THE NUNS Complaint Against the FRIARS.  
BEING The CHARGE given in to the COURT of FRANCE, by the Nuns of St. Katherine near Provins, against the Father's Cordeliers their Confessors.  
Several times Printed in French; AND Now Faithfully done into English.  
LONDON, Printed by E.H. for Robert Pawlett, at the Bible in Chancery-Lane near Fleetstreet, 1676.   

To the Truly Honourable BELLALMO.  
Most Dear, and Honoured Sir:  
'TIs now long since, that I have desired your Commands, when I was about leaving England. I must confess, it was rather to testify my esteem of those uncommon Qualifications in you, that have gained you the affections of the best men, and laid Charms of respect upon all, than to persuade you, that I had any considerable service in prospect to gratify you withal. But being loath to return without any signs 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 looked upon as an acknowledgement due from all honest men to Persons so eminently virtuous. And therefore after I had met with these Religious Ladies, and understood the nature of their grievances, and the use that might be made of their Information; I imagined that this might be no 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 Cloisters, and no leave allowed them to take the air, but with such as would pay well for their company. They were indeed at first very publicly 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 Nuns had gained their cause, and the Cordeliers were cashiered their house; to put a stop to all farther scandal amongst the people, the Copies, that were printed, were ordered to be suppressed 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 receptions of all Strangers, of whom you might learn any thing, that I questioned not but that these would find a welcome from you. I have reason to think, that you will find them very good company, and afford you variety of entertainment. It may be they will gratify your cnriosity by making you a spectator of such lives, as are designed 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 Nuns and Friars in some Pages may give you very agreeable divertisement: And their excesses, and disorders in others, if they raise less grateful Passions in you, yet will furnish you with true, and certain accounts, how the Profession of Monkery is reduced to practice. But whatever eflect you find in yourself by it, I hope you will be confident, that my great design 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.   

THE TRANSLATOR TO THE READER.  
CErtainly never had 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 frighting 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, put him to the expense of the Press, but 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 first terrible Scene, till I had stroked 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 freedom. Know therefore, Courteous Reader, that the Fair Strangers, I here offer to you, are above the ordinary rate of the Sex. By their way of life they are under very solemn Obligations to silence. They have vowed 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 importance, not all the impertinencies that were done, when they were in France. They will caution some against public 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 offend, but such as by the Laws of the Land are not supposed to be amongst us. The Assertors of the Privileges of the Gallican Church, and the Bishops there, have given them their applause already, and the Seculars never thought themselves better justified against the Regulars. The Hugonots looked on, and cared not much what pleasure others took in it, but were pretty sure that 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 resolved they should travel with me for the benefit of the Nation. But I must affirm, That if any party among us be more particularly obliged by it than others, it must be those of the Roman Communion. All others can pretend to no greater advantage by it, but only that they have a confirmation of what they thought they were sure of before, and had been long in the practice of: But these Gentlemen are taught new Truths about their nearest Interests, the concerns of their Families, the Education of their Daughters, Their Sisters, Their Cousins, or their Aunts. For, if these Nuns are to be believed, we may easily see, to what a kind of Education those Young Ladies are committed, that are ordinarily sent over from hence into the Convents of the Poor Clares in France, and Flanders. It may be, 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 pretend a particular Jurisdiction by their 
* See Section 5, 6. etc.  first Foundation, and which nothing but their scandalous behaviour has deprived them of, not only in this, but in several other Convents in France, as appears about the conclusion of this Factum. And had not the Affairs of the Kingdom favoured the Interests of the Episcoparian party amongst them more particularly in this present Age, These Nuns might have groaned much longer under their Tyranny, as well as have made so many fruitless attempts as they did, to shake it off for some considerable number of years before. We find that those that are sent to Pension amongst them are not exempt from the common 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 Innocency, that the care of their Parents had planted in them, when they see such different practices, as these, authorised by the persons, that are not only their Guides, and Instructors, but also more peculiarly devoted to God, and set apart from the World by solemn Vows, and the Observance of rigorous and severe Impositions, for an instance, and trial of what the Principles of a Religion could do? But more especially when they see all this so customary a fashion amongst them, as to get the Authority of their Bachelors, Doctors, Superiors, and Provincials, and all the men of greatest note amongst them. What other effect can it naturally produce in the best disposed amongst them, than what we see ordinarily done in the World, that is an imitation of those actions which they see constantly practised 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 Nuns 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 confirmed, 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 Bon Amy;) how much must be allowed to their present state, and Natural Inclinations; when they are informed by them, what are the only necessary requisites to qualify them for a plenary Absolution; and how easy compensations for their past Offences will bribe the Divine Goodness to a reconcilement, and purchase them an Intimacy, and Friendship with God: In sum, when they are acquainted, what blessed Privileges their Church is endowed withal, that by the virtue of its Indulgences upon the performance of some small bodily motions can confer an Imputative Saintship that shall equalise a true one. If then they take a full prospect of all these Considerations together, and find licentiousness allowed by Principles, and made a Case of Conscience; Or, If more Exorbitant, cleared off by Absolutions without the trouble of Reformation; Or, if yet attended with anxiety, and uneasiness, turned into a Traffic with the Divine Justice by Commutations of Penances, which also may be Exchanged yet farther for greater Ease; what can we expect, but that they should make themselves Votaries to so agreeable a state of life, assoon 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 fitted only for Naked Ghosts, and another World? Locks, and Barrs, and Iron Grates may raise fine solemn Imaginations in a stranger, but they will prove very weak Securities for their very natural Honesty, when there are Keys, or a free access for the Cordelier Confessor.  
By this time, I suppose, the Reader will fairly conclude by my zeal, That the Timaretta whom I adored was put to School to a Convent, and that there I was basely choosed of her by a Friar. I wholly discharge the 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 Women to Conventicles beyond Sea, when we see such ill effects of it at home. And as I shall be glad to have obliged those that take it for a courtesy, 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 Ancestors, whom now we may suppose to have very warily examined the behaviour of the monastics: 'Tis 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 Divertisement: It may be, it was not so much One Anne Bolen, as thousands of Melita's, and ten thousands of Thyrsis', that caused the ruin of the famousest Structures in the Land: And it's probable, that the scandalous disorders of such an Order of men, as these, who had all the advantages that men could have, to observe their Vows of Caelibacy, might make our Sober Governors conclude, That those Arbitrary and unalterable Resolutions were necessary causes of very dangerous Consequences. We see in the present case, that here there has been a General corruption of a whole Order of Regulars, of their very Superiors, and Provincials, and this for very considerable numbers of years together; And yet this Order is esteemed one of the severest, and strictest of all the Regulars. Their Founder, St. Francis, was the most extravagant of any, (both in his own practice, and in the Rule he lest his Disciples) for the rigidness of his Injunctions. He obliges them to Beggary, to such Self-denial, and Mortification, 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 the World, and to confirm themselves in their first resolutions, have deliberately tied themselves 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 observance of what they had vowed, and public Infamy always attended the violation of it: Yet all these ill consequences are not able to secure them; But, as if there were some Magic in nature that was too irresistible for all these provisions and precautions, we see them delivered up to the uncontrollable power of their natural Inclinations. And indeed, when we consider not the frame of our Natures, nor the dependencies of our beings upon the varieties 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 forced Methods, and bind ourselves unalterably to such Laws in the doing 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 countermanded, 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 Design of these Religious retirements from the world so managed, 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 influential abroad, or as Receptacles for such, whose former Merits should claim their Alimony, and Writ of ease from the places, which they had obliged, they would be so far from being dissiked, that they seem to be by all means encouraged, and promoted:  
Before I dismiss this whole Cause, I think it not unseasonable to invite the Intelligent Reader to take a small view of the present State of the Roman Church. We know, that the Regulars are the Janissaries 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 dependence 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 complaint of the University of Paris in 1643, That the Jesuits had ruined all the Universities in France, by draining all the youth into their Schools, so that the two Colleges in Paris, had more than all the Colleges besides: And that almost all the other Universities had scarce Auditors for their Professors. 'Tis well known at present, that the Colleges 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 Maxims that they instil into them; which indeed we find is a natural effect of that Relation betwixt a Tutor and his Scholar, when there are not mighty precautions used to prevent it. But if we be at all acquainted with the Affairs of those men, 'tis still much better known, what are those Principles, that not only particular men, but such as have the Subscriptions of the Deputies of the whole Order, have publicly owned in Print about Moral Theology, and the Government and Conduct of our Lives. The Provincial Letters have sufficiently shown by an infinite number of Quotations out of their Principal and Leading men, all Licenced by the Authority of their Order, what deductions they have made from that Principle of Directing the Intention, so as to indulge all manner of Immorality; killing men for a box on the ear, though they would run away from them; Theft, Uncleanness, Lying in the gross sense, Killing of Judges, and Witnesses, barefaced Simony, Covetousness, so as to wish the death of the Persons that stand in their way, assisting of Superiors in things known to be directly vicious, palpable Cheating, and all this with this only Proviso, that they be all the while so well-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 Collections of these Maxims have been done by many out of their Writings; some very pernicious ones, by the faithful Grotius, in his Book de Jure Belli, & Pacis. But to remove all subterfuges, and scruples from those who have not leisure to examine these Casuists, the Learned Author of those Letters, one of their own Church, has performed it; the weakness of their Answers to him established it, and given Authority to what he has affirmed.  
Excepting therefore that small Party of Seculars, that 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) shall we not conclude, that the remaining body of the Church is in a very deplorable condition, and it may be, so universally, that it may almost endanger the visibility of the other little remnant?  
Next to the Jesuits, in power, and interest our Franciscans are esteemed the most prevailing Party; and as the Jesuits have got the vogue for the only Masters of Learning, 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, Rules, 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 public influence upon the lives of the people, as the power of Example exceeds that of Precept, or as a true fire does that of a Picture. Of this kind are our Franciscans, and of all other Orders, by the severity of their Institution most likely to answer their Church's intention, both for the evidencing the Principles of it by their practice, and for persuading imitation by their Examples. See then the utmost of what such a Religion can do, and what Fruits are to be expected amongst such, as imitate them. If Jesuits have given dangerous Precepts, certainly the Friars had given a greater strength to them by their lives, and practices. So that they must still have that praeeminence, so often boasted of, of being at wonderful Unity with one another, of having a perfect conformimity betwixt their Rules, and Examples, and (considering the indefatigableness of both for promoting the common Interest) of spreading their Doctrine, and Party almost Universally. This seems to be the present representation of the state of that 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 betwixt 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 assistances of a true one: Nor a greater security of the Civil Government, than by excluding all other Independent Authorities from the overruling of natural Conscience, the Spring of all humane Actions, that tend to the Public 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 obnoxious to bold Assassinates in their greatest security. If there happen any Disputes about Civil Rights in the Bowels of a State, the way ordinarily taken to determine them is by open and generous Methods; but if once Bulls of Excommunication are passed, or it be generally supposed, that the Prince is an ill friend to some Usurpations, or ill conduct of the Church, he is no longer secure in his Privy Chamber, nor in the midst of a well-armed Guard of Suisz. 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 have we had 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 toleration, that maintain this Opinion, and have often evidenced it by their practice for more than 800 years, not only to the prejudice of the Prince's 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 design.  
It is, I confess, no very easy thing to remove an established Power, that has a general Interest to second it, and Henry the Fourth (who foresaw the danger, which at last had its effect upon him) when often solicited to banish the Jesuits, who were something insolent upon their Restauration, was afraid, that they would send him out of the world before he could send them out of France: And therefore sure these should applaud, and relish their present condition, that are far from fearing the power of such men, as they would hardly be able to get rid of, and encourage all endeavours that are used to prevent the increase of them.  
Notwithstanding all this Tragical, and true representation, that I have drawn of the present Face of things, I cannot but take notice of a particular Mystery of Providence, that has laid 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 secured from most of the ill effects of pernicious Principles, and that they contradict their Belief by their Actions. This has made me have a respect for many of that Party of men, (whom I have here been so free withal), 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 pleased myself 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 instances of Good, and Virtuous Tempers. But then the Design 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 whatsoever Religion contradicts this, putteth men into greater danger, than if they were without it. And consequentlp, that many of those who in other circumstances would obey the motions of their good Inclinations, when backed, and encouraged by the Learned, and the Grave of that Religion will make no scruple of taking the Determinations of the Church for Guides, and Conductors to a more easy, and pleasant, though a very mischievous way.  
After all this long and tedious Discourse, the main of which is grounded upon the truth of the things that are alleged in the Factum, It may be scrupled by some, whether it were not either a contrivance of the Archbishop of Sens, or an excess of passion in the Nuns, that transported them beyond the bounds of truth, and honesty to depose such things of the Friars, as never were done. To both which I shall return, That after that the composure of the Factum had been charged upon the Archbishop, the Nuns called the Notaries of the next Town over to them, and there made a Protestation to them, which (as all public Acts usually are) was registered by them; in which they vouch that Writing to be their own: and add besides, that they have still far more horrible things to depose against them, if they still persisted to molest them: That the Nuns did all this deliberately, for a great continuance of time together: That they were the Gravest, and most Ancient amongst them: That there were no less than eighteen of them: That by their Quality, the Testimony of one of them is esteemed of equal validity, with that of many others put together, since, when there is no evidence to the contrary, their integrity is supposed to be more strictly preserved, and secured 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 were sensible 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 for Witnesses, and make it clear, that they did both know the matters, which they testified; and did faithfully deliver the matters which they knew? What Judge can desire more sufficiency 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 Catholic Countries, to discharge the Cordeliers of their Office, to deprive them of a Jurisdiction, that they had enjoyed for many hundreds of years. That this could not be prevented by all the Interest that those Friars 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 Solicitations 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 upon the comparing of the Copies, it will appear, that I have very industriously avoided all manner of liberty, that might any ways endanger the true meaning of the Testimonies, and have purposely omitted all the Ornaments, that would, it may be, be requisite for the recommending any other Writing to the Reader. For I imagined, that where Religious Persons are brought in to accuse one another, all care ought to be taken that their words be faithfully related; and if made to put on a foreign Dress, that it do not disguise the natusal Mien, and Air of the Parties; That the Translation be as little different, 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 followed the Style of a Court of Justice, rather than that of the Modish part of the Town, or the Theatre. For the whole Design of it being a matter of Fact, I thought a Verbal Translation would the best suit it, lest the altering of the Words should cause a misrepresentation of the true Sense.   

A CHAPTER-ACT OF THE RELIGIOUS SISTERS OF THE Royal Monastery of Saint Catharine, near Provins, to own their Factum against the Cordeliers, and all the Matters of Fact contained in the same.  
THis day 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, Hereditary Note-keepers, and Registers to the King, undersigned, at the request of the Sisters Margaret Le Cocq de Chauvigny, Magdelaine Pilon, Susan Gaultier, De Flovigny, Gedovin, Darzillers, Paris, De Beaufort, Du Pas, Bourdault, De la Salle, Rohault l' Ainee, Rohault la Jeune, Vessiere, Bourgovin, Guignet, Des Plasses, and D' Aguerre; All of them Nuns professed in the Royal Monastery of the Mount Saint Catharine near Provins, 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, Tha having understood that the Father's Cordeliers, notwithstanding, and to the prejudice of the Procuration, that they gave of it, intended and endeavoured to make the Factum, that they had composed for the defence of their Cause against the said Father's Cordeliers, be reputed to be, A piece without any consent to it on their part, and of which my Lord Archbishop of Sens was the Author; That so, after their having been the causes of an infinite number of disorders in their Monastery, aswell in their Spiritual as their 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 learned 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 ready respectively, and every one in particular for her own part, to maintain the said Factum in all the things that it contains, 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 said Lord Archbishop of Sens did compose the said Factum, that he gave her the Papers, and Manuscripts of it, and took the Sheets back again: but only, that the person who was entrusted 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 Father's Cordeliers, in case it had been printed in the Nun's name. As in effect, notwithstanding all kind of precaution they could use to prevent it, they have been acquainted, that the said Father's 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 intentions.  
Of the which present Declaration thus made by the  Religious Sisters after they had been heard separately, being assembled together, as is aforesaid, those Religious Sisters did demand an Act of us: And to them this present one is given, and granted to serve for what it is proper.  
This was done, passed, and dispatched in the said Monastery: And all the said Religious Sister's beforenamed, 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 De Huchy. Each of them a Paraphe.  Compared with the Original by the King's Counsellor, Secretary of the House of the Crown of France, and of the Finances.  

A FACTUM, OR, DECLARATION in COURT; FOR The Religious Sisters of Saint Catharine, near Provins, against the Father's Cordeliers.  
IT is with a great deal of regret that the Religious Sisters of Saint Catharine, near Provins, see themselves forced to give an account to the Public of the Suits which they make at Court against the Father's Cordeliers. But the injustice, with which it has pleased those Fathers to traduce their best intentions, and to make the unanimous consent of the greatest and soundest part of their Community pass for a Faction, and a Cabal 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 authorise all their other disorders. It is nothing then but the bare necessity of defending and justifying themselves, which moves them 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 put upon themselves to publish such things, as they could have wished for the interest of God and his Church, for the honour of that whole Order, aswell as upon the account of their own reputation, to have buried in an eternal silence.  

SECTION I. What gave occasion to the Suits, which the Nuns of Saint Catharine make at Court against the F. Cordeliers.  
THe Monastery of the Nuns of Saint Clare near Provins, was founded in the year 1237. by Theobald the Fourth, King of Navarre, and Earl of Brie and Champagne. The Traditions of this Monastery say, that this Prince caused it to be built in honour of Saint Catharine upon occasion of a vision, which he had in his Castle of Provins, from whence he had for 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 the point of a Sword marked out the compass of this House. This Prince, who had a great devotion for Saint Catharine, was persuaded that it was she, that thus designed out the place, where God would be served under her good guidance. He resolved therefore to build a Nunnery there, to endow it, and to settle those Nuns there, whom Saint Clare, who was then living, had sent him from Assize, from whence the fame of her great Sanctity had diffused 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 completely 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 endowments, granted them great privileges, and at the solicitation of Isabel the daughter of Saint Lewis, whom he had married, he procured of Pope Vrban the Fourth a permission for them to take the Rule, which at the desire of Saint Lewis he had made for the Nuns of Longchamp, who had been founded by this holy King twenty two years after the Monastery of Saint Catharine. Theobald the Fifth dying as he returned from the voyage, that he had undertaken with Saint Lewis his Father-in-Law beyond Sea, would be buried in this Monastery: The Princess Isabel 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 give any further light into it. There is nothing but a Bull of 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 Catharine, 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 an hundred years since, this House having been again consumed by Fire, was a while after rebuilt by the care of the Lady Margaret de Billy, of the Illustrious House of Prunay, than Abbess of it, who retired in the mean while into the Castle of Provins, as her Predecessors had done upon the like occasions.  
Five or six and twenty years after Madam d'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 Rule was observed, to come over to her for this purpose, to teach it her Nuns, to give them the example of it, and to be assistant to her to deny those Father's entrance into the House. God preserved her forty years in this Charge in spite of all the attempts, and persecutions of those Friars, during all which time they frustrated all her good designs, and all the regulations which she had made for settling the Discipline according to the advice of many learned Divines; so that as the greatest number of the Nuns were habituated to these infamous communications, she could never draw them out of it, notwithstanding all the precautions she could make use of: and the disorder did still much more increase after her death, which happened in 1636, which was the time, when the Cordeliers bethought themselves of making the Nuns accept of the Triennial, that the Abbesses might be in greater dependence upon them, that they themselves might be absolute Masters of the Elections, and that they might with the more ease and success oppose the good designs of those that should be elected.  
They exercised their Tyranny in this House till the year 1648, when many of the Nuns abhorring their extravagancies did make suit in Parliament to be discharged of their conduct. But Father le Fort, who was then appointed Commissary, and who ruled 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 absolute 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 called no less than three times a day, he loaded them with such horrid and injurious language upon their intending to withdraw themselves from under their direction, calling them People of Sackcloth and Cord, Souls of Brimstone and Saltpetre; 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 Regulations 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 disorders.  
At last in the year 1663., The Nuns seeing that the Abbess, who had then finished her Triennial, and who had never 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 satisfy the greediness of these Fathers, were resolved to make choice of another. The Cordeliers were well ware 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 for Associates, Scrutatour, and Secretary, whom he knew to have most power over the inclinations of the Nuns. They had private conferences with them, some of which were continued till two a-clock in the morning: They used the assistance of Kindred, and Friends abroad, who openly made parties for her. They spared not for either promises, or threats. Some of the Nuns a great while before had by the Physician's order desired leave to go out to take the waters. They were now offered to have it upon condition that they would give her their vote: 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 sign, that were wrote by a Cordelier to assure themselves of their votes, and of their faithfulness to 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 Election, after that the scruting 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 of amongst them: so 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 form, yet they were forced to suffer it: but not without this provision, that the Treasurers should be joined with the Abbess in the management of the Temporal revenue, and should sign the Acquittances: 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 easy 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 disorders; 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 Remonstrance 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 home again: That Father therefore commanded them to return to the Monastery: They obeyed him. And he himself went over thither a little while after to punish them for the pretended scandal they had given. And to do it after a more exemplary manner, this severe Judge, and sage Reformer, as those Nuns themselves report it, set himself to caress them for three days together, to entertain them with a thousand expressions of fondness, & 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 sign a paper, which upon the faith of the Provincial they were made to believe, was a declaration of their Innocence, as indeed they had all reason to believe; since that one of them maintains, That in an entertain, 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 kiss her, That he had then declared to her, that he was not at all persuaded, that either she or her Companion had deserved any punishment, but that what he did in it was only to take off all blame from their Order out of the Queen Mother's apprehension: 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 excommunication, which he must of necessity pronounce against her, should be but a formal show, a counterfeit anger, and a piece of Mummery. But the next morning having entered the House, and called these two Nuns to a Chapter, to make them confess that they had put off their Habit, and consequently had 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, that 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 commanded his Secretary to go and seize her, and to bring her upon his back: Those were his very words.  
The Secretary pressed her with a great deal of earnestness to do 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 impudence 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 Mummery, and that they would null the sentence immediately after it was pronounced.  
All these extravagant submissions not being able to overcome the resolution of this Nun, the Provincial gave sentence against her and her Companion, by which he deprived them of Active and Passive vote, of the offices of the Religion, of the freedom of Conversing at the grate, and this for as long a time as he and his successors should think fit, and told her particularly that had shown so much stiffeness, that he Excommunicated them: And in effect, the Cordelier Confessor 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 themselves obliged to seek for redress at Court by way of appeal for redressing of abuses, and to make known their grievances there, as well for their making of factions at the Election, as for the disorderly conduct of the Cordeliers, 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 15 May 1664. remitted them to my Lord Archbishop 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 appeal whatsoever to the contrary. These Nuns, in conformity to the wise provision of this Decree, presented their request to my Lord Archbishop of Sens, that he would please to come over to them to do them justice.  
Then it was that many of the Nuns 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 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 execution of the Decree to come over to their Monastery to inform himself of the disorders of the Religious Fathers, and of the truth of those things which they had specified in their request.  
But neither did they stop there: Their number being increased 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 Choir the most ancient amongst them, by which they voted amongst themselves, To petition my Lord Archbishop of Sens in all humility to receive them under his jurisdiction and conduct, seeing that the disorders of the Cordeliers both in their Spiritual 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 endeavour and suit to effect it, to give unanimous consent to all that should be thought necessary for it, and to beseech my Lord Archbishop of Sens not to forsake them in this good design, and to give them his protection for the complete execution of it.  
My Lord Archbishop of Sens considering 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 sensible of this obligation, as they were more earnest in begging his assistance in their extremity, came over to their Nunnery, began his visitation there the 3d of September 1664, drew up their Declaration; and seeing that a part of the disorders of the House proceeded from an ill management of the Tem. poral revenues, and from the driving a Trade of blanching of linen 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 applied his charitable cares to reform their Spiritual condition, especially after he had particular informations from the Religious Nuns, of the state of their Monastery and of the danger they were obnoxious to, if they were not put into a perfect liberty of Spirit, and if the Authors of so many horrible scandals 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 Consciences, who should assist them in all their necessities, and administer the Sacraments to them, 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 of February 1666 by which he enjoined the Nuns to receive for their confessor Monsieur Bourree, Dr. of the Faculty of Paris, whose ability, life, exemplary manners, and charitable zeal were fully known to him; and commanded the Cordeliers forthwith to leave the House, which they had involved in such horrible disorders.  
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 Choir, engaged by no body knows what false Maxims, to say no worse, to the interest of the Cordeliers, made opposition 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 Choir against all order, and by allowing them all kind of Liberties against their vows of Confinement and Poverty, and against the particular obligations of their quality.  
Upon the refusal of these nine or ten Maids, there was issued out a Decree of the 24 of March 1666, by which it was enjoined that the Orders of my Lord Archbishop of Sens should be put in execution according to their form and tenor. This Decree was backed with another of the 14 of April following, by which the united Nuns being received as Appealers from the abuse of a pretended obedience to the Commissary General given to F. Houdry a Cordelier, and of certain pretended Bulls of exemption from the Jurisdiction of the Ordinary in favour of the Religious Maids of St. Clare denounced 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 new, and the Lieutenant General of Provins enjoined to give his assistance to the execution of those Orders.  
Those absolute Commands, which came from an Authority which all aught to reverence, instead of opening the eyes of these nine or ten Religious Maids, and making them listen to the reasons that persuaded the Court so effectually to maintain the Order of my Lord Archbishop of Sens, served to no better purpose, than to make them give clear evidence of that spirit of Rebellion, with which the Cordeliers had inspired them. It was therefore necessary to have recourse to the Lieutenant General of Provins and that the Eldest Counsellor of that Court should come over to the Monastery of St. Catharine the 18. of April, in Execution of this last Decree to settle the Sieur Bourree in the Ordinary House of the Confessors of this Monastery, in spite of all the opposition of these nine or ten Nuns. Such a public Contempt of My Lord Archbishop of Sens' 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 hands. But this Prelate considering, that their Obstinacy proceeded from their Errors, and the false Maxims that the Cordeliers had instilled into them, rather than from any deliberate malice, resolved to try all possible ways of Sweetness and Charity, to reduce them 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 heinousness of that Sin, which making them violate those Vows would make them lose the quality of the Spouses of Jesus Christ, represented unto them. He moreover provided to have it remonstrated 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 be declared to them, with that Fatherly Authority which God had given him for their concern, That he was most tenderly inclined for their Spiritual welfare; but withal, that he did most perfectly abhor their Rebellion: That 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 which 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 Remonstrances were wholly ineffectual. The Servitour-Sisters continued their unlawful commerce, and the nine or ten Sisters of the Choir remained still as pertinacious, and obstinate in refusing to acknowledge Mounsieur Bourree their Confessor. 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 persuaded them to absent themselves wholly from them: and all the care that My Lord Archbishop of Sens could use to make them come to these Solemnities, and the goodness he shown them in offering them Confessors of any of the other Religious Orders to draw them to it, could not prevent them from letting Easter-day pass without receiving the Communion. That Prelate threatened them with the penalties incurred by the Holy Canons, if they acquitted not themselves of a duty, which he made appear to them was so indispensible. They had three Admonitions for it according to the custom. They returned no other answer to all this, but 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 joined a Declaration of all that had passed; The Court by a Decree of the 5th. of September, 1666. remitted them to My Lord Archbishop of Sens to be redressed by him by all ways due and reasonable, and even to the carrying away of such Nuns as he should think fit into other Monasteries: Did enjoin the Lieutenant General of Provins, and others the King's Officers, to assist the said Lord Archbishop with the Secular Arm, and the King's Deputy-Attourney to give his Aid. My Lord Archbishop of Sens, seeing himself forced 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 voice of their true Pastor: And as they were now no longer beset with the Cordeliers, who made them stop their Ears, and who encouraged them in this their Rebellion, they had no sooner had the taste of this happy 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 applied to those wounds, that the Religious Fathers had given to their Discipline; the necessity of my Lord Archbishop of Sens' 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 Rule had made them commit, and to assure him of the good disposition 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 Monasteries, but even those who stayed still at St. Catharines', did by public Acts, and before Notaries, protest the Nullity of all that they might have done, or signed to the contrary. But the Cordeliers, who whilst these nine or ten Nuns did make profession of so much resolution to retain them still in their House, had several times made a show 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 Fathers did but make a show of doing, betook themselves 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 Privileges of the Gallicane Church, and to the Authority of Parliament: The one under the name of the procurator General of the Order; and the other under the name of the Nuns of St. Catharine. Under the name of the procurator General of the Order they addressed themselves 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. Catharine are remitted to the Archbishop of Sens, they procured a Decree bearing, That that Prelate should have a time assigned him to be heard, That in the mean while the Censures pronounced by him should be taken off, and that the Monastery should continue under the Conduct and Jurisdiction of the Cordeliers.  
Under the name of the Nuns of St. Catharine, they obtained of their General a Commission, by which Father Pinault Warden of the great Convent at Paris, is fully empowered to reform the Nuns of St. Catharine, to correct them, to govern them, and to give them Religious Fathers for Confessors; And they are all commanded under penalty of Excommunication to obey him, and to acknowledge him Commissary; which is in plain terms to make all that is dependant, and undecided in the Court, to be judged at Rome by their General, without any cognizance of the cause, and without hearing of the parties.  
The Religious Sisters of St. Catharine, being acquainted with the private intrigues of the Cordeliers, met in Chapter the 5th. of February 1666. and did to the Number of twenty of them, all Nuns of the Choir, resolve to present a Petition at Court to get a Decree, by which My Lord Archbishop of Sens should be declared Superior 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 Pinault Warden of Paris, had got the King's Letters Patents upon the pretended Commission of the Father General, they presented a new Petition to My Lord Archbishop of Sens, signed by twenty Nuns, all professed of the Choir, to request him in all Humility, to receive them once more under his Protection, 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 procuring them so Powerful an Assistance against the mischiefs with which they saw themselves overrun; On the twentieth of the same Month, they opposed the Registering of the Letters Patents, which might have been imposed upon them upon this pretended Commission from the General: and on the thirteen of November they appealed as from the abuse of this same Commission; and on the seventeenth, they signified their Appeal to Father Pinault. But because they had not as yet made their Appeal as from an abuse of the pretended Decree of the Congregation, obtained by the procurator General of the Order, not imagining 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 Ecclesiastic Law; they presented a new Petition to the Court on the 29th. of the same November, 1666. Upon which by a Decree of December the second, they were received Appealants, as from an abuse of the  pretended Decree of the Congregation: and it was ordered in these terms; That the Declaration of the Visitation, and Hear of the said Religious Sisters made, and received by the said Archbishop of Sens. shall within a month be brought to the Civil Office of the Court, the Clerk to be obliged to do it by all due and reasonable ways, and in the mean while prohibited to put the said Decree of the Congregation in Execution, as also against the Archbishop's making his appearance upon any such assignations, which might be set him in virtue of that Decree; and Ordered that those undernamed, Hubert, Apostolic Notary, Brugare and Messagio, Notaries of Provins, who signified that Decree, shall be appointed to appear at Court, to answer to the Articles that the Attorney-general may draw up against them, for having dared against the Duty and Obligation of their place to signify a Decree, which does so openly wound the Liberties of the Gallicane Church, and the Laws of the Realm.  
This is the state of the Affairs of the Nuns of St. Catharine, and whither all the suits they have made at Court for these two years do tend, that is, to be discharged of the direction of the Cordeliers, and to return under that of my Lord Archbishop of Sens, who is their Lawful and Natural 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 Rules of the Church, and to the particular Obligations of these Nuns: That the State and Religion are concerned in it, and that Reasons, which to them seem Invincible, and which respect 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. Catharine, which is to return under the Conduct and Jurisdiction of My Lord Archbishop of Sens, their Lawful Prelate.  
THe Nuns of St. Catharine have such powerful reasons to live under the Government and Direction of my Lord Archbishop of Sens, their lawful Prelate, that one can scarce comprehend how they come to be engaged under any other Conductors, nor by what Charm they have been kept in subjection to that of the Cordeliers, who have made themselves Masters of the Government of their House. For besides the reasons in general, which do submit, as shall be made appear, all Religious Houses to the Bishops, 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 Pastors, as we shall afterwards show, cannot but be attributed to the Violation of all those Holy Rules.  
Here follows a Discourse of above Eighty pages, to prove that of Right all Religious Houses belong to the Jurisdiction of the Bishops, and not to any Monastical Superiors, which being likely to prove very tedious to English Readers, was thought fit to be omitted: The Heads of the Chapters are these that follow.   

SECTION III.  
That Religious Houses cannot be withdrawn from under the Jurisdiction of the Bishops, and that whatsoever Exemptions have been granted them, the Bishops notwithstanding are their Lawful Superiors.   

SECTION IU.  
That the Order of St. Francis was in its first Institution submitted to the Bishops; and that it was the intention 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 of St. Clare, should be under the Conduct of the Friar's Minors.   

SECTION VI.  
That although the Friar's Minors a little after the setting up of the Order of the Nuns of St. Clare, did insinuate themselves into the Government of their Monastery, they were notwithstanding always under the Jurisdiction of the Bishops.   

SECTION VII.  
That the Nuns of St. Catharine, were at their first Institution submitted to the Archbishop of Sens.   

SECTION VIII.  
The Bulls alleged by the Cordeliers, to maintain their pretended Jurisdiction over the Monastery of St. Catharine, are answered.   

SECTION IX. The second Plea of the Nuns of St. Catharine, which is, to be discharged of the Direction of the Father's Cordeliers.  
'TIs not enough to have proved, (as has been done.) That if the Cordeliers have had any Jurisdiction in the Monastery of St. Catharine, they have usurped it against the Rights, which the Holy Scriptures, the Councils, and all Tradition do give My Lord Archbishop of Sens, and against the indispensible Obligations that lie 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 Horrible Disorders committed by them in their House, and that utter Impossibility there is of ever resettling any good Discipline there.   

SECTION X. That the Cordeliers have rendered themselves unworthy of Governing the Nuns of St. Catharine, by reason of those horrible Disorders they have committed in their Monastery.  
'TIs a certain Maxim in Law, That He that abuses a Privilege granted him deserves to lose the Power he has in virtue of that Privilege. Privilegium meretur amittere, qui permissâ sibi abutitur potestate. There need then nothing else be done, but to bring into open view the abuses, that the Cordeliers have committed of this pretended Jurisdiction over the Monastery of St. Catharine, to give undeniable proof that they deserve to lose it, although they had been lawfully possessed of it: and that they are wholly unworthy of bearing the stile of Pastors to these Holy Sisters; having all the Characters of those miserable Mercenaries, those False Prophets, those Thiefs, those Robbers, who are mentioned in the Holy Gospel; To whom the sheep belongeth not, who are clothed 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 Privileges, and come for nothing but to steal, devour and destroy. Fur non venit nisi ut furetur, etc.   

SECTION XI. The Disorders that the Cordeliers have committed in the House of St. Catharine, as to the Spiritual 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 in Justice to prosecute the Authors of them. But 'tis found too 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 an height, as has rendered them the scandal not only of one Town, or one Province, but of the whole Church.  
To be able to conceive an Idea of it in general, one need but represent to ones Fancy all the mischiefs that humane passions are capable of producing when they are covered with pretences of Piety, and abuse the most Holy 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 a Religious House. In fine, One need but imagine all the abuses, which people that are not restrained either 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 committing. For that reason, as their Extravagancies exceed all imagination, there shall be nothing said of their Disorders here, but what is faithfully drawn out of their own writings, and the depositions of a great number of the Nuns. And besides, there shall be so much condescension shown in their behalf as not to name them openly, whenever it shall appear necessarily to particularise any of their Disorders: and those Actions shall be suppressed, which could not be mentioned without doing violence to Modesty.  

The Education of Pensioners.  
THE First care of those who design to make Virtuous and Religious Nuns, is to bring them up as soon as possible 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 Monastery of Saint Catharine have had ends far enough distant from this, so have they taken different measures; and their first care on the other side has been to inspire the young Virgins, who were sent to pensi●● 〈◊〉 this House, with a spirit of Wan●●●● 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 her depositions. The Education that they gave was most pernicious: The Confessors spent their time in caressing the Pensioners that were sent them to be instructed for the Holy Communion, and entertaining them with all kind of ridiculous stories. When upon occasion they went to the Father's Convent, they used all kind of unseemly privacies with them, to take away from them that Modesty that is natural to their Sex, and so early enough dispose them to be afterwards the more complaisant to them. The Ancientest and the most Reverend amongst them appointed their Novices to entertain those Pensioners, 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 Intimacy, 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 Youth, 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 inclinations 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 themselves most to those who design to enter into the Religion, and acquaint them with all the least appearance of a Religious severity, the Cordeliers on the other side made it their business to divert the Mistresses of the Novices, from informing them of the obligations of a Religious Life, which they concealed from them with a great deal of care, that whilst they put them upon some trifling ordinary Observances, they might not lose any thing of that spirit of Wantonness and Vanity, which they had endeavoured to inspire into them before the time of their Noviciate. I can affirm, as having assured knowledge of it, that Three Novices ready to be professed, having been with Father N. Confessor, 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 them pass 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 that they had been professed, he would wait till then to have her for himself. He told another Father, who also had an Inclination for this Novice, That he had nothing to do to pretend to her, that he had reserved her for himself. But not having 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 Confessor, to be instructed by him in the Obligations of the Religion. But he, instead of acquitting 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 persuading 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 Entertains with them. Some Novices having been sent to receive Instruction of the Confessor, he instead of preparing them to the Sacrament, of a true Religious Vocation, gave them for a constant rule, to make themselves sensible 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, green, and other colours, that were significative of his passion, engaging them above all to 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 unpreparedness of these Novices, to oblige her to send them to him under this false pretence of Piety.   

Of the young Professed Nuns.  
ONe may Judge by what has been said about the manner of the Cordeliers instructing the Novices, what measures they took with the young Professed Nuns. In effect, it were strange if they should not have taken all kind of liberty before them, since now they feared not, That Modesty would make these Maids leave the House to avoid the snares 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 occasion found herself engaged to see one of them, and to entertain him. And because she stood very cautiously upon her guard; this Cordelier gave her an hundred reproachful taunts. He told her, that such a kind of reserved life was fit enough indeed for mere Innocents'; but that it was pity, that she should affect such preciseness: That she was too well made both in body and mind, to hid herself from the World: That when she came to be a little more advanced in years, she would run into despair for not having improved her 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 vicious inclinations. They brought them Romances and Plays to read, and all other books that might choke the sentiments of Piety in them, and make them easily susceptible of the Affections which they endeavoured 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 Magic, and full of an infinite number of infamous and diabolical secrets: And one of them was so beastly, as to give a Nun a Character to write nasty things withal.   

Instructions.  
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 pretty round company, 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's Governesses have assured me, and many others of our Ladies, that the Cordeliers gave them this for a lecture that 'twas to be well practised, That the Bosom, the Mouth, and the Hand, must be their particular Friends. A Sister complaining to a Cordelier that they talked so 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 Kiss of Peace, and that 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 communications; 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.   

Presents.  
These Instructions were backed with Presents, which relished of nothing but Vanity and Libertinisme. Father N. (when our Confessor) desired often to speak with two Nuns, to entertain them with professions of his Friendship, and gave them wet and dry sweetmeats, to oblige them to comply with him, and to satisfy his unlawful desires. Father N. Rival of Father N. gave his picture drawn as a Gentleman to Sister N. and made that Lady be drawn as a Pallas. Others as great Gallants as these gave them Rings, Gloves trimmed with Ribbons, Watches, Looking-glasses, Seals, wherein they engraved their cyphers, and the first letters of their Names, interwoven with Mottoes and Emblems that expressed their Passion: And for fear they should not comprehend the mysteries of them, they accompanied them with passionate Letters and Verses which did unriddle 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, wholly 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 Equal and without End. 'Tis the Device, which I have caused to be graved upon one of the Seals which I send you, of the cyphers of our names interwoven; which in its first part expresses the high and singular esteem I make of your Affection: 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 
* Amoureasement.  Affectionately given me up your Arms, and as I have received them and kept them by me, because the Cask becomes not your Sex, which ought never to conceal the Charms of their face and eyes; and besides, 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 again in another Seal. As they consist of two flames and a bell, the first of which make themselves sensible by the effects of heat, and the other by sound and noise, I have put for the Device; more of Fire: suppressing the rest, which would make up a perfect sense: More of fire than sound, that is to say, more of effects than words, more of fruits than noise, more of passion than talk, more of love in the heart than in the mouth. The bell also is enclosed, and covered with a Chevron, and though provided of its clapper, yet it is at rest, to signify, that it says not a word. The ribbon that ties them together with its three colours, expresses the quality of our affections. You love the Ash-colour, which signifies the infinity of your love. I have a fancy for the White and Green, the one of which signifies fidelity, candour, and sincerity; the other, hope and increase. So that beginning at yours, they sing: My Love has no bounds, because my fidelity always increases: beginning at the white: My fidelity shall always increase, and therefore my Love shall have no end: And at the Blue: I hope that my fidelity will acquire me a Love without End. These Artificial pieces of the workman, 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 Conqueress and Soveragn. 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 happiness and repose. I conclude with these ten ill-made, but true lines, speaking to this pitiful Present.  
Vous partez Avortons? Vous osez hazarder?  
Allez foibles efforts d'un Caeur plein de Courage;  
Si Melite pour vous aussi bonne, que Sage  
All aboard sealement deign vous regarder  
Vostre bonlieur digne d' Envy  
Allumera ma controversy.  
Ne me derobez rien, ny du caeur, ny des Yeax:  
Dites-luy settlement, que je suis tout en Elle,  
Et jurez-luy pour moy sur le plus grand Des Dieax,  
Que je serray constant autant qu'elle est belle. OR,  
Dare you Abortives thus your Fortune try?  
Go then weak sallies of a Generous mind;  
If you as Good as Wise Melita find.  
T' allow you but one glance of a kind Eye,  
Your Happy Fortune will in me  
Kindle the flames of jealousy.  
Rob me not either of her heart, or Eye,  
Tell her, in her I only live; and swear,  
Swear't 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 profane stuff as this to win the hearts of these Religious Sisters: There was nothing that appeared any thing 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 applications of flattery to his Correspondent, where he says he was with the body of the University in his rank of Doctor.   

LETTER.  
Seeing the Queen under the Canopy of State and upon the throne, I wished her the shape and mien of my Sovereign. Hearing the public Acclamations, and the solemn vows they made for her, I wished that the merit of Melita had been as much revealed. Nay sometimes when I saw the King enter his City, I felt the transports of my heart, and the urgent efforts of my Soul carried forth to wish myself a like happiness, which would have completed my felicity, if it had been with less Pomp 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 Theological 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 sixth of October, and I intent it shall be under your Patronage. If I did not apprehend the talk of people, I would set out your name and merits in public upon the Title, and the Epistle 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 Title these words: Multum Diligenti, that is, To her who Loves much— This is the design, see now the execution of it in another.   

LETTER.  
My Beloved Heart, I desire you immediately upon the receipt of this to send to Monsieur Michel's (He 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 packet 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. Although 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. To testify then that it is to you that I dedicate it, I was not content to put those two words only, which I sent you notice of. I should not have thought that I had sufficiently gratified the ardour of my Love. And so I 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 Disciple and Mistress of the Sacred Love, Mary Magdalen, who as a mark has been struck with the Arrow of Love, and who reciprocally as another Arrow has struck another mark: To the Wellbeloved: To Her who has loved much, and does love much: To the Well-chosen: To Her who has made choice of the better part, which shall never be taken from her. This is the Explication 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 testimonies I could give you of it. I hope one day to do more to assure you, that I Love you in reality, and not in appearance only, and that I am,  
My beloved Heart, your Engaged for ever.  
One must be very curious about profanations and impieties, not to be satisfied with this; for 'tis not very easy for impiety to go higher, than to abuse the words of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ himself, to express a scandalous 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 Father's thought they could give the Nuns, and made use of Profanations yet still more impious and exorbitant.   

SERMONS.  
HOw frequently have they made the Talon that God gave them to preach his word, serve to entertain their infamous commerces? How often have they endeavoured by a most execrable profanation of this Divine Ministry to make the Nuns believe, that it was they that animated them in their preaching, that encouraged them to undertake it, that upheld them in this painful work, and that they proposed to themselves nothing else, but 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 testify to you, Most dear Melita, that Thyrsis loses no opportunity, whereby to assure you of the extraordinary pleasure he finds in entertaining himself 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 week's labour, under the toil of which he foresees either the shame of sinking, or the danger of death itself: 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 him to undertake them, and that will give him a sweet consolation after all his languor. If you are very well acquainted with the incomparable Melita, you may assure her, that it is none but her, that can effect these wonders in an heart, that is more here's than its own. Nothing refreshes this languishing creature in his continual indispositions, but the Idea of her perfectiions. 'Tis to that, that he makes the most 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 were not thus satisfied with the Profanation of a Ministry that ought to be so much reverenced: They carried their Sacrilege yet higher, by profaning the Sacraments and the most Holy Ceremonies of the Church. They had taken care so to contrive it, that there should not be one Nun in the House, that from her Novice-ship, that is, in an age, and at a time when she durst not oppose them, 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 themselves Husband 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 was jollity and feasting, and a thousand impertinencies uttered.  
It is now sixteen, or eighteen years since, That Father M. Cordelier and Doctor of Paris, being come to court a Sister, and to take her for his good Friend, (That was their Ordinary Character) did scarce part from her for three days together, the time that he stayed there. He advanced his discourse with her by degrees, made insolent propositions to her, alleged those unwarrantable liberties, that he had taken with the Ladies of the N. Cordeliers, to her; and such freedom as many of his Order had told him they had taken in our House, at which without the particular Grace of God, she had yielded to him.  
Another Sister after she had been 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 M. N. the Abbess, who passed for the Mother of this Sister: Father N. Cordelier served for the Notary to pass the Contract: They published the banes at the Grate of the asorementioned Lady, and in the Hall below. Father N. served for Curate, making them say the very words, and he for his part reading the same Prayers, and using the same Ceremonies that are observed in ordinary Marriages. There was a Ring given, and put upon the finger of the Bride, Sister N. disguised like a Cordelier, made them an exhortation about the duties of Marraige, and after that, he and she were sent alone to another Grate, to consummate the Marriage together.   

Entertainments.  
THese Solemnities, which were almost continual, never passed without all the frolickest 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 broke the glasses after they had drank them off: They made use of little Artifices to lift up the Sister's Neckcloths: They reproached them, that they were but mere 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 Entertains they proceeded to discourses, that were yet more licentious & impudent: They danced their parts to tunes that were sung to them: They threw off the Cordeliers habit, and dressed themselves in Suits of Satin, and trimming of coloured Ribbon: sometimes the Cordeliers gave the Nuns their habits, and the Nuns theirs to the Cordeliers: some of the Nuns at the Friar's entreaty disguised themselves like seculars, and appeared before them at the Grate, with their Necks naked, and set thick with patches, as well as their faces. Others of them disguised themselves like Comedians, and acted Plays before them: And others were to be seen with necklaces of Amber, yellow Tiffany Hoods, 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, till five a clock in the morning. They broke the very Grates to do things with more ease, and they spent whole days and nights in these kind of entertainments.  
If they were obliged to be long absent from this Monastery they took care to maintain their correspondence by Letters, where nothing was forgot that would serve to express the height of their most shameful passions, or to debauch a mind, and make it sensible of amorous Inclinations. There are a great number of these Letters in keeping, whose Language is full of profaneness and impurity, and in which these Religious Father's talk of nothing but of destiny and fate, and of good and bad fortune: Nothing but expressions of the bitterest and most invective jealousy, protestations of fidelity and services, complaints of the cruelty and indifference of those to whom they writ.   

LOVE LETTERS.  
One of them there treats her be writes to, with the Title of his Mistress; another with that of his Soveraignness: another calls his, his Duchess, another his, his Princess: another his, his Beloved; another styles his his Dear Heart, another his his dearest Gallant, another his his dear Confident; another writes to his dear Comrade, another to his Beloved Heart, another to his little Dove, another to the Incomparable One, that makes the subject of his adoration.  
The superscriptions are, To her whom I sovereignly honour: To my Amiable cruel one, To the Victorious Melita, To my Dear Child, To the only subject of my most tender affections, To Her whom I think of, To my new Conquest, To the Loadstone, that draws me to yourself, my Dear, To the 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 whom they ordinarily called Mardana, or Mariana, or Timaretta, or Cleopatra, or Melita, according as the Friars fancied them to have any resemblance with these Hereinaes' in Romances. There shall be here some extracts of them set down, or at least of some of them, that are the least impudent, and the most Ingenious 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 to its pursuit: and if Love has made so fair a composition as to unite my heart to yours, I hope to enjoy without Rival, the Glory of calling myself,—   

LETTER.  
— 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 Incomparable Timaretta has not altogether forgot the Unfortunate Sesostris.   

LETTER.  
— 'Tis not only, as you tell me in yours of the sixteenth of May, the effects of my good nature, and Generosity: No, you make other kind of Impressions upon me. But I durst tell you them, that I might not be contradicted 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 undeceived.   

LETTER.  
Is it possible, Incomparable 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 being wholly yours, and wholly sacrificed to your service.   

LETTER.  
— See now, we are in all appearance sixscore leagues distant one from another, and consider whether I be as near you here as I was at Provins. I know not whether I myself stayed behind in that place, as I have brought you hither along with 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 Respect, Esteem, and Reverence for your merit.   

LETTER.  
— You may assure her, whom you know, that there is nothing in this world that is better beloved, 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 Love, believe it, my 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,— cheer up yourself my amiable One, and let me bear all the burden of this Affliction. It is not reasonable, that I should be the occasion of the least trouble to her, who makes up all the sweetness 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 testimonies 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 any thing nigh those agreeable delights, which you have made me relish in your Charming conversation.   

LETTER.  
— Though my Heart swims in the midst of the Waters, and baths, and Minerals, which I drink; yet I feel not that they have quenched the least spark of those fires, which yours has kindled there.— Alas that it should not be as 
* Aussi puissant.  able, as affectionate: without doubt I should live with more content, if it were so, because I should give you more satisfaction.   

LETTER.  
— Do not bemoan me, fair N. The tears that Heaven shed something too plentifully at the time of our short interview, and the many waters that fell, could not quench the flames, which a flash of Lightning from you had kindled in my spirits. None but myself should be concerned at my troubles, because I did imprudently search for the occasion of them: But the cause of them is too Lovely to be sorry for the effects.   

LETTER.  
— I 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 bosom of my Dearest, and most amiable Melita.   

LETTER.  
— Our Daughter has done very prettily to send me those two little glasses. But I am not satisfied with so little sweetness, and do not let her think to persuade me that she 
* Que elle ait tout petit.  has every thing little. I'll 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 sound whipped, as soon as he appears, and I do not know whether she can scape 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, versation, and what she can do, if she please, to oblige those persons that she has engaged to her. Whatsoever she may merit, though she had as many Adorers, as she has hairs, that is, chains upon her head, and as many as she has rays, that is, darts in her eyes: yet Thyrsis has the vanity to think, and say, That he alone will not yield to all that Troup, That his heart contains as many fires in it for her, as all those put together could do; and although he should yield to them in merit and good fortune, he thinks with justice that he should carry it from them all in Love and Fidelity: So that it will always be true, That as the amiable Melita is without Equal, so the respects and tenderness of Thyrsis shall be without 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 Mottoes represents 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 Sovereign; good night, thou most faithful to the happiest of Shepherds.   

LETTER.  
You have, my Amiable Melita, a very particular Grace in tickling the passion of your Faithful and Sincere Thyrsis, by the charming assurances you give him of preferring him before a Cavalier much worthier and a fit object for your Love, than that poor Shepherd, whom Age, Melancholy and Infirmities, have already made grey. 'Tis this, that would make him assure you of all his affections, if he could have reserved any thing when he sacrificed his heart upon your Altars. Live then my Sovereign, in full security of this possession. Put Thyrsis amongst your Conquests, though none of the richest indeed, yet doubtless the most absolutely gained; and believe that neither Death nor Time shall ever interrupt the duration of an engagement, that this Shepherd makes account is eternal. Keep yourself in good humour, and think upon the bounties which you design Fair Melita, to Yours, Wholly Yours, Thyrsis.   

LETTER.  
— Speak the truth, she resembles you, 
* Elle est belle toute nue comme vous.  she is Fair all naked as you.   

LETTER.  
— If the cold hinders you from writing 'tis no matter, provided that it be not at the Heart: for my part, I am never cold in the 
* aux parties castees.  hidden parts.   

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 I enjoyed in the happiness of seeing and conversing with you. For in fine, my Dear Sister, I am of opinion, that there is more sweetness in a little correspondence, than in a 
* une visit sterile.  barren dry visit to her that one loves. And it is always the peculiar talon of your sex to make fewer advances in Conversation, than upon the 
* Sur la papier.—  Paper— I am not at all ungrateful, yet I know very well, that I am not yet where I would be, since you condemn the irregularity of some of my thoughts.   

LETTER.  
— You reproved me for having wrote I will, and I 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 whole destiny also— you would have me believe that you are full of acknowledgement, 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 manner. However I will acknowledge my obligation to you for that. How small a part soever you can allow 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 something more, and I had all manner of probability for it. But what? appearances are very deceitful, especially 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 me, if you saw it.   

LETTER.  
— Although you be the Sovereign of my Will, you have given birth to I know not what Rebellious motions in my Heart, which will not be 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 their Rebellion, and to suffer them for the future to show themselves.   

LETTER.  
— 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 what, that inclines me to desire of you something beyond the passions of honour, esteem, and gratitude: And, Sister, do not object to me that injurious veil, that covers a part of your Graces. The little god, whom you know, has his veil too, as well as you, which suffers him not to take notice of the austere habit which encloses you.   

Sacrilege, and Profanations.  
'TIS but too true, that the passion, that possessed these Religious 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 Nun in the very Tribunal of Penitence: my dear sweeting, be confident, and then sighing, Confess you of your cruelty, my Dear Heart.  
Can one without an extraordinary blindness and impiety, (demanding the Ornaments to say Mass withal,) fall 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 Confessor, 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 knowing how to confess herself of such infamous 
* Attouchemens'.  Contracts, if she should allow him, thereupon offer himself to learn her how to do it, and to give her a form in writing to help her to confess herself of it.   

ENTRIES.  
THere shall be no particular mention here made of secret and nocturnal entries into the Garden and Monastery by the help of false keys, or ladders of cord, and in baskets: of such as were made in open daylight upon frivolous pretences: of dance, performed in the Refectory, and other regular places: nor lastly, of the insolences committed at the Nun's Funerals. It was ordinary for the Cordeliers before and after these kind of Ceremonies to run after those they fancied, to take them in their Arms, to kiss them, to carry them from one place to another, to play the foolwith 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 able to put a stop to these insolences, and they have scarce ever gone in to confess the sick, or to administer the Sacraments without committing new ones.  
There has been some of them, who after they had heard the Confession of one sick Nun, were upon a bed with others, and after they had spoken some devout words aloud to them, laid themselves down again to kiss them, and would have put their hands into their bosoms.  
There has been some of them, who after they had given extreme Unction to a sick Nun, and entered in again to assist her at her death, instead of performing this duty, have conducted other Nuns to their Chambers, and there cooped up themselves together in a small closet.  
There has been some of them, who after they had sat up a night with one that was dangerously ill, made themselves be carried into the Dormitory, to go into the Nun's Chambers to see, as they said, their Loves in their beds before them.  
In fine, there has been of them, that, at the very foot of the Altar did violence to a Novice upon the holy day of Good Friday itself, who had been ordered to go out into the Church to take down the Reposier, according to the custom of this Monastery: she was kissed by force, and her neck-cloth was torn off, and she was oftentimes 
* Plusieurs attouchemens.  very rudely handled.   

IN SOLENCIES.  
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 be able to express it. Not, but that a just regret and indignation has made the greatest part of these Religious Sisters, find terms to declare such things in their Depositions, as to use their own words, pass all Imagination, and the bare mentioning of which makes them blush. But 'tis 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 themselves in the time of their youth, or by eye-witnesses have been acquainted with the names of those Nuns, whom the Fathers have engaged in the 
* Dans le dernier Desordre.  last Act of Incontinency, with the number of Children, that they have had, 
* Les Artifices criminels.  the horrid contrivances, that they have made use of to hinder these crimes from making a noise abroad, and other abominable circumstances of 
* Des plus horribles corruptions.  most horrible corruptions, which made one of the Ancientest amongst them, who had herself been overtaken in these dreadful debaucheries, say, That she stood in admiration how this House could still subsist, and how it came not to be swallowed up, as those miserable Cities, of which the Holy Scriptures speak. But if the Cordeliers have omitted nothing that might draw down these sad judgements upon this miserable House: And if the Nuns who have sent their complaints to Court, may justly say, that they own it only to the mercy of God, that (these Fathers have laid all the traps imaginable to make them fall into these dangerous precipices) they do not continue still engaged in them: certainly they have not less reason to acknowledge, that if there be yet amongst them any remainders of Piety and Religion, 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 in 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 disspensers of them. See what the Nuns say of it in their Depositions.   

The Disorders of the Cordeliers.  
One called N. when Confessor, being come into the Monastery to give the last Sacrament to a Nun, was 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 Holy Oil.  
Another called N. Confessor too of our House came once into the Confession-Chayr so overcharged with Wine, that he fell asleep, and the Nun, that was confessing to him after she had began a part of her Confession twice, and often endeavoured to wake him, was at last forced to withdraw.  
I myself happened to confess myself to one Father N. who was so full of drink, that after I had repeated many Articles of my Confession over again, I was forced to leave it.  
One called Father N. who was here about eighteen years ago, has revealed the Confessions of all the Nuns of our Community, and has given them in writing to many Cordeliers to favour their design upon those whom they had a mind to seduce, beginning these Sacrilegious writings by some passage of Holy Scripture, that was agreeable to the humour of the several respective persons. I have seen and read this paper, A Cordelier having entrusted me with this secret— I made my complaint 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 Women 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 entrusted me with this secret to oblige me to conceal what I knew of it.  
They commonly gave us Directours who had no sense of Piety in them, who came into the Confession-Chair, after they had been welldrunk. And for proof of this, I myself once confessed to one Father N. to no purpose: for he slept so sound that he heard not a word, which made me draw the curtain, and endeavour to awake him; but to no effect at all: many saw him in this condition, and made him be carried to bed.  
Another called Father N. was continually thus distempered. A Canon of Provins 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 know it for a certainty, that he did so; And when he took his turn to go and divert himself with the Canon, they carried him to his bed at eleven a clock at night upon a Hand-barrow, which was known but to two other Nuns, 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, was also of this humour, which made him entertain the Nuns with a thousand impertinent follies, and made them perfectly ashamed of him.  
If some of them have been free from these faults, they have had others that were not less considerable. They have never set themselves about planting any sense of Piety or Virtue in us, but on the contrary have studied the 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 might get their money, and that they might have an occasion to visit us in the morning, and so to stay at the Grate all the rest of the day to divert themselves and to make Collations. These were their daily 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 yet 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 been hitherto set down is but too sufficient to raise horror in all, that have any concern for the Holiness of our Mysteries, any love for the purity of Virgins, and any tenderness for the interest of Jesus Christ in the Souls that are consecrated to him, and whose fidelity these miserable Directours have endeavoured to corrupt for these so many years together: A rabidis enim hominibus nomen sceleratum est sanctitatis; et ab immundis, et luteis pretiosum conculcatum est propositum Castitatis.    

SECTION XII. Of the Disorders committed by the Cordeliers in the Temporal concerns of the Monastery of St. Catharine.  
AFter the horrible extravagancies which have been mentioned, it will not be difficult to believe, That the Cordeliers have consumed all the Temporal incomes of this Monastery. It may easily be concluded, that Religious 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 acquired for them with the price of his blood have not spared the Temporal inheritance; which they had received from the magnificent bounty of their Illustrious Founders, and the liberal Charity of their Relations.  
The profuseness, which the Cordeliers have engaged them to show in feasting, in presents, and a thousand other vain expenses, and unworthy of their profession, are alone sufficient to make any one imagine the abuses that have been committed in this point. For as the Pensions of private Nuns were not sufficient to furnish out the almost 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 Linen and other goods of the Community (even to the Church Vestments, and the Ornaments of the Altars) for the effecting of their purpose, particularly the Servitour-Sisters; who being of mean birth, and not having ordinarily any Pensions, yet would have their Gallants, and their Confidents amongst the Cordeliers, and would treat them like Grandees. This was done without any check, or scruple of conscience: For the Superiors 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 thievish filching 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 when 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 licentiousness 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 ruin 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 Religion: and the Father Provincial, made the Abbess Madam de Montbron give one of the Nuns, one Sister N. five or six considerable pieces of Silver-plate, that an Aunt of hers in the House had left her when she died: and all this plate, which amounted to a considerable Sum, failed not of being sold a little while after, and consumed in Feast, and Presents made to the Cordeliers.  
Besides all this, against their own Orders, and the general complaints of all the Nuns, they suffered the Servitour-Sisters to blanche linen for people abroad, which made them not only make a gain to themselves against their vows (for they disposed as they pleased of the gains of this traffic) but also made them very chargeable to the Community. For by this trade of theirs, which took up all their time, they became incapable of doing them any service: They 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 quantity of wood to make the ashes, which they needed for blanching; so that they have burnt twenty four thousand Faggots, once or twice as big again as those of Paris, in the compass of a Year, and more than fourscore strings of wood; and thus they wasted all things else, Salt, Wine, Corn, Meat, making money of all that came into their hands to satisfy the sensuality of the Cordeliers, who maintained them in these unlawful intercourses, because all the advantage of them returned to them at last; and the money that these Nuns raised by them, which amounted to more than an hundred Crowns a year for each of them, was spent in Feasting, in Presents, and in all kind of profuseness.  
But the Waste that these Fathers made of the Revenue of this Monastery, never appeared more visibly, than since the Election of the last Abbess, who was wholly devoted to their Interests, and whom, for that reason, they have used all industry to continue in that office by so many shameful and unlawful means. 'Tis ready to be justified, that besides the Ordinary Revenue, and the private allowances of the Nuns, besides eighteen thousand Livres of debt contracted by her, 
* A Muid is five quarters, one comb, and a bushel at London.  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 preceded her, and which she received, and above thirty Muids more which she has caused to be sold within these thirty years, she has besides all this, since the month of February 1660. in Rents, Nuns-Portions, and other incomes of the House received more than 40000. Liures of ready money.  
And all this has been consumed partly in feast and presents, and partly in other prodigalities, done to satisfy the greediness of the Cordeliers, who abused the easy nature of this poor Nun, to enrich themselves with the spoils of this Monastery, and this with a greater insolence, than they ever did under other Abbesses: As it is visible in this, that in so ordinary a town as Provins they have within few years very jollily expended more than 25, or 30000 Livres in nothing but Gallantries, and unnecessary things.  
'Tis not by this denied, but that the better disposed part of the Community, when they perceived the insatiableness and unreasonableness of the Cordeliers, did sometimes force themselves to make opposition against it, and from time to time demanded, that according to the Order of their House, and confor mably to their Rule, they might choose a Receiver, 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 endeavours, one while persuading the Officers, whom they ruled, to take the rent themselves, and to employ faithful and intelligent men abroad, who should be entrusted with it, and sometimes making them take people for their Receivers, 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 hand, and to dispose of it without giving account of it. So that notwithstanding all that could be done, they have still 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 provision for Father N's Table, which is one of the 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 Confessors of the Monastery: Of the sums of money entrusted in the hands of these Confessors for the affairs of the House, and which after their death were carried away by the Provincials: Of the Goods and Habits which the House had furnished them with, and which they caused to be conveyed away: Of the waste they made of the Wood of the Nunnery for warming & 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 together before the Elections: Of Feasts made for the Provincials at the Elections of the Abbesses, and the two last of which amounted each of them to four or five hundred livres: Of blank papers signed by the last Abbess and put into the hands of a person appointed by them for the same purpose, 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 have 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 estate, that was given for the subsistence of the spouse of Jesus Christ, in feast, debauches, and in all sort of idle and shameful expenses; so that one may too justly compare these self-interested Directours to those Mercenary Pastors, that Holy Scripture speaks of, who instead of taking care to lead out the sheep that God had committed to them, thought of nothing but of 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 hands, and would not suffer them to be any longer under their keeping, nor be made a prey of by them. Ecce ego super pastores requiram gregem meum de manu eorum etc.   

SECTION XIII. That the Cordeliers are under an impossibility of ever establishing good Order, and Regularity in this Monastery.  
THe Cordeliers have not only rendered themselves unworthy of the government of the Monastery of St. Catharine by the abominations that they have committed, and by the Waste they have made of the Temporal income; but 'tis even impossible for them to remedy the mischiefs that they have caused in this House. This is now undertaken to be made evident by showing, That those Fathers, to whom it most appertains to maintain Regularity 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 they are the Superiors of the Order, who have engaged the House of Saint Catharine in the Disorders it is in.  
WHen the noble parts of a man's body are not affected, and that the Malady has not seized the Heart, nor 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 is got into the Heart or the Head, or that 'tis 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 amongst private persons there is reason to hope to remedy it. But when 'tis the Superiors 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 your 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.  
'Tis then with Prudence and Justice that the Nuns of Saint Catharine desire to have the Cordeliers removed from them, since those of the Fathers, that are styled their Superiors, and who ought in that character to serve as Eyes to conduct them in the way to Heaven, and as hands to uphold them in the practice of their Rule, are those who have diverted them from it, and have been the greatest occasions of scandal and falling, that they ever had in their Monastery. In effect, They are not only private, and ordinary Cordeliers, that have committed all the horrible Disorders  in their House: They are the Visitors, Their Deputies, The Provincial, The Commissaries General, Their Secretaries, The Wardens, The Doctors, and the Bachelors of the Order, The most Famous among their preachers. In fine, They are those that have the greatest dignities amongst them, that are the occasions of all these Disorders, that have maintained them, and have ever been the most pertinacious opposers of the Remedies, which from time to time have been endeavoured after. 'Twas they that presented the young Nuns with their confidents, that wrote to them in their behalf, that engaged them to those unlawful intercourses , and that took care, when they were fallen out, to reconcile them again, and to renew their wicked intimacies.  
These sottish absurdities (says a Religious sister, speaking of the alliances and marriages that they contracted together) were so far from being reproved by the Superiors, that a Nun, that often nauseated these kind of familiarities, having taken an occasion to break off that Marriage that she had made with one of these Fathers, Father N. the Provincial took cognizance of it, and interested himself so far in it, that at his Visitation he persuaded her in very idle, impertinent terms to renew that correspondence; He informed himself of her other intimates, & told her it was not enough 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 Choir, addressed to her from a person without, she gave the Father Provirciall notice of it, & 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 Books of natural secrets, Romances, Catechisms of Love, and other pieces of that nature; but the Superiors 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 Servitor sister did only smile at it, and that passed for a consent.  
Father N. Provincial gave all the young professed Nuns particular intimates. He preached when I was professed, and called me his Daughter upon this account: He told me assoon as I had my profession that he would give me a Cordelier for my confident, an handsome fellow, a Gallant, and well-fashioned, and that he would marry me to him: And he talked oftentimes of these kind of Marriages.  
All the Superiors, the Provincials, the Confessors, have thus abused their employment, favouring, or being themselves the cause of, the Disorders, by admitting other Cordeliers into the House to engage the Nuns to these insinuating intimacies, and by this means to continue themselves Masters of all. For as favours, or persecutions, were always at the disposal of the Cordeliers, according as their Beloved's were either compliant with, or inflexible to, what the Superiors would have them do, the Sisters 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 employing their Visitation in enquiring after the misdemeanours that were to be corrected, to set themselves about courting and caressing the young professed Nuns, 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 pursuance of this they authorized the Collations and Entertainments at the Grates, Gaming, lascivious Songs, breaking of Glasses, in honour of their Ladies before the eyes, and to the scandal, of the whole Town: And yet they always talked of, and amused the people with Reformations in 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 took care also to put those into the Offices of the House, whom they judged most proper to encourage & 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 
* Le dernier mall.  last act of incontinency with Father N. 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. Provincial 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 notwithstanding make Abbess by force, though she had neither desert nor birth, nor any thing 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, & told all the idle fancies that they made her: she gave them access into her Chamber night and day; and in consideration of her correspondence she was made Mistress of the Novices.  
Father N. esteemed the most Regular of them all did not scruple the taking these kind of liberties in the cloister. At four a clock in the morning he went into a garden with Sister N. 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 the Novices persuaded them all to entertain the Cordeliers, so that she pressed her own 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 Abbess. 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 Superiors of the Order, they yet gave Offices to the better disposed part of the Nuns; they than 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 bad Education that her Mistress had given her, which was to alienate her mind from these infamous correspondences; and told her, That her Mistress did draw off the Nuns from honouring and loving the Order.  
All those frequent Entertains, that the Nuns had with the Cordeliers in the time of Madam N. were by the Order of the Father N. the Provincial, and of other Provincials also with a note from them under their hand. So that when she shut up the Grates, whilst the General Chapter was held at Provins, as also upon other occasions, they found out ways to visit one another by the windows, or else the Cordeliers disguised themselves like Gentlemen to visit the Nuns without being known.  
When Madam N. the Abbess had withstood some permissions that the Nuns desired, which might have prejudiced the reputation of the House, Father N. procured them for them under the Provincial's hand, and gave them this for a lesson, That if she would not obey her Superior in this, that they were not obliged to obey her. One has no reason to wonder, That all these Provincials and Superiors were so indulgent to others, since that they cared not for condemning others, in that which they practised themselves after so scandalous and wicked a manner.  
The Licentious familiarities of Father N. with Mother N. has been these 38 years the scandal of all Provins. It was begun by magnificent treats, which he caused to be fetched from the town for her, and her party: Was continued by presents of Rings, Watches, Looking-glasses, and all kind of vanities, which were even laid upon the Altars for her, where were interwoven the first letters of their names with Hearts made up of Flowers, set with ribbons of flame-colour, and born 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 Cordeliers 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 waste: 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. Catharine 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, and the Reverend Father having sent a nosegay of Flowers with a great many dried sweetmeats, and marchpane to this Mother by the R. F. at present Warden of N. on the vigils of her Festival, & the Mother having entertained them the next day (the day of her Festival) at a noble Treat, 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 Grates, 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 mean while did entertain her. He began to dance first, and invited others also to take their part, which other Provincials before him have often done as well as he.  
After all this can it be denied, that the Superiors of the Order are to be charged with these Excesses that have been committed in the Monastery of St. Catharine? That they have not only tolerated them, while they were in Office, but also fomented and authorized them by their own irregularity: And that if the Integrity of those that command be the security of those that obey, that the visible corruption of all the Superiors of the Cordeliers is the principal cause of all the mischiefs of this Monastery.   

SECTION XV. That the Religious Sisters of St. Catharine have invincible reasons not to have any Confidence in the Cordeliers.  
TWo things are absolutely necessary to the settling of good Order and Regularity in a religious House, Authority, and a good esteem of that Authority. Now it has already been made appear, that the House of St. Catharine can hope for no good from those who have any Authority amongst the Cordeliers. For they are the persons, that 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 impossibility of ever resettling good Orders and Regularity.  
'Tis omitted here, to represent the injustice and violence 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 Friars. 'Tis omitted here, to mention their refusals to allow extroordinary Confessors even at the point of death, when any Nuns for the security of their consciences have desired others than those of the Order: Their Excommunications pronounced upon very slight occasions against those, that had no other crime than the disallowing 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 Servitour-sister, which was solicited by Father N. Their abusing the submissions of the easie-natured Abbesses to them, making their advantages thereby to make them prefer the Servitour-Sisters before the Religious of the Choir upon 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 Depositions as to make all abhor them, and which one cannot consider without being sensibly affected, to see Virgins thus engaged, almost 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. Catharine 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 Fathers kept their Sisters at the Grates at that time, and often made them stay there whole nights till five a clock in the morning: so that they were forced to take the hours of Matins and Mass to repose themselves.  
How could they hope to see them resettle the silence, that their Rule enjoins them, in the House, when they knew, that by their continual Entertains they had plunged it into an horrible dissoluteness, and that their Sisters were used to repeat Songs that they had learned 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 them; but even in the cloisters, 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, with trimmed Gloves, and many other instruments of vanity.  
How could they hope to be inclined by them to keep nothing in propriety, & 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 sufficient to provide for the Treats, that they engaged them to make them at the Grates, & for I know not how many other idle expenses that they advised them to, even to the letting them distribute the bread to them, which they disposed of as they pleased?  
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 Father's 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 Rule, 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 conduct that they have observed in their Monastery (from the time that they first made themselves Masters of it) nothing but a base indifference for the interests of God, horrible libertinism, and most dreadful debauchery?  
Of Whom should they expect this remedy? Of Private persons? They have an hundred times blushed at their impudence and impiety. Of Confessors? They have scarce seen any that have not wallowed in all kind of vice and debauchery. Of Provincials? They have committed and authorized the greatest Disorders of their House. Of Those, who 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 his own 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 extravagances that the chief of their Fathers had at that time committed in their Monastery: And besides, They know that the whole Province is in a very dismal division and disorder. Of the Cordeliers of other Provinces? Have not they learned with horror, what passed at Desize, and in the other House of Nuns 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 Religious Sisters of St. Catharine 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 disinherited, 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 Reasons to colour the Disorders, that they have committed in the Monastery of St. Catharine, and to maintain themselves notwithstanding the Abuses they have made of the Jurisdiction that they usurped, are answered.  
THe Cordeliers perceived well enough, that if the Misdemeanours they committed in the Monastery of St. Catharine came once to be discovered, they should be universally condemned by all the world, and that there would be no person of any judgement but would conclude them unworthy of the conduct of these Nuns, though it had of right belonged to them. 'Tis that, that has since put them upon using all kind of arts to prepossess the Higher Powers, and to fill them with impressions to the disadvantage of the Nuns 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 Rome, and to the Congregation 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, endeavouring to answer them the most briefly and clearly that is possible.  

The Cordeliers Reasons. The Nuns are subject by their Foundation to the General of the Friar's Minors, and they cannot, without breaking their Vow and their Rule, return under the Jurisdiction of My Lord Archbishop of Sens.  
1. THese words must be understood either of all the Nuns of St. Clare, or particularly of those of St. Catharine. 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 regard the Fact, that is, the actual dependence they have lived under, aswell for receiving the Sacraments of them, as for the Elections of the Abbesses and admissions of Nuns: And consequently, that it is not true, that these Nuns have been submitted to the General of the Friar's Minors by their Foundation.  
2. Neither is it true, That their Vows oblige them to continue under the General of the Friar's Minors: There is not one word of it in all their form of Profession. And although they should think themselves tacitly engaged to it, yet they could not perform it to the prejudice of their other Vows, that make up the essential parts of their Religion, which it is impossible they should acquit themselves of under the Direction of 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 them: That whatsoever intention the Popes had that drew up their Rule, it could not prejudice the Rights acknowledged due to the Bishops, by the Holy Scripture; 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 Hierarchical Office, but in dependence upon their Authority.  
4. Though it should be granted that the Nuns of St. Catharine were by their Foundation subject to the General of the Cordeliers, that their Rule 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, continuelonger under them, & 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 acquitting themselves of their Obligations, and to the reforming of their Lives.  
'Tis ridiculous to pretend, as the Cordeliers do, that the Nuns of St. Catharine 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, how great, how pressing, and how evident soever the necessity be, which forces them to it.   

The Cordeliers Reason. 'Tis only the Capriciousness of some private Nuns, and the Revengefulness of two of them, that they would have punished for the scandals they have occasioned.  
IT is not intended here to make a particular discussion of this Affair, nor to apologise for those two 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 asserted here 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 Abbess, to whom they thought themselves obliged in conscience not to give it; and if there be any scandal come of it, 'tis 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, The Provincial and his Secretary ought not to have protestted to them, that the Excommunications, that they should pronounce against them, should be but a formàl show, counterfeit anger, and a bugbear, and that the sentence should be nulled immediately after the thundering it out: That they ought at least to have observed some shadow of Justice, and not declare them Excommunicated, deprived of both 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 successors should think fit, against all usual forms of procedure, without any information, without confronting of witnesses, and only after that the Provincial had entertained them for three days together at the Grate with sottish impertinencies, and that the Secretary had the impudence to kiss one of them by force in the presence of her Fellow-sisters, and consequently that they had Right to appeal from a sentence so unequitable, and so abusive as this was.  
Lastly, 'Tis asserted, That if the Provincial had had the least respect to God in this pretended Chastisement upon the account of the scandal, 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.   

LETTER.  
I should never have believed, that a Provincial could ever have been capable of talking as he does: He makes all things trifles and niceness: He calls wellgrounded Denials, weakness of spirit, signs of Ignorance: In a word, we are, said he, Novices in Love: If I were not afraid that this would be intercepted, I would tell you such things as you are not able to imagine. No, you shall never know them, for I shall never be able to acquaint you with 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 to be able not to nauseate him. His Passion and sighs, that he reproaches us for being insensible of, do nothing but scandalise 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 Right 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, etc.   

The Cordeliers Reason. They have the greatest and soundest part of the Community on their side.  
'TIS not to be wondered at, That the Cordeliers should make such stories to their General, and to the Congregation of the Regulars in Italy; But that they should dare to procure Letters Patents in France upon such suppositions 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 do, and to undertake, any thing.  
There were in the year 1664. in the Monastery of St. Catharine, twenty nine professed Nuns of the Choir; There were seventeen of them, that on the fifth of September, the same year, signed the Act, by which they 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 joined with the other seventeen; so that now there was but ten of the Choir 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 Petitions 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 Sisters, all Professed, and the most considerable of the Community, 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 Treasuress, the Porters, The Turner of the box, The Chauntress, The Stewards, and the Overseers of the sick. And besides, those eight remaining Nuns of the Choir have since protested, and declared by several Acts passed in the presence of Notaries, and that are now in their keeping, That they did approve of all the Orders that my Lord Archbishop of Sens had made for the regulating their House, and that they would observe them: That they beseeched him to receive them under his Conduct and Jurisdiction, to which they submitted themselves as being their lawful Superior, and that they did revoke, and disallow, all that they might have signed to the contrary.  
The Servitour-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 Sister's Opinions, and resisted the Orders of my Lord Archbishop of Sens, in a persuasion that they were obliged in conscience to continue under the Jurisdiction of the Cordeliers: But that being since better enlightened in the truth they did departed from them, and submit themselves to his Orders and Jurisdiction. So that either these eight Nuns of the Choir, and the Servitour-Sisters have been sincere in all these Authentic Acts, or they have not been so, but Cheats and Hypocrites: If they have been sincere in it, then is there not one of the Nuns of St. Catharine, that desires not to be under the Jurisdiction of my Lord Archbishop of Sens, and that does not acknowledge the necessity of banishing the Cordeliers out of their House: If they have not been so, the Cordeliers must then confess, that they have but seven or eight Nuns of the Choir, and some Servitour-Sisters, all of them without any sincerity, on their side.   

The Cordeliers Reason. The Zeal with which these Nuns have espoused the Interests of the Cordeliers, does sufficiently vindicate them.  
LET it be supposed, that these seven or eight Nuns of the Choir 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 Offices, 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 twenty fourth 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 Superior Nun, and let the rest live miserably, and never see any body. We have examples of it .— 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 conversation, and not accustomed to slight the protestations 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 Nuns have espoused 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 Monastery, both in Spiritual and Temporal concerns: That there is but a pretence of Noviceship, 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 Superiors 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 times 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 Monsiour Coqueret: That the Provincial himself laughed at the Order he had made before the Election, which forbade the Abbesses disposing of the incomes of the House without the Treasuresses: That These Nuns themselves were drawn in to the Cabal for the last Election: And that there are so many disorders in the house, that they did hearty 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 the 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 whatsoever 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 Sister's Chambers, and they give them all they have: That she knows of many Night-Entries of the Cordeliers 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 Choir, and the Servitour-Sisters.  
In fine, One of these Servitour-Sisters, that seemed the most reserved in her Depositions, and studied the 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, My 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 They, that must give us a new life of Grace and Reputation, hitherto in great danger of being forfeited— Which has always made your Unworthy 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 mean time I violated the Obligations of true Charity, 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.  
Can Virgins, that, after they had sworn, and promised upon their Holy Vows to speak the truth, speak after this manner, or that writ thus of their own accord, and according to the dictates of their Consciences; could they do any thing, that should not turn to the confusion of the Cordeliers, that had all this while seduced them?   

The Cordeliers Reason. There are none against the Cordeliers, but a few factious spirits, that were offended at the Reformation which they would have brought in in Execution of his Majesty'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, suspected. It has been just now made appear, what the Cordeliers mean by these Factious spirits, and that 'tis of 21 Nuns of the Choir, 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 villainies any longer. They may in the judgement 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 persuaded, 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 Privy Seal, which gave him full power to punish, and to make those, who should oppose his Reformation, be carried away into other Monasteries, to see him declare to all the Nuns after he had assembled 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 them to any thing, and that he took this course only to salve his own Credit, and the Honour of the Community, 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 Reformation.  
They were offended, That after they had under this pretence of Reformation, spent three whole weeks in their House in Feasting, and as lose conversation, as they had ever used, 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, entertaining 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 with the Remedies that they thought fit to apply to their Disorders, had on the other side laboured after nothing more, than to disguise them, to conceal them, and to invalidate them, by giving encouragement 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, 'tis 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 expect Reformation from People, that had so many things to reform amongst themselves, 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 Cordeliers Reason. They made Songs of the Cordeliers, and turned the Provincial' s Words and Actions into Raillery.  
'TIs not here intended to justify 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 unavoidably as they did: Nor to vilify their Ministry by the execrable profanations of it, that they acted before their faces: Nor to render themselves ridiculous by transforming themselves into Gallants, and Romantic Heroes; by 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? That they should have had a venerable opinion of a Provincial, that danced, and played the Gallant at their Grate? And that they should have expressed Esteem and Reverence for people, in whom the most tolerable thing that they saw was the meanness, and extravagance of their talk? Let them know, that in the opinion of the Holy Fathers, there are Railleries', that are Acts of Justice, and that there are some things, as Tertullian says, that cannot be confuted but by laughing 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 digna revinci, ne gravitate adorentur.   

The Cordeliers Reason. My Lord Archbishop of Sens instead of Executing his Commission, endeavoured usurp the Power over them by infusing Rebellion into them, and by maintaining them in it ever since.  
THis Prelate never endeavoured to usurp that Jurisdiction; 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 Laics, and aught to esteem themselves happy, that God has separated them from the World to serve him in silence and retirement, should dispute with a Great Archbishop for his most Hierarchical Rights, and the most essential to his Priesthood? Multùm erigimini, Filii Levi— num parum vobis est, etc. Though my Lord Archbishop of Sens (in the Visitation, which he was obliged to make in this Monastery to satisfy the duty of his Charge, and the urgent supplications addressed to him for it by the Nuns, whom the Court by Order had remitted to him for redressing of their Grievances) were supposed to have warmly represented to them, and with that tenderness, and Fatherly Charity, that in all his discourses he joins to the Authority, and Holy Majesty, that goes along with the Word of God, made them see the necessity there was of recurring to the most powerful, and wholesome Remedies to cure the distempers that they laboured under, and others yet greater, that threatened them; Can they make such just Remonstrances pass for the seeds of revolt and rebellion? If the Religious Sisters of St. Catharine 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 themselves to the salvation of their Souls; Can My Lord Archbishop of Sens, without wounding his Conscience, and being wanting to the principal function of his Ministry, leave them any longer under such mischievous engagements, and not draw them to a solid Conversion, to a true Change of their lives, and to make the best improvement of those precious moments of Mercy and Grace? And may not this Prelate, seeing the unjust Slanders, that the Cordeliers spread of him, with a great deal of Justice use those words to them, that Jesus Christ used to the Ruler of the Synagogue, who was in indignation 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, that loses not his Ox, or his Ass on the Sabbath-day, and draws them not out of the stable to lead them to drink? Why then should not this Daughter of Abra- ham, (This Society of Virgins) whom Satan had kept bound for so many years (by the means of your Ministry) be once in its life delivered from those bonds?   

The Cordeliers Reason. He Excommunicated those, that were zealous for the Observation of their Rule, 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, 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 disguise others. It has been seen in the process of the Declaration what obliged that Prelate to make it be declared to some of the Religious Sisters of St. Catharine, 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 Rule. When one reflects upon the manner of observing the Rule 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 7 or eight Nuns for the observance of their Rule? And is there not ground to fear with St. Augustine, That this shadow of Piety comes from the leaves of that Tree, which our First Parents covered themselves withal, when they were ashamed of their nakedness? Ista umbra pietatis, etc. As for the pretended violence used in the carrying away of these Nuns, 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 themselves, who cannot deny but that they were treated-with all possible kindness and civility.   

The Cordeliers Reason. Although the Nuns of St. Catharine should of right be under the Authority of my Lord Archbishop of Sens; yet this cannot be done but by the Pope, who withdrew them from under his Jurisdiction.  
THis way of reasoning supposes, that the Nuns of St. Catharine have been wholly withdrawn from under the Jurisdiction of my Lord Archbishop of Sens, which the Cordeliers can never justify 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 that 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. For 'tis a constant Maxim in France, That to Authorise an Exemption, 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 Gallicane 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 any thing, but the bare Renunciation of those, who are in possession of the Privileges, by which the effect of that subordination that God has set amongst the Members of the Body of Jesus Christ, that is, his Church, is suspended, and obstructed. So that this Renunciation only does happily return them to that rank to which they belong, and where God, according to St. Paul, had placed them himself.  
The Officers of the Court of Rome have acknowledged this truth themselves upon on many occasions, and 'tis to be seen in the Registers of the Parliament, in a Plea 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 asserted, when they were recurred to upon like occasions, 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 Decree : For some Religious 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 allege against my Lord Archbishop of Sens, they stuck not openly to maintain, That the Pope having put those Nuns under the Jurisdiction of the Order of St. Francis, His Holiness ought to give his leave to withdraw them, and remove them from it. But yet the Court by a Decree of the 6th of January, 1651. (without having any regard to the interventions) declared them not receiveable in their Appeal as from Abuses: And the Jurisdiction, that My Lord Bishop of Bologne had some years since reassumed over that Monastery, was confirmed, though the Cordeliers had alleged, That those Nuns had been subjected to them from their very first foundation, and that there had been neither Briefs nor Privileges obtained of the Court of Rome to withdraw them from under their Juridsdiction.   

The Cordeliers Reason. This is to affront the whole Order, to dishonour it, and to scandalise the Church.  
THere is nothing more abused, than the words that Jesus Christ made use of to exhort the Faithful carefully to avoid the scandalising of their Brethren; for they are indifferently applied to those that reprove Vice, and to those that commit 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 are even transported with rage at the zeal, with which they are reproved. The Holy 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 public nature. They thought, that they were the true causers of scandal that committed these public Disorders, and the persons, to whom Jesus Christ spoke, when he said; Woe be to the World because of scandals: Woe be to the Man by whom 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 scandals should come.  
The rank, which the Scribes, Pharisees, and Doctors of the Law held amongst the Jews, was much more considerable than that which the Cordeliers hold in the Church; since that Our Saviour says of them, That they sat in the Chair of Moses, and therefore commands to observe 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 he not call them Hypoerites, full of stupidity, blind Guides, Serpents, and a brood of Vipers? Does he not compare them to whited Sepulchers, which appear fair without to the eyes of men, but within are full of dead men's bones, and all kind of rottenness? Does he not tell them, That they appear also just to the eyes of men, but within are full of Hypocrisy and Iniquity? That they make clean the outside of the platter and cup, whilst their inward parts are full of rapine and uncleanness? And though one of those Doctor's replies upon it, That in speaking so he dishonoured them also, Does he for all that leave off discovering their Villainies? And does he not on the contrary add, Woe be to you also, ye Doctors of the Law, who load men with burdens not to be born, 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 errors, Does he not answer them, Let them alone; They are blind leaders of the blind, Sinite eos; Coeci sunt, etc.  
Let not the Father's Cordeliers then fancy, that the Rules of any Charity, that was due to their Order, are violated by representing, as has been done, their disorderly practices, to show what necessity there is of taking an 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 Monastery, that dishonour the Order, and scandalise 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 into all these horrible misdemeanours: That they have departed from the spirit of St. Francis, and that contrary to all his Maxims, 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 slipped into the Order of Cluni) that they love not the Order, since that 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 better that Scandal should come, than that the truth should be abandoned. It is better that Scandal should come of it, than that Religious Fathers upon the account of their being Religious (and therefore that their disorderly Practices cause great Scandal, when they come once to be known) should without check profane 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. Catharine, and not the desire of affronting an Order, which it may be, would be still in the high 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 having any communication with the Religious Sisters.  
It was thought to be the Interest of the Church, That the Bishops, who have Nunneries of the Religious 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 slipped in.  
It was thought to be the Interest of the State, That Magistrates, and Public 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 Nuns, for fear that the Friars, who have gained upon their Jurisdiction, should change those Holy Retirements and Sanctuaries into Houses of Debauchery and Temples of Venus; and lest this abuse (that the Cardinals and Prelates assembled together by the Order of Paul the Third did so long ago declare, That it did disfigure the Church, and confound Christianity, should at last draw down the wrath of God upon the whole Kingdom by the public Sacrileges, which, say they, are committed with horrible Scandal in most of the Nunneries, that are under the Conduct of the Cloistered Friars.  
It was thought to be the Interest of all the Friars to have knowledge of these Disorders, that they might the more zealously love and value the retirement and solitude of their Cloisters: That they might take the more care to avoid the Nuns Grates, with whom all the Founders of the several Orders have expressly forbidden them to have any communication; And that that they might mind themselves of that excellent saying of St. Augustine: Quid interest, utrum in uxore, an in matre, an in sorore, dum tamen Eva in qualibet muliere caveatur.  
It was thought to be the Interest of all the Nuns to have a knowledge of these Disorders, that they might unite themselves with joy to the Government of their Bishops, their true Pastors, and lawful Superiors, and that they might carefully fly from those Strangers, those Mercenaries, and those false Pastors, That come to them clothed like sheep, but within are ravening wolves; That devour their houses under a pretence of making long Prayers, and that even to this day compass Sea and Land to 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 the interest of the Nuns of St. Catharine, That the World should have a knowledge of these Disorders, that they might withal acknowledge the Justice of their Suits at Court against the Cordeliers, the Generosity that has made them shut their eyes against all humane Interests and Considerations, that might have drawn them from it, and the Christian Contempt they have shown of Worldly Reputation to recover their solid and true honour, which consists in resettling good Order and regularity in their House.    

The Conclusion.  
AFter what has been represented in both parts of the Factum, and the Answers now made to all that can be alleged in favour of the Cordeliers, it cannot be imagined that there is any person, that is not fully convinced of the Justice of the Pretensions of the Religious Sisters of St. Catharine.  
They desire not that the Authors of all the Disorders, that have been committed in their House; should be informed against, That so long a continuation of crimes should be punished; That the violation of so many Laws, so many abominable profanations should be chastised according to the severity of the Rules of Church and State.  
They freely offer to chastise them upon themselves by the ways of Christian Penance, to expiate them by their groans and tears, and (as much as in them lies) to appease the Wrath of God (justly provoked by all these abominations) by the Mortifications of a Religious life, and the constant Sacrifice of an humble and contrite heart.  
They only desire, that 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: That by preventing these Fathers from having any access to them, they might put a stop to the Scandals that they have occasioned for so many years together: And that such people, as have neither Faith, nor Honour, nor Conscience, might not be any longer suffered in the face of the whole Church to abuse a Jurisdiction, which they have usurped over them against the most Essential Rights of Episcopacy.  
If nothing but their temporal interests had been concerned 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 them of it, according as they had occasion for it, and stood in need of it to satisfy their ambitious ends, their self-interest, or their pleasures with it, it may be, they should have dissembled the injury.  
But the honour of their 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 Holy Scripture, according to the Canons of the Councils, according to the Maxims of the Gallicane Church, according to the mind of St. Francis, and according to the 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 Virgins, that in Succession of time shall be engaged in this Monastery, are concerned in it, whom these Fathers, considering what kind of people they are, will most indubitably alienate from the Fidelity, which they own to Jesus Christ.  
Lastly, The main thing, that is made the matter of the present concern, is, To procure a Favour for a great number of Virgin's Consecrated to the Service of God, that would never be refused to any Ordinary Virgins of the World, who had been stolen away from 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 those Villains, who would with so much insolence have attempted upon their honour.  
The Religious Sisters of St. Catharine expect this favour from the Court with so much the more Confidence, as the danger in which they are is more evident.  
They hope that that August Tribunal having always testified 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 Religious Sisters of St. Eutrope of Chanteloup, Those of St. Nicholas of Melun, Those of the Annunciate at Bologne, and so many others besides, who have been restored to the Jurisdiction 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 not refuse this favour to the Order of St. Francis, by obliging the Cordeliers to leave off being Directours to those, whom their Holy Founder has so straight forbidden them to meddle withal, which he so earnestly endeavoured to separate them from, and which we looked upon as a very dangerous snare that the Devil had laid for his Order, and which they themselves have found by dreadful Experience to have been so mischievous to them.  
Lastly, They hope, that the Court having always given evidence of so much Judgement, Prudence, and Equity in its determinations, It will not now abandon them to the power of those, who have engaged them in that sad condition, that they have for so many years continued in; but will on the contrary conclude, That the Mischief that the Cordeliers have done to their Monastery cannot be prevented but by the cares of their true Pastor.   
FINIS.   

Jan. 5. 1675/ 1676.  
Imprimatur,  
Geo. Hooper. Ex Aed. Lambethan.   

The Contents.  

A Chapter-Act of the Nuns to own their Factum.  
A Factum or Declaration in Court for the Nuns against the Friars. Page 1  
Section I. What gave occasion to the Suits made by the Nuns against the Cordeliers at Court. page. 3  
Sect. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. That the Cordeliers have no just Title for their Jurisdiction over the Nuns. p. 37  
Sect. 9 10. That if they had had any Title, they have now lost their Right to it by their Misdemeanours, which are specified by these particulars. p. 40  
Sect. 11. Abuses in their Spiritual Concerns. p. 43 

In the Education of Pensioners. p. 46  
Novices. Education of young Novices. p. 48  
And of young professed Nuns. p. 53  
Undecent Books allowed them. p. 54  
Instructions. p. 55  
Presents to the Nuns. p. 57  
Letters, Posies and Devices. p. 58  
Public Allusions. p. 64  
Dedication of Theses. p. 65  
Profanation of Sermons. p. 70  
The Marriages of the Friars and Nuns. p. 72  
Frolicks and Entertainments. p. 75  
Love-Letters. p. 78  
Sacrilege and Profanations. p. 93  
Mad Revellings and secret Entries into the Nunnery. p. 95  
Insolences and Disorders of the Friars. Which the Nuns blushed at. p. 97    
Sect. 12. Abuses of the Temporal Concern. p. 105 

Riotous Wastes of the Revenue of the Nunnery in Debaucheries, by Thefts and Cheats, in Licentiousness. p. 105. to 115    
Sect. 13. That it is impossible there should be any good Discipline settled in this Nunnery by the Cordeliers. p. 116  
Sect. 14. The Superiors of the Order caused the Disorders, viz. The Provincials, Masters of the Revels. The Nuns Preferred for their kindness. p. 117  
Sect. 15. That the Nuns have Invincible Reasons not to trust the Cordeliers. p. 130  
Sect. 16. The Cordeliers pretences to colour their Designs, are answered. p. 138  
The Conclusion representing the whole Case. pag. 180    

A Catalogue of some Books, Printed for, and sold by Robert Pawlet, at the Bible in Chancery-Lane, near Fleetstreet.  
Marry Magdalen's Tears wiped off, or, A Voice of Peace to an Unquiet Conscience; Published for the Comfort of all those who mourn in Zion.  
Sermons Preached by that Eminent Divine, Henry Hammond, D.D.  
Golden Remains of that ever Memorable Mr. John Hales of Eton College, etc. The Second Impression, with Additions not before published.  
Episcopacy, as Established by the Law in England, written by the Especial Command of the late King CHARLES, by R. Saunderson, late Lord Bishop of Lincoln.  
A Scholastical History of the Canon of the Holy Scripture; or, The certain and indubitable Books thereof, as they are received in the Church of England; By Dr. Cousin, late Lord Bishop of Durham.  
A Collection of Articles, Injunctions, Canons, Orders, Ordinances and Constitutions Ecclesiastical, with other Public Records of the Church of England, with a Preface, by Anthony Sparrow, Lord Bishop of Exon.  
The Bishop of Exon's Caution to his Diocese against false Doctrines; Delivered in a Sermon at his primary Visitation.  
The whole Duty of Man, laid down in a plain and familiar way for the use of All, but especially the meanest Reader: necessary for all Families, with private Devotions on several occasions.  
The Gentleman's Calling, written by the Author of the Whole Duty of Man.  
The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety: or An Impartial Survey of the Ruins of Christian Religion, undermined by Unchristian Practice: by the Author of the Whole Duty of Man.  
An Historical Vindication of the Church of England, as it stands separated from the Roman, etc. by Sir Roger Twisden, Baronet.  
Mr. Chillingworth's Reasons against Popery, persuading his Friend to return to his Mother the Church of England, from the Church of Rome.  
The Book of Homilies, appointed to be read in Churches.  
Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical.  
Divine Breathe, or, A Pious Soul thirsting after Christ; In 100 Excellent Meditations.  
Hugo Grotius de Rebus Belgicis, or the Annals and History of the Low-country Wars, in English; wherein is manifested, that the United Netherlands are indebated for the Glory of their Conquest to the Valour of the English.  
A Treatise of the English Particles, showing much of the variety of their significations and uses in English; and how to render them into Latin, according to the propriety and elegancy of that Language, with a Praxis upon the same: By William Walker, B. D. Schoolmaster of Grantham.  
The Royal Grammar, commonly called lilly's Grammar, explained; opening the meaning of the Rules with great plainness to the understanding of Children of the meanest capacity, with Choice Observations on the same from the best Authors: By W. Walker, B. D. Author of the Treatise of English Particles.  
A Treatise proving Spirits, Witches, and Supernatural Operations, by pregnant Instances and Evidences: by Meric Casaubon, D. D.  
A Catalogue of the Names of all the Parliaments or reputed Parliaments, from the Year 1640.  
A Narrative of some Passages in, or relating to the Long Parliament; By a Person of Honour.  
Nemesius' Nature of Man, in English: by G. Withers, Gent.  
Inconveniences of Toleration.  
A Letter about Comprehension.  
A Thanksgiving Sermon, preached before the King, by J. Dolben, D. D. Dean of Westminster, and Clerk of the Closet.  
Bishop Brownrig's Sermon on the Gunpowder Treason.  
A Narrative of the Burning of London 1666. with an Account of the Losses, and a most Remarkable Parallel between it and MOSCOW, both as to the Plague and Fire.  
A Collection of the Rules and Orders now used in Chancery.  
Mr. White's Learned Tract of the Laws of England.  
Graphice, or the Use of the Pen and Pencil, in Designing, Drawing and Painting; By Sir William Sanderson, Knight.  
The Communicant instructed for worthy Receiving the Lord's Supper: By Tho. Trott of Barkston near Grantham.  
Military and Maritime Discipline, etc.  
Sir Francis Moor's REPORTS.  
Baron Savil's REPORTS.  
All Sorts of LAW-BOOKS.  
FINIS.