desplus horribles corruptions), which made 
 one of the Ancientest amongst them, (who had herself 
 been overtahen in these d/readful debaucheries,) say, that 
 she stood in wonder hoio this Souse could still subsist, 
 and hoiv it ca^ne not to be swallowed up, as those miser- 
 able cities, of tvhich the Holy Scriptures speah. 
 
 But if the Cordeliers have omitted nothing that might 
 draw down these sad judgments upon this miserable House, 
 and if the Nuns, who have sent their complaints to 
 Court, may justly say, that they owe it only to the mercy 
 
62 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 of God, that, (these Fathers having laid all the tra/ps 
 imaginable to make them fall into these dangerous preci. 
 pices,) they do not continue still engaged in thera. 
 Certainly they have not less reason to acknowledge, that, 
 if there be yet amongst them any remainders of Piety 
 and Keligion, (as it cannot well be doubted, considering 
 the warm instances they make at Court,) they do also 
 owe that wholly to the particular providence, and special 
 favour of the same mercy. For the Cordeliers have 
 omitted nothing that might plunge them into impiety, 
 and take away from them the respect that is due to the 
 sacraments of the Church, and the just confidence that 
 ought to be reposed in them, that are the dispensers of 
 them. See what the Nuns say of it, in their deposi. 
 tions« 
 
 The Disoeders of the Cordeltees. 
 
 " One, called N. , when Confessoiir, being come into 
 the Monastery to give the last Sacrament to a Nun^ w as 
 so full of wine, that he put on the Priest's Garments 
 the wrong side outward^ and the Mother Infirmiere was 
 fain to guide his hand to apply the Soly Oyle. 
 
 Another, called N., a Confessour too of our House, 
 came once into the Confession-Chayr, so overcharged with 
 wine, that he fell asleep, and the JVun that was confessing 
 to him, aftershe had began a part of her Confession twice, 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAR8. 63 
 
 and often endeavoured to lualce him. was at last forced 
 to withdraw. 
 
 I wyseZf happened to confess myself to one Father N., 
 who was so full of drink that after I repeated many 
 Articles of my confession over again^ I was forced to 
 leave it.- 
 
 One, called Father N., who was here about eigJiteen 
 years ago, has revealed the Confessions of all the 
 Nuns of our community, and has given them in ivriting 
 to many Co7'delierSy to favour their design upon those 
 whom they had a mind to seduce, beginning these sacri- 
 legious writings by some j^assage of Holy Scripture^ that 
 was agreeable to the humour of the several respective 
 persons. / have seen and read this paper, a Cordelier 
 having intrusted me ivith this secret. I made my com- 
 plaint of it to Father N., at that time Provincial the first 
 time, who confessed to me that he had seen that writing. 
 
 Father N., twelve years ago, did the same, and besides 
 had always ivomen with him. Once he kept a maid of 
 Provins in his Closet, and her parents being very much 
 troubled for her, thinking she had been stolen, he sent 
 her away to Paris, He himself intrusted me with this 
 secret, to oblige me to conceal ivhat ITcnewof it. 
 
 They commonly gave us Directours who had no sense 
 of piety in them, who came into the Confession- chair, after 
 they had heen well drunk. And for proof of this, I 
 confessed to one Father !N., to no purpose : for 
 
64 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTAES, 
 
 he slept so soundly that he heard not a word, which 
 made me draw the curtain, and endeavour to aioake Mm; 
 but to no effect at all ; many saw him in this condition, 
 and made him be carried to hed. 
 
 Another called Father N. was continually thus distem- 
 pered. A Canon of Frovins, called M.N., came often to 
 sup with him, to make him drink, that he might afterwards 
 have the pleasure of making him reveal our Confessions. 
 I knoiv it for a certainty that he did so ; and when he 
 took his turn to go and divert himself with the Canon, they 
 carried Mm to Ms led at eleven o'clock at night upon a 
 hand harrow^ which was known but to two other Nunst 
 Sister N. and N., and me. 'Tis fifteen years ago that this 
 happened. 
 
 Another called N"., who was here two years ago, and was 
 the Provincial's brother, and also of this humour, which 
 made him entertain the Nims with a thousand imperti- 
 nent follies, and made them perfectly ashamed of him. 
 
 If some of them have been free from these faults, they 
 havehad others that were not less considerable. They hare 
 never set themselves about planting any sense of piety or 
 virtue in us, but on the contrary have studied tne ruin of 
 both the temporal and spiritual state of our house. The 
 only Devotion that the Cordeliers inspired our Sisters 
 withal, was that of making them often desire Masses^ 
 that they miyht get their money., and that they might 
 have an occasion to visit us in the morning, andj so 
 
THE KTTNS AGAINST THE FKTAKS. 65 
 
 to stay at the Grrate all the rest of tJie day, to divert 
 themselves and make Collations. These were their dagly 
 practices, which I have been a constant spectator of for 
 near these thirty years, the time that I have been in this 
 monastery, without mentioning other things that are much 
 more wicked. 
 
 This Factum would be too much swelled, if we should 
 relate all the particular proofs that we have, of the 
 various disorders, that the Cordeliers have committed in 
 this Monastery, about the Spiritual concern of it. That, 
 which has hitherto been set down, is but too sufficient to 
 raise horrour in all, that have any concern for the holi- 
 ness of our Mysteries, any love for the purity of Virgins, 
 and anAj tenderness for the interest of Jesus Christ, in 
 the souls that are consecrated to him, and whose fidelity 
 these miserahle Directours have endeavoured to corrupt 
 for these so many years together. 
 
 A rahidis enim hominihus nomen sceleratum est 
 sanctitatis ; et ah immundis, et luteis, pretiosum concul- 
 catum est propositwn Castitatis. 
 
 End of Paet I. 
 
THE 
 
 NUNN8' COMPLAINT 
 
 AGAINST THE FRYATIS, 
 
 BEING THE CHARGE GIVEN INTO THE COURT OP FRANCE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 NUNNS OF ST. KATHERINE, 
 
 NEAE PEOVINS, IN FKANCE, 
 
 AGAINST THE 
 
 FATHF.RS CORI3ELIERS 
 
 THEIR CONFESSOURS. 
 PART 2. 
 
 SEYERAL TIMES PRINTED IN FRENCH, AND NOW 
 FAITHFULLY DONE INTO ENGLISH. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY E. H. AND EOr.BRT PAWLETT, AT THE BIBLE, IN 
 
 CHANCERY LANE, NEAR FLEET STREET. 
 
 1676. 
 
CHELTENHAM : 
 
 REPRINTED BY ALFRED HARPER, 
 
 TREE PRESS OFFICE, 
 
 1866. 
 
PART II 
 
 Section XII. 
 
 Of the disoi'ders committed hy the Cordeliers in the 
 Temporal concerns of the Monastery of St. Catharine. 
 
 After the horrible extravagancies vvhich have been men- 
 tioned, it will not be difficult to believs, that the Corde- 
 tiers have consumed all the Temporal incomes of this 
 Monastery, It may be easily concluded, that the Beligious 
 Fathers, who, by so many different ways, have made it 
 their business to draw off Virgins from the fidelity they 
 owed to their Divine Spouse, and to rob them of their 
 honour, and the Spiritual inheritance, which he had ac- 
 quired for them with the price of His blood, have not spared 
 the Temporal inheritance which they had received from 
 the magnificent bounty of their Illii^trious Founders, 
 and the liberal charity of their Melations. 
 
 " The profuseness which the Cordeliers have engaged 
 them to shewin feasting, in presents, and a thousand other 
 vain expences, and unworthy of their profession, are alo?ie 
 sufficient to make any one imagine the abuses that have been 
 committed in this point. For as the ijensions of private 
 iVt^ws were not sufficient to furnish outthealmost continual 
 Collations that were made at the Grates^ the Sisters were 
 fain to sell their silver-plate., and whatever they could lay 
 their hands on, of the provisions of Linnen, and other 
 
68 THE NUNS AGAINStI THE FRYARS. 
 
 goods of the Community, (even to the Church Vestments, 
 and the ornaments of the Altars,) for the effecting of their 
 purpose, particularly the Solvit our Sisters , wlio, being of 
 mean birth, and not having ordinarily any pensions, yet 
 would have their Gallants, and their Confidents among 
 the CordelierSf and would treat them like Grandees. 
 This was done without any check, or scruple of Con- 
 science ; for the Superiours of the Order had taken care 
 to fortify them against any that might rise in them ; and 
 Father N., the Provincial, upon the Complaints that were 
 made, at the last Chapter Meeting, of the theevish Jilchhig 
 practised in the House, told them in express terms^ That 
 according to the Council of Trent, one might steal to the 
 value of Twenty Crowns, ivhen he wanted necessaries 
 which indeed was an abuse of the Name and Authority 
 of that Council, to expose the Monastery to pillage 
 under pretence of setting bounds to that licentious- 
 ness of which they complained ; those necessaries having 
 no other measure than the passion that the Nuns had for 
 the Cordeliers, and the Presents that they had a mind to 
 make them. 
 
 They have further proceeded to ruine this Monastery 
 by another contrivance, no less destructive than the 
 former. They allowed those, whom they knew to be 
 wholly at their devotion, to be heiresses to their Sisters, 
 and their Aunts, that happened to die in the Beligion, 
 And the Father Frovinoial made the Abbess, Madam de 
 ■MQnth'QH)}j,i\^ uau of the Mum^ (ouu Sister N.j)>{t^ ot 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FllYAUS. 69 
 
 six considerable pieces of Silver-plate, that an Aunt of 
 licir's in the House had left her when she died; and all this 
 Flate, which amounted to a considerable szm, failed not 
 of being sold a little while a^ter, and consumed in feast- 
 ings, and presents made to the Cordeliers. Besides all 
 this, against their oiou Orders, and the general complaints 
 of all the Nuns, they suffered the Servitour Sisters 
 to blanch linnen for people abroad, which made them not 
 only to make a gain to themselves against their vows, (for 
 I hey disposed as they pleased of the gains of this traffick,) 
 bat also made them verg chargeable to the Community. 
 For, by this trade of theirs, which took up all their time, 
 they became incapable of doing them any service. Theg 
 broke their vow of Confinement, by letting in men and 
 women to them every day, whose service they stood in 
 need of, and who consumed the provisions of the house 
 with them. They spent a vast quantitg of wood to 
 make the ashes, which they needed for blanching ; so that 
 they have burnt twentg-four thousand faggots, once or 
 twice, as big again as those oi Paris, in the compass of o^e 
 year, and more than four-score strings of wood. And 
 thus they wasted all things else,— s«Z/^, wine, corn, meat, 
 making money of all that came into their hands, to satisfie 
 the Sensuality of the Cordeliers, who maintained them 
 in these unlawful intercourses, because all the advantage 
 of ihem returned to them at last ; and the money that 
 these Nuns raised by them, which amounted to more 
 
^6 
 
 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FEYABS. 
 
 than a hundred Crowns a-year for each of them, was 
 spent m Feasting, in Presents^ and in all kind of profuse - 
 ness. But the waste, that these Fathers made of the 
 / revenue of this Monastery, never appeared more visibly, 
 than since the election of the last Alhess, who was wholh/ 
 devoted to their Interests^ and whom, for that reason t 
 they have used all industry to continue in that office, by 
 so many shameful and unlawful means. ^Tis ready to he 
 justified, that, besides the Ordinary Bevenue, aad the 
 private allowances of the Nuns, besides eighteen thou- 
 sand Livres of debt contracted by her, and which is 
 charged upon the House : besides fifteen muids* of Corn 
 that were due to the House since the time of the Abbess 
 that preceeded her, and which she received, and above 
 thirty mtdds more, which she has caused to be sold within 
 these thirty years; she has, besides all this, since the 
 moneth of February, 1660, in Bents, Nun's Portions, 
 and other incomes of the House, received more than 
 40,000 Livres of ready money. 
 
 And all this has been consumed, partly in feastings 
 and presents, and partly in other prodigalities, done to 
 satisfie the greediness of the Cordeliers, who abused the 
 easie nature of this poor Nun, to enrich themselves with 
 the spoils of this Monastery; and this with a greater inso- 
 lence, than they ever did under other Abbesses : as 
 
 * A muid is five quarters, one combe, and a bushel at London. 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FKTARS. 71 
 
 is visible in this, that, in so ordinary a town as Frovins 
 they have loitJiin a few years very joUili/ expended more 
 than 25 or 30,000 Livres, in nothing but Gallantries^ 
 and unnecessary things." 
 
 'Tis not by this denied, but that the tetter disposed 
 part of the Cammunity, when they perceived the un- 
 satiableness and unreasonableness of the Cordeliers, did 
 sometimes force themselves to make an opposition against 
 it, and from time to time demanded, that, according to 
 the Order of their Souse, and conformably to their 
 Mule, they might choose a Beceiver, and that the 
 Abbess might not dispose of the income of the House 
 but in conjunction with the Treasurers. But the 
 Cordeliers have always frustrated all such kind of endea- 
 vours ; oneiohile persuading the Officers, whom they ruled, 
 to take the Rent themselves, and to employ faithful and 
 intelligent men abroad, who should be intrusted with 
 it, and sometimes making them take people for their 
 Beceivers, that were worth nothing, but such as were 
 wholly at their beck ; and sometimes exciting the Abbess, 
 as particularly the last, to take all the Revenue into her 
 own hands, and to dispose of it, witliout qiving account 
 of it. So that, notwithstanding all that could be done 
 they have sfill found out ways to make themselves 
 Masters of the Revenue of the Monastery, and to dispose 
 of it, to furnish them for Voyages into Italy, for the 
 provincials visitations in their Province, and to make 
 
72 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAES. 
 
 provision for Fatlier N.'s taUe^ which is one of tlie most 
 magnificent in all the Province of Brie. 
 
 There is no mention here made of the Cheats, that were 
 usual upon the death of the Confessours of the Monas- 
 tery ;— of the smmnes of money intrusted in the hands of 
 these Confessours for the affairs of the House, and which, 
 after their death,were carried away by the Provincials ; — 
 of the Goods and ITahits which the House had furnished 
 them with, and which they caused to be conveyed away; — 
 of the waste they made of the tvood of the Nunnery for 
 warming and building of their Convent: — Of their custom 
 of sending such Cordeliers into the Monastery, as were the 
 particular intimates of the Nuns, to engage their votes, 
 and to live as they pleased for two or three months to- 
 gether, before the Elections ;— of Feasts made for the 
 Provincials at the Elections of the Ahhesses, the two last 
 of which amounted, each of them, to 400or5001ivres; — of 
 hlanh papers signed by the last Ahhess, and put into the 
 hands of a person appointed by them for the same pur- 
 pose ; — and of a thousand other ways, that they have used 
 to devour, and waste the whole estate of this House. 
 
 What has been related is sufficient to show the 
 necessity of having these Cordeliers removed from 
 this Monastery, since 'tis evident they have made 
 use of the access they haye had into this house, and of 
 the jurisdiction that they have usurped, for nothing but 
 to enrich themselves with its spoils, and to lavish out an 
 
THE NTTNS AGAINST TIIK PRYARS. 73 
 
 estate, (that was given for the suhsi'^tenco of tlie spouse of 
 Jesus Christ,) in feast in r/s, debauches, and in all sorts of 
 idle and shameful expences. So that one may too justly 
 compare these self-inlorcsted Directoiirs to those merce- 
 nary Pastours, that Holy Scripture speaks of, who, 
 instead of taking care to lead out tlut sheep tliat God h;id 
 committed to them, thought of nothing but feeding 
 themselves with their milk, of clothing themselves with 
 their wool, and of eating up the best and fattest of them : 
 which made God declare by the mouth of his Prophet, 
 that he would take His flock out of their ban Is, and 
 would not sutfer them to be any longer under their 
 keeping, nor be made a prey of by them. '^JEcce ef/o super 
 pastores reqidram gregem meam de manu eoinim." 
 
 Section XIII. 
 
 That the Cordeliers ao^e under an imjwssihiliti/ of ever 
 establishing good Order and Begularitg in this Monastery. 
 
 The Cordeliers have not only rendered themselves 
 unworthy of the government of the Monastery of St. 
 Catherine^ by the abominations that they have com- 
 mitted, and by the waste they have made of the Temporal 
 income; but 'tis even impossible for tl.ein to remedy the 
 mischiefs that they have caused in this House. This is 
 now undertaken to be made evident, by shewing. That 
 those Fathers, to whom it most appertains to maintain 
 
74 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTABS, 
 
 Begulanty in the Monastery, are the persons who have 
 committed the greatest Disorders ; and that these Nuns 
 have invincible reasons to have no confidence in all the 
 Fathers of the Order put together. 
 
 Section XIV. 
 
 That tliey are the Superiours of the Order, tvho have 
 engaged the House of St. Catharine in the Disorder 
 it is in. 
 
 When the nolle parts of a man's body are not affected 
 and that the 3Ialady has notseized the Heart,or the Head, 
 we despair not of a sick person, how dangerous soever 
 the distemper may be, that he labours under. But when 
 the whole disease has got into the Heart, or the Head? 
 or that it is from one of these parts it passes into the 
 rest, he becomes incurable, and we have no more hopes 
 of doing him any good. 'Tis the same in Religious 
 Societies. Whilst the disorder is but among private persons, 
 there is reason to hope to remedy it. But when 'tis 
 the Superiours that commit it, and that those, who are 
 set up to prevent it, infuse it into others, the corruption 
 in a small time becomes general, and there is no remedy 
 to be had, but by that way of cutting off., and casting 
 away., that Jesus Christ prescribes to all the faithful, in 
 these words, — *'If vour right eye be an occasion of 
 offence to you, pull it out, and cast it from you ; and if 
 your right hand be an occasion of offence to you, cut it 
 off, and cast it away from you." 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. ^6 
 
 'Tis then with Prudence and Justice, that the Nuns 
 of St. Catharine desire to have the Cordeliers removed 
 from them, since those of the Fatliers^ that are 
 stiled their Superiours, and who ought in that character 
 to serve as Ei/es to conduct them in the way to 
 Heaven, and as Sands to uphold them in the practice 
 of their Eicle, are those who have diverted them 
 from it, and have been the greatest occasions of scandal 
 and falling, that they eyer hadin their Monastery. In effect 
 they are not only private, and ordinary Cordeliers, that 
 have committed all the horrible disorders before 
 mentioned in their House : they are the Visitors, the 
 Deputies^ the Frovincialy the Commissaries General, their 
 Secretaries, the War dens, the Doctours, ^ndithe Bacheloiirs 
 of the Order, and the most famous among their preachers. 
 
 In fine, they are those, that have the greatest dignities 
 amongst them, that are the occasion of all these Disoi'ders; 
 that have maintained them; and have ever been the most 
 pertinacious opposers of the Bemedies, which from time 
 to time have been endeavoured after, 'Twas they that 
 presented the young Nuns with their Confidants, that 
 wrote to them in their behalf, that engaged them to those 
 unlawful intercourses before-mentioned, and that took 
 care., when they were fallen out, to reconcile them again, 
 and to renew their wicked intimacies. 
 
 These sottishabsurdities, (says aBeligious Sister^speak* 
 ingofthealUamesandmarriages they Gontraoted together) 
 
76 tHE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAES. 
 
 were so far from beinpr reproved by the Stqjerioiirs, that a 
 Mm, that often nauseated these kinds of farailiarities, 
 having taken an occasion to break off that marriage that 
 she had made with one of these FatJiers, Fatlier iV., tlie 
 Provincial took cognizance of it, and interested himself 
 so far in It, that at his Visitation he perswaded her in 
 very idle, impertinent terms, to renew that correspon- 
 dence. He informed himself of her other intimates, and 
 told her, it was not enougli to see them but once a week, 
 
 that he allowed her twice at least. 
 
 Father N. Cordelier, writing to a Servitour Sister 
 
 in very passionate and sottish terms, and the Letter 
 coming into the hands of a Lady of the Quire, ad- 
 dressed to her from a person without, she gave the 
 Father Provincial notice of it, and of all the unseemly 
 communication betwixt them that she had been 
 acquainted with, that so for the future he might give 
 check to it And yet, notwithstanding he gave not the 
 least discountenance to it, and suffered the Father to give 
 the Servitour Sister as frequent visits as before. 
 
 Again, these Fathers have not only brought us in hither 
 Boohs of Natural Secrets ^Bomancesfiatecliisms of Love, 
 and other pieces of that nature ; but tlie Siiperiours also 
 have approved the same. And Father N. the Provincial, in 
 the presence of a good part of the Community, having found 
 one of these books in the chamber of a Servitour Sister, 
 did only smile at it. and that passed for a consent. 
 
 j^aiher N , Provincial, gave all the young professed 
 
THE NUNS AGA.IN8T THE FRYARS. 77 
 
 Nuns particular intimates. Tie preached when I was 
 profossed. and callecl me his "daughter" upon this account. 
 He told me, as soon as I had mv profession, that he would 
 give me a Cordelier for my confidant, all andsome fellow ^ 
 a Gallant, and ivell fashioned, and that he would marry me 
 to him. And talked oftentimes of these kinds of marriages. 
 All the Siiperiours, the Provincials, the Gonfessours,\\?i.\Q 
 thus ahusorl their employment, favouring, or being them- 
 selves the cause of the Disorders, by admitting otJier 
 Cordeliers into the House to engage the Nuns to these 
 insinuating intimacies, and by this means to continue 
 themselves Masters of all. For, b,^ favours or persecutions 
 were always at the disposal of the Cordeliers, according 
 as their Beloveds were complyant with, or inflexible to, 
 what the Superiours would have them do, the Sister's 
 were fain to suffer all that they pleased to have done, 
 and to give their assistance to the furthering of all their 
 passions. And this made the Provincials, instead of im- 
 ploying their Visitation in enquiring after the misde- 
 meanours that were to be corrected, to set themselves 
 about courting and caressing the young professed Nims^ 
 to talk to them of their good friend, and to excite them 
 to take one, that they might have the pleasure of being 
 served by him. And in puisuance of this, they authorised 
 the Collations and Entertainments at the Orates, Gaming, 
 Lascivious Songs, Breaking of Glasses in honour of their 
 ladies^ before the eyes, and to the scandal, of tho whoh 
 
78 TfiE NXTNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 Town. And yet they always talked of, and amused the 
 people with i2e^r?»a^eow5, on paper — which they never so 
 much as propounded, much less intended to have executed 
 in the House. 
 
 Besides, they did not only study to engage these young 
 Virgins in such dangerous communications, but ^oo^ care 
 also to put those into the Offices of the House, whom they 
 judged most proper to encourage and maintain them. 
 
 Ten years since, at the election of Madam d'Osonville.the 
 fourth Abbess of that name, they did what possibly they 
 could to put Madam N. in her place, who had committed 
 the last act of incontinency with. Father JSf., Cordelier, and 
 one of the reasons of their persecuting Madam d'Osonville, 
 was, because she had been preferred before that other Nun. 
 
 After the death of that Abbess, Father N. Frovincial 
 used great violence to hinder the election of Madam 
 d'Osonville, her niece, who had 25 votes, against seven for 
 Madam N., whom the Cordeliers would, uDtwithstanding, 
 make Abbess by force, though she had neither dasert nor 
 birth, nor anything more considerable than a 'passionate 
 love for the Cordeliers, who had ordered her in her youth 
 as they pleased. 
 
 Sister N. did very freely show about the letters wrote 
 to her from the Cordeliers, and told all the idle fancies 
 that they made her : she gave them access into her 
 chamber night and day^ and, in consideration of her cor- 
 respondence, she was made Mistress of the Novices. 
 
THE NTJNS AGAINST THE FllTAER. 79 
 
 father N.^ esteemed the most regular of them all, 
 did not scruple the taking these kinds of liberties in the 
 cloyster. Kifour d'cloch in the morning "he went into a 
 garden with Sister JV.f his good friend, and gave this 
 reason for it, "that they were fallen out with one another, 
 and that he had a mind to be reconciled." They were so 
 well reconciled again, that she, being made Mistress of 
 tlie Novices, persuaded them all to entertain the Corde- 
 liers, so that she pressed Iter oivn Niece to receive letters 
 from them. She acquainted them with all the gallantries 
 that the Cordeliers had shown her in her youth, made 
 them act Comedies, against the express prohibition of 
 Madam N, the Abhess, And when a Novice was fallen 
 out with her Cordelier, she slept not till she had made 
 them friends again. 
 
 But in spite of all the intrigues of the Provincials, 
 and other Superioiirs of the Order, they yet gave Offices 
 to the better disposed part of the Nuns; they then 
 maintained the other Sisters in their licentiousness and 
 libertinism against them, and endeavoured to raze out 
 of their minds the good impressions, that these Nuns had 
 laboured to give them. 
 
 Father N., Provincial, in a sermon, that he made at 
 the profession of a Novice, exhorted her to vomit up 
 the had education that her Mistress had given her, 
 ivhich tvas,''io alienate her mind from those infamous cor- 
 respondences," and told her, that her Mistress did draw 
 
80 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 off the Ntms from honouring and loving the Order. 
 
 All those frequent Discourses that the Nuns had 
 with the Cordeliers in the time of Madam N., were, by 
 the order of the Father N., tlie Provincial, and of 
 other Frovincials aLo, with[a Note from them under their 
 hands ; so that, when she sliut up the Grates whilst the 
 General Chapter was held at Frovins, as also upon other 
 occasions, they found out ways to visit one another by 
 the windotk's, or else the Cordeliers disguised themselves 
 like Oentleonen, to visit the Wtms witliout heing Jcnown. 
 
 When Madam i>r., the Abbess, had withstood some 
 permissions that the Nims desired, which might have 
 prejudiced the reputation of the House, Father N. pro- 
 cured them for them, under the ProvinciaVs Jiandf and 
 gave them this for a lesson, That if she would not obey 
 her Bujpcrio^' in this, that they ivere not obliged to obey 
 hei*. One has no reason to wonder, that all these Fro 
 vincials and Superiours were so indulgent to others, 
 since they cared not f^r condemning others in that which 
 they practised themselves, after so scandalous and idclced 
 a manner. 
 
 The licentious familiarities of Father N. with Mother 
 If. have been, those 38 years, the scandal of all Frovins. 
 It was begun by magnificent treats, which he caused to 
 be fetched from the town, for her, and her party ; was 
 continTied by presents of rings, ivatches, and looking 
 glasses, and all kinds of vanities, which were even laid 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FEYAES. 8 1 
 
 on the Altar for her, where were interwoven the 
 first letters of their names, with hearts made up of 
 flowers, set with ribbons of flame colour, and borne 
 up by the images of St. Francis and St. Clare, 
 who served as supports for this abominable gallantry. 
 After this Sister was made Porter, he discoursed with 
 her ordinarily four or five hours together, at the great 
 Gate, {a 'place far remote from all company,) with a 
 Cordelier's cloak spread out like a tent, to defend her 
 from the Sun. The Porter, on the other side, to please 
 the reverend Father, dressed herself ridiculously with 
 bracelets of pearl, and medals of gold upon her arms 
 and with all manner of ribbons at her waiste ; so that 
 a Lady of quality taking notice of all these vanities, at 
 the dressing one of the Nuns, was so scandalised at it, 
 that she could hardly endure to let them finish it; and 
 she has testified it in a declaration that was drawn up 
 17 or 18 years ago, when the Nuns of St. Catherine 
 addressed themselves the first time to the court of 
 Parliament, to be delivered from the direction of the 
 Cordeliers. The scandal has continued ever since, and 
 'tis not above two or three years since, that the reverend 
 Father having sent a nosegay of flowers with a great 
 many dryed sweetmeats, and march-pane, to this Mother 
 by the R. F., at present Warden of N., on the vigills 
 of her Festival, & the Mother having entertained them 
 the next day, (the day of her Festival,) at a noble treat, 
 
82 THE NUNS AGAINST THE PRTARS. 
 
 carried to the Convent of the Cordeliers by a victualler 
 of the town ; in the afternoon, the reverend Father, 
 accompanied with a great many others, who soon took 
 up all the Orates^ came to her to give her a serenade 
 under her chamber window, that looks toward the great 
 Court, and afterwards carried the violin into the hall 
 below, where Sister N. was, whose nuptials, he said, 
 he was come to solemnize with Father N., who, 
 the meanwhile, did entertain her. He began to dance 
 first, and invited others also to take their part, which 
 other JProvmcials before him have often done, as well he. 
 After all this, can it be denied that the Sujperiours of 
 the Order are to be charged with these excesses that 
 have been committed in the Monastery of St. Catherine ? 
 That they have not only tolerated them while they were 
 in office, but also fomented and authorised them by their 
 own irregularity ? And that if the integrity of those 
 that command be the security of those that obey, the 
 visible corruption of all the Superiours of the Cordeliers 
 is fhe principal cause of all the mischiefs of this Monastery. 
 
 Section XV. 
 
 Tlat tlieBeligious Sisters of St. Catherine have invin' 
 cible reasons not to have any confidence in the Cordeliers. 
 
 Two things are absolutely necessary for the settling of 
 good order and regularity in a religions House, — autho- 
 ;:ity, and a good esteem of that authority, Now, it has 
 
THE NT7N8 AGAINST THE FRTARS. 83 
 
 already been made appear, that the house of St. 
 Catherine can hope for no good from those who have any 
 authority amongst the Cordeliers ; for they are the per- 
 sons who have cast it into the miserable condition 
 wherein it is. There remains then nothing, but to show 
 that it is impossible they should have any confidence in 
 them, to make it evident that they are in an utter im- 
 possibility of ever resettling good order and regularity, 
 
 'Tis omitted Jiere, to represent the injustice and vio- 
 lence they have committed against private persons, 
 when their consciences have not allowed them to give 
 their votes for those that the Fathers would have put 
 into Office, and who were often the least regular of any» 
 but the most linked to the interest of the Friers. 
 
 'Tis omitted here, to mention their refusals to allow ex- 
 traordinary Confessours, even at the point of death, when 
 any Nuns for the security of their consciences, have 
 desired others than those of the Order; their excom- 
 munications pronounced, upon very slight occasions, 
 against those that had no other crime than the disallow, 
 ing of their disorderly conduct : their taking away the 
 right of suffrage from the young professed Nuns, because 
 one of them once signed a paper made by the greatest part 
 of the Community in opposition to the veiling of a Set- 
 vitour Sister, which was solicited by Father N. ; their 
 abusing the submissions of the easie-natured Abbesses to 
 them, making their advantages therebv to make them 
 
84 THE NTJNS AGAINST THE FBTARS. 
 
 prefer the 8ervitour Sisters before the Beligious\of the 
 Quire upoQ several occasions, so that they themselves 
 laughed at them for their softness. Although all these 
 things concern the whole Community, seeing that there 
 is no private person that has not reason to fear the same 
 treatment that they have shown their Sisters, they shall, 
 however, be passed over in silence. For that, which they 
 principally insist upon, is, what condition their House 
 was in, under the conduct of the Cordeliers, before the 
 time of their admission into it ; in what condition they 
 found it upon their entering it : and how they have 
 continually seen it governed for more than these forty 
 years, during the space of which they have continued 
 their profession. They themselves have painted out these 
 Fathers so lively in their Depositionst as to make all 
 abhor them, and which one cannot consider without 
 being sensibly affected, to see Virgins thus engaged, al- 
 most in spite of their wills^ to live without regularity, 
 without direction, without light, without instruction, 
 and without piety. 
 
 How then could the Religious Sisters of St. Catherine, 
 after all this, with any reason, put confidence in the 
 Cordeliers ? How could they hope to be moved by them 
 to keep a strict observance of the hours of divine 
 service) when they knew> that) ordinarily, these Fathera 
 kept their Sisters at the Grates at that time, and often 
 made them stay there whole nights, till ^ve o clock in 
 
IHE NUNS AGAINST THE PRYARS, 85 
 
 the morning; so that they were forced to take the 
 hours of Mattins and Mass to repose themselves. How 
 could they hope to see them resettle the silence that their 
 Mule enjoins them in the House, when they knew, that 
 by their continual Entertainements, they had plunged it 
 into a horrible dissoluteness, and that their Sisters were 
 used to repeat Son^s that they had learnt them, not only 
 in the gardens, whither they came to hear them, and 
 whither they often came to surprise them, and there 
 passed whole nights with themj hut even in the cloys- 
 ters, and other consecrated places. 
 
 How could they hope that they should persuade them 
 to modesty in their habits, when they knew that they 
 suffered their Sisters to dress and trick up themselves 
 with an extraordinary niceness, when they were to come 
 to visit them, and that they furnished them with several 
 sorts of coloured ribbons j with trimmed gloves, and many 
 other instruments of vanity ? How could they hope to be 
 inclined by them to keep nothing in propriety, and to 
 put all to the common stock, that they might not break 
 their vows of poverty, when they have always allowed 
 them to take as much of their pensions as should be 
 suflacient to provide for the Treats that they engaged 
 them to make them at the Grates, & for I know not 
 how many other idle expences that they advised them 
 to, even to the letting them distribute the bread to them, 
 which they disposed of as they pleased ? 
 
86 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FEYARS. 
 
 How could they hope to be instructed by them in the 
 fidelity that they owed to their Divine Spouse, when they 
 knew the measure of these Fathers dissoluteness against 
 all their vows of Chastity, and had been witnesses of all 
 their profanations and sacrileges? Lastly, how could they 
 hope to be assisted by them in their design of labouring to 
 live conformably to their Itulef to perform the obligations 
 of the life that they had embraced, and to resettle the 
 honour of their House, when they saw that in all the con- 
 ductthatthey have observed in their Monastery, from the 
 time that they first made themselves masters of it, nothing 
 but a hase indifference for the interests of God, horrible 
 libertinisin, and most dreadful debauchery ? Of whom 
 should they expect this remedy : Of 'private persons ? 
 They have a hundred times blushed at their impudence 
 and impiety. Of Confessours ? — They have scarce seen 
 any, that have not wallowed in all kinds of vice and de. 
 bauchery. Of 'Provincials ? They have committed and 
 authorised thegreatestdisordersof the House. Ofi^/iosewho 
 are advanced to be Doctors, Bachelors, and Preachers 
 amongst them ? They have still their letters in keeping, that 
 are full of impurity and abominations. Of the Warden of 
 Paris? There is so much disorder in A^som;;* house, that His 
 Majesty has been forced to name Commissioners to rectify 
 it. Of the whole Province^ They have seen an Assembly 
 in a General Chapter, held at Provins, about nine or ten 
 years since, render themselves Complices of all the 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 87 
 
 extravagances that the chief of their Fathersh^di at that 
 time committed in their Monastery. And besides, they 
 know that the lohole Frovince is in a very dismal divi- 
 sion and disorder- Of the Cordeliers of other Provinces ? 
 Have they not. learnt with horror what passed at Fesize, 
 and in the other Houses of I^tms that are subject to 
 them? And have not the Cordeliers themselves made 
 use of it to entangle them, if they could have done it, 
 in the same disorders ? 
 
 There is not then any security for the Feligioiis 
 Sisters of >S'^. Catherine, but by absolutely removing 
 from them all the Fathers of the Order, and 'tis 
 with a great deal of ground, that they have not 
 only distrusted, but even abhorred their conduct, seeing 
 it has been always full of corruption, and that they have, 
 with horrible licentiousness and scandal, violated all the 
 laws of Discipline before their eyes, which, by all the 
 obligations of the charge that they had usurped, 
 they stood engaged, either to uphold, when it began to 
 fall, or to raise up again, when it was once fallen^ 
 
 Section XVI. 
 
 The Cordeliers' Beasons to colour the disorders tliat 
 they have committed in the Monastery of St. Catherine, 
 and to maintain themselves notmthstanding the ahiises 
 they have made of the Jurisdiction that they usurped, are 
 ansioered. 
 
 The Corderliers perceived well enough, that if the 
 
88 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 misdemeanours they committed in the Monastery of St. 
 Catherine, came once to be discovered, they should be 
 universally condemned by all the world, and that there 
 would be no person of any judgment but would conclude 
 them unworthy of the conduct of these Nuns, though 
 it had of right belonged to them. It is that, that has since 
 put them upon using all kinds of arts to prepossess the 
 Higher Powers, and to fill them with impressions to the 
 disadvantage of the Nv/ns that prosecute them at Court, 
 hoping by that means to oblige them the easier to lay 
 hold of their protection. To this purpose they presented 
 Petitions to their General at Borne, and to the Congrega- 
 tion of Cardinals. They presented others to their 
 Majesties in France, and we have in our hands the copy 
 of a writing, made and presented by them to a Minister of 
 State. And 'tis out of all these Petitions, this Writing, and 
 also out of some of the letters which their friends have 
 wrote to the Nuns, from whence we fetch the reasons 
 which we are going to set down here, with all their 
 strength, and answer them the most briefly and clearly 
 that is possible. 
 
 The Cordeliers' Reasons. 
 
 The Nv/ns are subject, hy their Foundation, to the 
 General of the Friars Minors^ and they cannot, tvithout 
 breaking their voiv and their rule, return under thejuHs- 
 diction of my Lord Archbishop of Sens. 
 
 These words must be understood either of all the Mtns 
 
THE NUNS AGAIlfST THE PBTAH8. 89 
 
 of St. Clare, or particularly of those of St, Catherine 
 It has been made appear that both one and other 
 are alike subject by their Foundation to the authority* 
 and under the jurisdiction of their Bishops; and 
 surely after the proofs that have been brought of 
 it, there can no difficulty remain behind. Whether 
 we regard the right, that is, the obligation that 
 binds the Nuns to live under the conduct of their 
 Bishops, or whether we legard the fact, that is, the actual 
 dependance they have lived under, as well for receiving 
 the Sacraments of them, as for the elections of the 
 Ahlesses and admissions of Nims\ and consequently 
 that it is not true, that these Nuns have been submitted 
 to the General of the Priers Minors by their Foundation 
 
 2. Neither is it true, that their vows obliged them to 
 continue under the General of the Friers Minors, There 
 is not one loord of it in all their form of profession, and 
 although they should think themselves tacitly engaged to 
 it, yet they could not performe it, to the prejudice of 
 their other Vows, that make up the essential parts of their 
 Religion, which it is impossible they should acquit them- 
 selves of under the direction ot the Cordeliers, 
 
 3. It is true, that their Rule seems to commit the care 
 of their Monasteries to the Cordeliers. But it has been 
 made appear, that it is rather a permission, that the Pope 
 has given them, to undertake to be their guides, against 
 the express prohibition of St. Francis to the contrary, 
 than an obligation upon the Nuns to be subject to themj 
 
90 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FUYARS. 
 
 that whatsoever intention the Popes had, that drew up 
 their Hule, it could not prejudice the r?[^7ii^5 acknowledged 
 due to the Bishops, by the Holy Scriptures, the Canons 
 of Councils, and the general practice of the whole 
 Church, to govern the Monasteries, and consequently that 
 the Cordeliers could never exercise any hiei^archical of^ces, 
 but in dependence upon their authority. 
 
 4. Though it should be granted that the Nuns of St, 
 Catherine were by their Foundation subject to the 
 General of the Cordeliers, that their jRzde obliges them 
 to it, and that their Bishops consented to it, (which yet 
 is not true,) they could not, for all that, without evidently 
 endangering their Salvation, continue longer under them, 
 and consequently are obliged, by all divine and humane 
 laws, to deliver themselves from them, and to expect all 
 their assistances from the conduct of their Prelate, for 
 whatsoever they shall stand in need of to the better 
 acquainting themselves of their obligations, and to the 
 reforming of their lives. 
 
 'Tis ridiculous to pretend, as the Cordeliers do, that 
 the Nuns of St. Catherine being without any necessity, 
 and against the command of God, and the Rules of the 
 Church, withdrawn from under the jurisdiction of my 
 Lord Archbishop of Sens, that they cannot now, without 
 sinning, return under it, hozv great, hoio pressing, and how 
 evident soever the necessity be, which forces them to it. 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THi: KHYARS. 9l 
 
 The Cordeliers' Reason. 
 ^Tis only the capriciousness of some private Nuns 
 and tJie revengefulness of two of them, that they would 
 have punished for tJie scandals they have occasioned. 
 
 It is not intended here to make a particular discussion 
 of this affair, nor to apologise for those tioo Nuns, who 
 are acknowledged in the process of the Declaration to 
 have been the first that implored the protection of the 
 Court against the unreasonableness and the disorders of 
 the Cordeliers. 
 
 ^Tis assertedhevQ only, that the most reputed amongst 
 these Fathers should not then, (as they did, and as it is 
 ready to be justified by their own letters,) have themselves 
 procured their going out of the Monastery, and given 
 them recommendations to make use of to accomplish 
 their design. 'Tis asserted, that the Provincial and his 
 Secretary ought not to have made them buy their leave to 
 go to take the waters at the price of their Votes for the 
 Election of an Ahhess, to whom they thought themselves 
 olliyed in conscience not to give it ; and if there be any 
 scandal come of it, it is they that are to answer it to 
 God and the world. 
 
 ^Tis asserted, that if those Nuns were guilty of the crime 
 that they were accused of, that Provincial and his Secre- 
 tary ought not to have protested to them, that the 
 Excommunications that they should pronounce against 
 them, should be but a formal show, counterfeit anger, and 
 
9^ THE NtfKS AGAINST THE PRlfARS. 
 
 a hugleaVy and that the sentence should be nulled imme- 
 diately after the thundering it out. That they ought at 
 least to have observed some shadow of justice, and not 
 declare them excommunicated, deprived of hoth active 
 and passive vote, of the Offices of the House, and of the 
 liberty of the Grate, and this, for as long as the Provincial 
 and his successours should think fit, against all usual 
 forms of procedure, loitliout any information, without 
 confronting of witnesses, and only after that the Pro- 
 vincial had entertained them for three days together at 
 the Grate, with sottish impertinencies, and that the Se- 
 cretary had the impudence to kiss one of them hy force, 
 in the presence of h&i' Fellow Sisters f and consequently 
 that they had right to appeal from a sentence so unequit- 
 able and so abusive as this was. 
 
 Lastly, it is asserted, that if the Provincial had had the 
 least respect to God in this pretended chastisement upon 
 the account of the scandall, that the Nuns were accused to 
 have been occasioners of, he should not have given one of 
 them any ground to write that, which we shall presently 
 extract word for word out of a Letter, which she wrote 
 at the very time that she hoped he would be more 
 favourable to her, and therefore cannot be accused of 
 having wrote it out of revenge* 
 Lettee. 
 
 " I should never have believed that a Provincial could 
 ever hare been capable of talking as he does. Hemakesidl 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAES. 03 
 
 things trifles and niceness. He calls well-grounded 
 denyals, weakness of spirit, signs of ignorance. In a 
 word, we are, he said, Novices in love If I were not 
 afraid that this ivould be intercepted. I would tell you 
 such things that you are not able to imagine. No, you 
 shall never know them, for I shall never be able to 
 acquaint you \vith them, without blushes. If it be thus 
 that he courts his Angelica, and desires such favours as 
 these of her, sure she must be far from being very 
 squeamish not to be able to nauseate him. His Passion 
 and Sighs, that he reproaches us for being insensible of, 
 do nothing but scandalize us; and the testimonies of his 
 affection that he would give us, do but make us hate him 
 the more. Sometimes he thinks he has aright to command 
 us to receive them, and at other times is sorry that his 
 power extends not to the motions of the heart, to gain 
 him that which he desires, without further delay," &c. 
 The Cordeliers* Reason. 
 They have the greatest and soundest part of the Com- 
 munity on their side. 
 
 'Tis not to be wondered at, that the Cordeliers should 
 make such stories to their General, and to the Congre- 
 gation of the Regulars, in Italy ; but that they should 
 dare to procure letters patents m France upon such sup- 
 positions as these, is a very strange thing, and such as 
 does sufficiently acquaint all people with the quality of 
 their spirit, which is, to dare to doe, and to undertake 
 anything. 
 
94 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAKS. 
 
 There were in the year 1664, in the Moastery 
 of St. Catherine, twenty-nine professed JVuns of the 
 Quire : there were seventeen of them, that on the fifth 
 of September, the same year, signed the Act, by which 
 ^hey agreed amongst themselves, to petition my Lord 
 Archbishop of Sens to receive them under his conduct 
 and to show all earnest readiness that was requisite to 
 return under his jurisdiction. There remained then 
 not above twelve, two of which, a little while after, joyned 
 with the other seventeen ; so that now there was but ten 
 of the Quire that declared for the Cordeliers, and that 
 continued for any time in this party. Of these ten 
 there were two that did most remarkably abandon them 
 and with the other nineteen Sisters signed all the Peti- 
 tions that were since presented to the Court, and to 
 my Lord Archbishop of Sens, and so the procuration 
 to desire the Court to let them be under the direction 
 of this Prelate, and to be discharged of that of 
 the Cordeliers, is signed by twenty-one Siste7's, all 
 Professed, and the most considerable of the Commu- 
 nity, being almost all Officers of the House, and having 
 amongst them six discreet Matrons and Mothers of the 
 Council^ the Mistress of the Novices, the Ti^easuress, the 
 Porters, the Turner of the Pox, the Chauntress, the 
 Stewards, and the Overseers of the Sick; and besides, 
 those eight remaining Nuns of the Quire have since 
 protested, and declared by several Acts passed in the 
 presence of Notaries, and that are now in their keeping, 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FBYARS. 95 
 
 "that they did approve of all the Orders that my Lord 
 Arclibisliop of Sens had made for the regulating their 
 house, and that they would observe them ; that they be- 
 eeeched him to receive them under his conduct and juris- 
 diction, to which they submitted themselves, as being their 
 lawful Siiperiour, and that they did revoke, and disallow, 
 all that they might have signed to the contrary. 
 
 The Seo'vitour Sisters themselves, who had imitated 
 them in their revolt, followed them also in their return 
 to their obedience, and, besides, have, before Notaries, 
 declared, that formerly they had adhered to some of their 
 Sisters' opinionB, and resisted tl>e Orders of my Lord 
 Archbishop of Sens, in a perswasion that they were 
 obliged in conscience lo continue under the jurisdiction 
 of the Cordeliers ; but that, being since better enlightened 
 in the truth, they did depart from them, and submit 
 themselves to his orders and jurisdiction. So that 
 these eight Nuns of the Quire, and the Servitour Sisters^ 
 have been sincere in all these authentick Acts, or they 
 have not been so, but cheats and hypocrites. If they 
 have been sincere in it, then there is not one of the Nuns 
 of St. Catherine that desires not to be under the juris- 
 diction of my Lord Archbishop of Sens, and that does 
 not acknowledge the necessity of banishing the Corde- 
 lieis out of their House : if they have not heen so, the 
 Cordeliers must then confess that they hav© but seven 
 or eight iVwws of the Quire, and some Servitour 
 
06 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAES. 
 
 Sisters, all of them without any sincerity, on their 
 side. 
 
 The Cokdeliees' Reason. 
 
 The zeal, with which these Nuns have espcmsed the 
 Interests of the Cordeliers, does sufficiently vindicate 
 them. 
 
 Let it he supposed that these seven or eight Nuns of 
 the Quire, that made so much show of adhering to the 
 Cordeliers, were inclined to do so, only upon scruples of 
 conscience ill-grounded, since that they have declared 
 it so themselves. Let us not suspect them to have had 
 so much as any kind of regard to the OflSces, that the 
 Abbess had given them for giving her their votes, 
 nor any artifices that the Cordeliers used, to maintain 
 them in the Revolt, and of which one may judge by an 
 extract out of one of their letters of the 24th of 
 December, 1666, which is in keeping. '' If these good 
 ^ladies'' (this Cordelier speaks of the united Nuns,) "did 
 but know what the government of Bishops is, they 
 would not be so eager for it. They ordinarily court one 
 Superiour Nun, and let the rest live miserably, and never 
 see anybody. We have examples of it everywhere." 
 Discourses of this nature do sometimes make impression 
 upon the mind, let it be never so well fortified ; and 
 thereupon it frames to itself strange ideas of Silence and 
 Retirement, that fright any that are not averse from 
 conyersation, and not accustomed to slight the protests- 
 
THE NTTNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 97 
 
 tions of esteem and affection, that they might receive by 
 means of it. Whatsoever the true account of it is, it is 
 certain that the heat, with which these N^uns have es- 
 poused the Interests of the Cordeliers^ could not proceed 
 from any esteem they had of their conduct and sufficiency, 
 since they have acknowledged in their Depositions, 
 ** That there is but a shadow of religion in their Monas- 
 tery, both in spiritual and temporal concerns : that there 
 is but a pretence of NovicesJiip, and that the Mistress 
 of the Novices has but the bare name of it : that there 
 is no regular silence there : that there is no Christianity : 
 that the Svperiours allow the Servitour Sisters every- 
 thing, because they have votes at elections : that the 
 Nuns have unlawful familiarities with the Cordeliers : 
 that there are great abuses in the admission of Novices 
 and Professed Nuns: that all this is told the Provincials 
 at the time of their visitations, but that they take no 
 care to remedy it, and that if at the last Visitation they 
 gave some order for it, it was only because of the Letters 
 of the Privy Seal, and that they never were observed, no 
 more than those made in the time of Monsieur Coqueret ; 
 that the Provinciall himself laughed at the Order he had 
 made before the Election, which forbade the Abbess dis- 
 posing of the incomes of the House, without the 
 Treasuresses ; that these Nuns themselves were drawn 
 into the Cabal for the last election ; and that there are 
 so many disorders in the House, that they did heartily 
 
9B THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 
 
 desire to leave it." The Servitour Sisters, for whose sake 
 the Cordeliers have acted so many pieces of injustice, 
 have not given them any characters that are more to 
 their advantage. One of tlie most ancient of them has 
 declared in plain terms, ** That the Disorders have been 
 very great amongst them for this long while^-that she 
 does not believe, that any good discipline can be settled 
 again under the direction of the Cordeliers ; that what- 
 soever she was made to sign, to continue under their 
 conduct, was not her intention ; that her heart bleeds, 
 when she considers all the disorders and scandals that 
 the Cordeliers have introduced and approved of there ; 
 that the Nuns make their Cordeliers, ' Gods upon 
 earth* That upon the death of a Nun they go into 
 the Sisters' Chambers, and they give them all they 
 have ; that she knows of many niglit entries of the Cor- 
 deliers into the Gardens, over the Walls, and in at the 
 Windows of the House, to entertain the Nuns there, and 
 to pass whole nights with them.^^ 
 
 All the rest confess, that there is no observation of 
 regularity in the House at all ; that they have known it 
 always as irregular, and as full of licentiousness in the 
 spiritual affairs, as now; and that the Cordeliers contract 
 alliances of near relations with the Nuns of the Quire, 
 and the Servitour Sisters. 
 
 In fine, one of these Servitour Sisters, that seemed 
 the most reserved in her Depositions, and studied the 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FHYARS. 90 
 
 most to spare them, having well considered upon it, and 
 acknowledged the necessity there was that their House 
 should return under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop 
 of Sens, wrote to him in these terms : — 
 
 Letter. 
 
 " Suffer me, mi/ Lord, to repeat my vows under your 
 hands, amongst which is comprehended that vow of 
 Obedience, which I promise to pay, as long as I live, to 
 your Orders. 'Tis thei/ that must give «s a netv life of 
 Grace and Reputation, hitherto in great danger of being 
 forfeited — which has always made your umj^rthy 
 Daughter say ; ' We stand in need of an Assistant as 
 great as my Lord Archbishop ;' but yet I opposed it, 
 under the mistake of a pretended Charity, that I Was 
 afraid to break, though in the meantime I violated the 
 obligations of true Charily, which should have made me 
 adhere to you as to my true pastor — I therefore beseech 
 your grace to receive me under your protection, as I 
 submit myself to your authority with affection and 
 reverence." 
 
 Could Yirgins, who, after they had sworn, and pro- 
 mised upon their Holy Vowes to speak the truth, speak 
 after this manner ? or that write thus of their own i^ccord, 
 ani according to the dictates of their consciences, could 
 they do anything that should not turn to the confusion 
 of the Cordeliers, that had all this while Boduced ihtmt 
 
loo tHE NUNS AGAINST THE FRTAES. 
 
 The Cordbliees' Reason. 
 
 There are none against the Cordeliers^ hut a few 
 
 factious spirits^ that were offended at the Reformation 
 
 which they would have brought in, in execution of his 
 
 Majestic^ s letters of the Privy Seal, and the command of 
 
 the late Queen Mother. 
 
 The defence of those persons, that have none to make, 
 is to render those that accuse them the most justly in 
 the world, snspected, It has been just now made 
 appear, what the Cordeliers mean by these Factious 
 Spirits, and that it if of SI Nuns of the Quire, the 
 Ancientest and the most considerable in the House of 
 whom they speak after this fashion, because they were 
 not able to endure their disorders and Tillanies any 
 longer. They may, in the judgment of the Cordeliers, 
 pass for what they please to think them ; that will not 
 hinder them from glorying in this reproach, nor from 
 declaring that they were not offended at any design they 
 had to reform the House, (since they are very well 
 perswaded that there was an extraordinary need of it,) 
 but at the manner of the Provincial's proceeding in it. 
 
 They were offended, to see a man, that had the title of 
 Provincial^ and one deputed from their majesties by 
 virtue of letters of the Frivy Seal, which gave him full 
 power to punish, and to make those who should oppose 
 his Beformation, be carried away into other Monasteries, 
 to see him declare to all the Nuns, after he had assembled 
 
iTfiE NUNS AGAINST THE PRTAB8. 101 
 
 them together, *' that he did not believe they were in 
 any fault, but that he must do something to make a show 
 for a little time only ; that he assured them, upon the 
 Faith of a Priest^ that the consent, that he required of 
 them to the reforming of their Monastery, should not 
 engage thsm to anything, and that he took this course 
 only to save his own credit, and the honour of the com- 
 munity, which had been reflected upon by an information 
 given in to the Queen." 
 
 They were offended, that during the three days that 
 this Provincial made his scrutiny, he promised many in 
 private, that all the Orders that he should give, should be 
 but for a small time ; and that from that very time, he 
 and his Secretary made themselves sport with them about 
 all that great design of Hefoimation. 
 
 They were offended, that after they had, under this 
 pretence of Beformation^ spent three whole weeks in 
 their House in Feasting, and as loose conversation as 
 they had ever usedy he thought it sufficient to read them 
 some Regulations that he had drawn up, and which the 
 Cordeliers were the first that did openly violate, enter- 
 taining the Nuns at the time of Divine Service, and 
 Solemn Festivals, against the injunctions that he had 
 made to the contrary. 
 
 Lastly, they were offended, that those whom their 
 majesties had entrusted ^ith the Remedies that they 
 thought fit to apply to tlieir Disorders, had, on the other 
 
102 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FKYAKS. 
 
 side, labour'd after nothing more, than to disguise them, 
 to conceal them, and to invalidate them, by giving en- 
 couragement to hope for impunity. So that, if it be true, 
 that this pretended Reformation gave the occasion to all 
 the hot pursuits that the Nuns make at Court, it is 
 because it has perfectly convinced them that there was 
 no good to be hoped for from the Cordeliers, that they 
 would always engage them still deeper and deeper in 
 the greatest Disorders ; and, that they were not to ex- 
 pect ^reformation from People that had so many things 
 to reform amongst themeelves, and who ought to have 
 taken care to cure themselves, before thinking of healing 
 others, if they would avoid the reproach mentioned in 
 the Gospel. 
 
 The Cordelier's Reason. 
 Tliey made songs of the Cordeliers, and turned tlie 
 JProvinciaVs Words and Actions, into Maillery. 
 
 'Tis not here intended to justifie all that a false zeal, 
 or the too great liberty that the Cordeliers had used 
 these Nuns to, might make them say against them. 
 'Tis only affirmed, that it was the interest of these 
 Fathers not to draw upon themselves the contempt of 
 these Virgins by their disorderliness so unavoidahly as 
 they did : nor to vilifie their ministery by the execrable 
 profanations of it, that they acted before their faces : 
 nor to render themselves ridiculous by transforming 
 themselves into Gallants, and Romantick Heroes ; by 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAKS. lOB 
 
 using their language, and imitating their actions, and 
 Fashions. 
 
 Would not these Fathers have had the Sisters show 
 respect to the fooleries and impertinencies that they 
 heard them utter ? tJiat they should have had a venerable 
 opinion of a Provincial, that danced and played the Gal' 
 lant at their Grate. And that they shouldhaYe expressed 
 Esteem and Eeverence for people, in whom the most 
 toleralle thing that they saw was, the meanness, and 
 extravagance of their talh ? Let them hioio, that in t«he 
 opinion of the Holy Fatherst there are Sailleries, that 
 are acts of Justice and that there are some things, as 
 Tertullian says, that cannot be confuted but by laugh- 
 ing at them, lest that if they should be taken notice of 
 in a serious way^ one should seem to give them respect 
 multa sunt sic dignare vinci ne gravitate adorentur. 
 The Cokdeliee's Reason. 
 
 My Lord Archhishop of Sens, instead of executing his 
 Commission, endeavoured to usurp the power over them, 
 ly infusing Belellion into them, and hy maintaining 
 them in it ever since. 
 
 This prelate never endeavour 'd to usurp that juris- 
 diction, for it belongs to him by Divine right, and so is 
 inseparable from his Character. Is it not an impudent 
 presumption for Friars, (who in that quality are no 
 more than Laicks, and ought to esteem themselves 
 happy that God has separated them from the World, to 
 
tCi4 THE NTTNS AGAINST THE FRTARS 
 
 M 
 
 serve him in silence and retirement,) should dispute 
 with a Great Archbishop for his most SierarcJiical 
 Right, and the most essential to his priesthood ? Mul- 
 twm erigimini^ Fillii Levi —N'vm parvm vohis est, Sfc, 
 Though my Lord Archbishop of Sens (in the visitation 
 which he was obliged to make in this Monastery to 
 satisfie the duty of his charge, and the urgent suppli- 
 cations address'd to him for it by the Nuns whom the 
 Court by order had remitted to him for redressing of 
 their grievances,) were supposed to be warmly repre- 
 sented to them, and with that tenderness and Eatherly 
 Charity, that in all his discourses he joins to the Autho- 
 rity, and Holy Majesty, that goes along with the word 
 of God, made them see the necessity there was of recur- 
 ring to the most powerful and wholesome Remedies to 
 the distempers that they laboured under, and others yet 
 greater that threatened them ; could they make such 
 just Remonstrances pass for the seeds of revolt and 
 rebellion ? If the Beligious Sisters of St. Catherine 
 had not of themselves been convinced of the necessity 
 there was of removing the authors of so many disorders 
 away from their House, and of seriously applying them- 
 selves to the salvation of their souls, could my Lord 
 Archbishop of Sens, without wounding his conscience, 
 and being wanting to the principal function of his 
 ministery, leave them any longer under such mischievous 
 engagements, and not draw them to a solid conversion, 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE PRYAR9. 
 
 10.^ 
 
 to a true change of their lives, and to make the best 
 improvement of those precious moments of Mercy and 
 Grace? And way not i\i\s Prelate , seem^ the unjust 
 slanders that the Cordeliers spread of him, vrith a great 
 deal of justice use those words to them, that Jesus Christ 
 used to the Ruler of the Synagogue, who was in indig- 
 nation to see Him heal a woman on the Sabbath day, 
 that had been for many years possessed with a spirit, 
 that rendered her infirm, and that bowed her so together 
 that she could not look upwards: Ye Hypocrites ! is 
 there any of you tJiat looses not his oxe^ or his asse, on 
 the Sabbath day^ and d/rawes them not out of the stable 
 to lead them to d/rink? Why then should not this 
 Daughter of Abraham (this Society of Virgins) whom 
 Satan has kept bound for so many years (by the means 
 of your Ministery) be once in her life delivered from 
 those bondsJ' 
 
 The Coedelieks' Reason. 
 
 That we excommimicated those that were zealous forthe 
 Observation- of their Bule^ and caused Nine of them to 
 be forcibly carried away^ so as was never before heard of 
 
 'Tis the least that people, who have so little conscience 
 as the Cordeliers y could do, to revenge themselves of the 
 wrong that they pretend to have received of My Lord 
 Archbishop of Sens, to suppose some things, and to dis- 
 guise others. It has been seen, in the process of the 
 Declaration, what obliged that Prelate to make it be 
 
.106 THE NTTNS AGAINST THE FRTARS. 
 
 declared to some of the Beligious Sisters of St. Cathe- 
 rine, that they had incurred the censures of the Church, 
 and that^ for not having presented themselves to the 
 Communion at Easter, and not for having zealously 
 adhered to the observance of their Bule. When one 
 reflects upon the manner of observing the Bule in this 
 Monastery, ever since the Cordeliers made themselves 
 masters of it, and that there is scarce any single article 
 of it, that they themselves have not openly violated, 
 what can one judge of the pretended zeal of these seven 
 or eight Nunns for the observance of their Bule ? And 
 is there not ground to fear with St. Augustine^ that this 
 shadow of piety comes from the leaves of that tree, which 
 our Mrst Barents covered themselves withal, when they 
 were ashamed of their nakedness : Ista umhra pietatis, 
 ^c. As for the pretended violence used in the carrying 
 away of these Nunns, there is nothing more false, as 
 appears by the Declaration of it, drawn up in Court. 
 And we refer it to the testimony of the Nuns them- 
 selves, who cannot deny but that they were treated with 
 all possible kindness and civility. 
 
 The Cordeliers' Reason. 
 
 Although the Nuns of St. Catharine sliould of riglit 
 "be under the Authority of My Lord Archbishop of Sens, 
 yet this cannot he done hut hy the Pope loho imthdrew 
 them from under his Jurisdiction. 
 
 This way of reasoning supposes, that the Nunns of 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYAR8. 107 
 
 St. Catharine have been wholly withdrawn from under 
 the jurisdiction of My Lord Archbishop of Sens, which 
 the Cordeliers can never justifie by any title ; and though 
 they could, 'tis proved that these titles would be null 
 and unlawful, being contrary to the Holy Scripture^ the 
 General Councils, and Tradition ; all which do (as we 
 have made appear) submit the Nuns to the jurisdiction 
 of the Bishops. 
 
 But supposing these Nuns had been withdrawn from 
 under the jurisdiction of my Lord Archbishop of Sens, 
 'tis denied that there is any need of the Pope's Briefs 
 to make them return under his jurisdiction. JFor *tis a 
 constant raaxime in France, that to authorise an Exemp- 
 tion, there must be certain and lawful titles, that is, 
 such as are accompanied with all the conditions that the 
 laws of the land and the liberties of the GalUcan Church 
 do require. But that to render to the Ordinaries what 
 belongs to them, there needs no Titles, nor Apostolical 
 Briefs ; the return to a common right being natural and 
 spontaneous ; and having no need of anything but the 
 bare Renunciation of those, who are in possession of the 
 priviledges, by which the effect, of that subordination, 
 that God has set among the members of the body of 
 Jesus Christ, that is, His Church, are suspended and 
 obstructed. So that this Renunciation only does hap- 
 pily return them to that rank to which they belong, and 
 where God, according to St. Paul, has placed them 
 
108 THE NTJNS AGAINST THE FEYARS. 
 
 Himself. The Officers of the Court of Borne have ac- 
 knowledged this truth themselves upon many occasions, 
 and 'tis to be seen in the 'Registers of the Parliament^ 
 in a Plefi of the late M. Advocate-General Bighon, 
 inserted into the Decree that was made betwixt my Lord 
 Bishop of Bologne and the Cordeliers, that they have 
 assented, when they were recurred to upon like occa- 
 sions, that there was no need of the Pope's Briefs to 
 restore things to a common Right. The Parliament has 
 often decided this Question, but particularly in the 
 Pecree before mentioned. For some Ueligious Sisters 
 of the Annunciade, of Bologne, having appealed as from 
 the abuse of the Orders which the Bishop of Bologne 
 had made in their Monastery ; and the Provincial of the 
 Cordeliers having intervened in the cause, and having 
 also appealed as from the abuse of the same Orders, 
 amongst the reasons that were used, at the Hearing, to 
 confirm their Appeals, and which were very nigh the 
 same that the Cordeliers now alledge against my Lord 
 Archbishop of Sens, they stuck not openly to maintain, 
 that the Pope having put those Nuns under the juris- 
 diction of the Order of St, Francis, His Holiness ought 
 to give his leave to withdraw them, and remove them 
 from it. But yet the Cov/rtt by a Decree of the 6th of 
 January, 1651, (without having any regard to the inter- 
 ventions,) declared them not receiveable in their appeal 
 as from Abuses And the jurisdiction that my Lord 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FRYARS. 109 
 
 Bishop of Bologne had some years since reassuracd over 
 that Monastery, was confirmed, though the Cordeliers 
 had alledged, that those Nuns had been subjected to 
 them from their very first foundation, and that there 
 had been neither Briefs nor Briviledges obtained of 
 the Court of Some, to withdraw them from under their 
 jurisdiction. 
 
 The Cordeliers' Reason. 
 
 This is to affront tlie idiole Order ^ to dishonour it, 
 and to scandalize the Church. 
 
 There is nothing more abused than the words that 
 Jesus Christ made use of, to exhort the 'Faithful care- 
 fully to avoid the scandalizing of their Brethren : for 
 they are indifferently applied to those that reprove vice, 
 and to those that committ it. And there are people, who 
 value themselves highly for their Spirituality, that are 
 scarce at all touched at the licentiousness with which 
 the greatest crimes are committed, and yet axe even 
 transported with rage at the zeal with which they are 
 reproved. The Soly Fathers were of another mind. 
 They thought that true charity towards persons obliged 
 them to write with heat against their Extravagances, 
 and they were not at all afraid that they should trespass 
 upon that Charity, or pass for slanderers, for reproving 
 them openly, if they were of a publick nature. They 
 thought, that tliey were the true causers of scandal, that 
 
llO THE WUNS AGAINST THE ERYARS. 
 
 committed these publick disorders, and the persons to 
 whom Jesus Christ spoke, when He said, " JVb ! he Iq 
 tJie World because of scandah : Wo ! he to the man hy 
 ivliom scandal comes:" and that, on the other side, those 
 that reproved them, that put a check to them, were 
 those that Jesus Christ had encouraged to this pious 
 office, when He said, ** It is necessary that scandal 
 should come/' 
 
 The rank which the Scrihes, Pharisees, and Doctours 
 of the Law held amongst the Jews^ was much more 
 considerable, than that which the Cordeliers hold in the 
 Church; and since our Saviour says of them, that 
 they sate in the chair of Jfoses, and therefore commands 
 to ohserve and do all that they taught. And yet the 
 eminent condition to which they were raised, and the 
 need that they had of being in esteem amongst the people, 
 that they might follow their instructions, did they hinder 
 Him from reproving the irregularities of their base and 
 self-interested practices ? 
 
 Does Se not call them Hypocrites^ full of stupidity, 
 hlind Cruides, Serpents, and a hrood of Vipers ? Does 
 He not compare them to whited Sepulchres, which appear 
 fair, without^ to the eyes of men, hut within, are full of 
 dead mens hones, and all kind of rottenness ? Does He 
 not tell them, that tliey appear also just to tJie eyes of 
 men, hut within, are full of HypocHsie and Iniquity ? 
 That tlwy make clean the outside of the platter and cup. 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FETARS. HI 
 
 wliilst tlieir inward parts are full of rapine and zm- 
 cleanness ? And though one of those Doctors replies upon 
 it, tliat^ vn speaking so, he dishonoured them also, does he^ 
 for all that, leave off discovering their villanies : and 
 does he not, on the contrary, add," Woe he to you also, ye 
 Doctors of the Laws, who load men with burdens not to 
 he horn, and will not touch them yourselves with your 
 little finger.''^ In fine, when his disciples themselves 
 represented to him, that " the Pharisees were offended 
 at the liberty with which he reproved their errours^^ does 
 he not answer them, " Let them alone : they are blind 
 leaders of the blind i^ Smite es ccBciunt ^c. 
 
 Let not the Fathers Cordeliers, then, fancie, that the 
 Rules of any Charity, that was due to their Order, are 
 violated by representing, as has been done, their dis- 
 orderly practices, to show what necessity there is of 
 taking a House of Virgins out of their hands, who are 
 in such evident danger of being ruined. 'Tis the abuses 
 and disorders that they have committed in this Monas- 
 tery that dishonour the Order, and scandalize the 
 Church, and not the zeal of those that endeavour to 
 purge the House of the corruption, with which they 
 have infected it. And there has been so little of a 
 design in this, to diminish the true glory of the Order, 
 and that of their Founder, that on the contrary, 'tis 
 acknowledged for a reason of the Cordeliers falling in- 
 to all these horrible misdemeanours, that they have 
 
112 THE NUNS AGAINST THE PBYAR8. 
 
 departed from the spirit of St. Francis, and that, con- 
 trary to Ms onaximes and Prohibitions, they have 
 engaged themselves in the Government of the Nuns. 
 
 But if any persons, after all this, be yet offended at 
 the liberty with which these Excesses are represented, 
 they will by that show (as St. Bernard said formerly, to 
 justify himself for the holy liberty with which he had, in 
 his Apology., reproved the disorders that were slipt into 
 the Order of Cluni) that they love not the Order ^ since 
 they are unwilling that the corruptions and abuses of it 
 should be condemned, and banished out of it. And 
 there is nothing to be answered to these persons, but 
 the saying of St. Gregory the Great, cited also by St. 
 Bernard, '•^'Tis letter that scandal should come, than 
 that the truth should he abandoned." It is better that 
 scandal should come of it, than that Iteligious Fathers^ 
 upon account of their being Religious, (and therefore 
 that their disorderly practices cause great scandal, when 
 they come once to be known,) should without check pro- 
 fane the most sacred things, and carry unchaste flames 
 into the very Sanctuary, and into those hearts which 
 Jesus Christ has, after a peculiar manner, made his 
 Temples, and a part of Himself. 
 
 This is, now, that which obliged them to discover the 
 disorders that the Cordeliers have committed in the 
 House of St. Catherine, and not the desire of affronting 
 an Order, which, it may be, would be still in the high 
 
THE NtTlSrs AGAINST THE FETARS- 113 
 
 esteem that the humility and simplicity of St. Francis 
 had put it into, if it had continued obedient to the 
 Bishops under whom it received its birth ; and if these 
 Fathers had taken care, as their Saint had often warned 
 them, to avoid any communication with the Beliqious 
 Sisters, 
 
 It was tliought to he tie interest of the Church, that 
 the Bishops who have Nunneries of the Eeligious of St. 
 Clare in their dioceses, and who are obliged to give an 
 account to God of them, should have knowledge of these 
 disorders, that so having a pious indignation at them, 
 they might apply themselves, as they are bound by their 
 Office, to hinder the committing of the like Crimes in 
 those Houses, or to banish them out of them, if by ill 
 hap they were slipt in. 
 
 It was thought to he the Interest of the State, that 
 magistrates, and publick persons should have knowledge 
 of these disorders, that so they might be convinced of the 
 >necessity there is, of maintaining the Bishops in the 
 Rights given them by the Holy Scriptures, and Councils, 
 over all the Monasteries of Nunns, for fear that the 
 Friers, who have gained upon their jurisdiction, should 
 change those Holy Retirements and Sanctuaries into 
 Souses of Behauchery and Temples of Venus; and lest 
 this abuse (that the Cardinals and Frelates assen.bled 
 together by the Order of Faul the third, did so Ion- ago 
 declare, that it did disfigure the Church, and confound 
 
114: THE irUNS AGAINST THTE FRTARS. 
 
 Christianity,) should at last draw down the wrath of God 
 upon the whole Kingdom by the publick sacriledges, 
 which, say they, ave committed with horrible scandal in 
 MOST of the Nunneries that are under the conduct of the 
 Cloistered Friers. 
 
 It was thought to be the Interest of all the Friers to 
 have knowledge of these disorders, that they might the 
 more zealously love and value the retirement and soli- 
 tude of their Cloysters : that they might take the more 
 care to avoid the Nunns Orates^ \vith whom all the 
 Founders of the several Order;' have expressly forbidden 
 them to have any communication; and that they might 
 mind themselves of that excellent saying of St /iugustine^ 
 Quid interest utrum in uxore an in matre^ an in sorore, 
 dum tamen Fva in qiialibet mult ere caveatur. 
 
 It was thought to be the Interest of all the Nunns to 
 have a knowledge of these disorders, that they might 
 unite themselves with joy to the Government of their 
 Bishops, their true pastours, and lawful Superiors, and 
 that they might carefully fly from those Strangers, those 
 Mercenaries, ^nd those false pastors, "that come to them 
 cloathed like sheep, but within are ravening wolves: ti^a^ 
 devour their houses under a pretence of making long 
 prayers, and that, even to this day, compass sea and land 
 fo make one Jew, and, after he is made so. they make 
 him twice as fit for Hell as themselves. 
 
 Lastly, it was thought to be tie Interest of the Nunns 
 
Xnn NUNS AGAINST iHE FRYAUS. 115 
 
 of St. Catharine, that tlie Woeld should have a know- 
 ledge of these Disorders, that tliey might vvithall ac. 
 knowledge the ju'^tice of their suits at Court against the 
 Cordeliers, the Generosity thit has made them shut their 
 eyes against all human Interests and considerations that 
 might have drawn them from it, and the Christian Con- 
 tempt they have shown of Woxldly deputation, to recover 
 their solid ansi true honour, Avhich consists in resettling 
 good Order, and regularity in their House. 
 
 The Conclusion. 
 
 Aft^r what has been representcl in both parts of the 
 Factum, and the ■:insAers now made to all that can be 
 alled^ed in favour of the Cordeliers, it cannot be 
 imagined that there is ai.y person, that is not fully con- 
 vinced of the justice of the pretentions of the Religious 
 Sisters of St. Catharine* 
 
 They desire not, that the Authours of all the Disorders 
 that have been committed in their House, should be 
 informed agaiust, that so long a continuation of Crimes 
 should be punishe.l, that the violation of so many laws, 
 so many abominable prol'unations should be chastized 
 
116 THE NUNS AGAINST THE FHTAES. 
 
 according to the severity of the Rules of (Jhweh and 
 ^tate. 
 \ y Tlwy freelif offer to cJtasfise fJiem upon themselves by 
 the ways of Christian penance, to exp'ate thera by their 
 groans and tears, and (as much as in them lyes,) to 
 appease the wrath of God, (justly provoked by all these 
 abominations,) by the Mortifications of a Eeligious life, 
 and the constant sacrifice of a humble and contrite 
 heart. 
 
 Tliey only desire tliat by removing these pernicious 
 Directours of their consciences from their House, they 
 might recover their liberty of acquitting themselves of 
 that, and their other obligations: tlmt by preventing 
 these Fatliers from having any access to them, they 
 might put a stop to the scandals that they have occa- 
 sioned for so many ypars together, and that such people 
 as have neither FaitJi, nor JSonour^ nor Conscience, 
 might not any longer be suffered in the face of the whole 
 Church, to abuse a Jurisdiction which they have usurped 
 over them, against the most essential rights of Epis- 
 copacy. 
 
 If nothing hut their Temporal interests had heen con- 
 cerned in it, and that the Cordeliers would have been 
 contented to have consumed their whole Revenue in 
 Feasting, Dissoluteness, and Debauchery, or to have 
 robbed thera of it according as they had occasion for it, 
 and stood in need of it, to satisfie their ambitious ends, 
 
THE NDNS AGAINST THE PRTARS. 117 
 
 their self-interest, or their pleasures with it, may bo 
 they would have dissembled the injury. 
 
 But tlie lionour of tlieir Monastery is now concerned 
 in it, which cannot be resettled in its former splendour, 
 but by restoring? it again to the authority of my Lord 
 Archbishop of Sens, unto which, according to the Soly 
 Scriptures, according to tlie Canons of tlie Councils 
 according to the Maximes of the Gallicane Clmrcli 
 according to the mind of St. Francis, and according to 
 t^e first settlement of the Nuns of St. Clare, it ought 
 to be submitted. 
 
 The Salvation of their own souls, and of the souls of 
 all those Virqins that in succession of time shall he en- 
 gaged in this Monastery, are concerned in it, whom these 
 FatJiers, considering what kind of people they are, will 
 most indubitably alienate from the Fidelity which they 
 owe to Jesus Christ. 
 
 Lastly, the main thing that is made the matter of the 
 present concern is, to procure a favour for a great num- 
 ber of Virgins consecrated to the service of God, that 
 would never be refused to any Ordinary Virgins of the 
 "World, who had been stolen away feom their 
 Parents and implored the assistance of the laws to be 
 restored to them back again, and to be forced out of the 
 hands of the villains, who would with so much insolence 
 have attempted upon their honour. The Beligious Sisters 
 of St. Catherine escpect thei/r fa/oowr from the Ckywrt with 
 
118 THE NXTNS AGAINST THE FRTAES. 
 
 SO much the more confideiK^e, as the danger in which 
 they are is more evident. 
 
 Tliey hope that that august Tribunal, having always 
 testifyed so much zeal for the Rights of the Bishops and 
 for the true liberty of the Nunneries, will be tenderly 
 affected at the hard captivity, under which they have 
 for so many years groaned : and that they shall not have 
 a less favourable Audience than the Beligious Sisters of 
 St. Eutrope of Qhanteloup ; those of St. Nicholas of 
 Melun ; those of the Annunciate at Bologne ; and of so 
 many others hesides, who have been restored to the juris, 
 diction of their Bishops, for abuses very like to those 
 that the Cordeliers have committed in their House. 
 
 They hope that it having given testimony of its great 
 zeal for upholding all Religious Orders in the first spirit 
 and sincerity of their Foundation, it will Eot refuse this 
 favour to the Order of St. Francis, by obliging the 
 Cordeliers to leave off being Directours to those, whom 
 their Soly 'Founder has so streightly forbid them to 
 meddle withall, which he so earnestly endeavoured to 
 separate them from, and which he looked upon as a very 
 dangerous snare, that the Devil had laid for his Order, 
 and which they themselves have found, hy dreadful 
 Experience, to have been so mischievous to them. 
 
 Lastly, they hope that the Court, having always given 
 evidence of so much Judgment, Prudence, and Equity 
 in its determinations, it will not now abandon them to 
 
 f* 
 
THE NUNS AGAINST THE FETARS. 119 
 
 the power of those, who have engaged them in^that sad 
 condition, that they have for so many years continued 
 in ; but will ou the contrary conclude, that the mischief 
 that the Cordeliera have doni'; to their Monastery, can- 
 not be prevented but by the cares of their true Pastours. 
 
 Finis. 
 
 Jan. 5, 1675— Imprimattir, 
 6 
 GEORGE HOOPEll, EX MB. LAMBETHAN. 
 
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