The principle of religious liberty, which had been so long ignored, and was at last beginning to dawn on men's minds, was gaining its first serious victory by despoiling the Jesuits in their turn of that liberty for the long-continued wrongs whereof they were called to account.

A strange and striking reaction in human affairs; the condemnation of the Jesuits was the precursory sign of the violence and injustice which were soon to be committed in the name of the most sacred rights and liberties, long violated with impunity by arbitrary power.
Vaguely and without taking the trouble to go to the bottom of his impression, Louis XV.

felt that the Parliaments and the philosophers were dealing him a mortal blow whilst appearing to strike the Jesuits; he stood out a long while, leaving the quarrel to become embittered and public opinion to wax wroth at his indecision.

"There is a hand to mouth administration," said an anonymous letter addressed to the king and Madame de Pompadour, "but there is no longer any hope of government.

A time will come when the people's eyes will be opened, and peradventure that time is approaching." The persistency of the Duke of Choiseul carried the day at last; an edict of December, 1764, declared that "the Society no longer existed in France, that it would merely be permitted to those who composed it to live privately in the king's dominions, under the spiritual authority of the local ordinaries, whilst conforming to the laws of the realm." Four thousand Jesuits found themselves affected by this decree; some left France, others remained still in their families, assuming the secular dress.