I send you, most Reverend Father, this insinuation, exciting your ardent zeal for the saving of souls, and your known affection for the King's service; to the end that, proceeding in the ordinary way, you cause edicts to be published in your district, with censures, and just and holy punishments; and that you strictly enjoin all subjects, ecclesiastical and secular, communities and private persons, to preserve the fidelity they have sworn, and which they owe his Majesty; suspending and excommunicating all such as shall act contrary thereto; as likewise such as excite and foment any sedition and rebellion, contrary to the oath and homage of fidelity with which this kingdom and others have acknowledged his Majesty's lawful and natural right to the Spanish monarchy; exhorting them, as faithful subjects, to oppose such whose sentiments are contrary to their obedience, &c. And in case any persist in their obstinacy, you shall declare them liable to the censures, as disobeying the orders of the Church. In so doing, Most Reverend Father, you will perform the duties of your pastoral office, for the service of the common good, in procuring that which is most convenient for the tranquillity of these kingdoms, and for the maintenance of religion according to conscience, and his Majesty's service, who so graciously applies himself to the preservation and advantage of his subjects, &c. Madrid, Signed Dec. 22,1708. D. F. ROD. DE MENDAROQUESA.

99

THE BISHOP OF LERIDA's answer.

"I received with abundance of respect yours of the 22d past, wherein your Excellency, having before your eyes the disposition of these inhabitants, and the proceeding of the prelates in the council of Toledo, together with that of Pope Leo X. who made use of censures to keep the subjects in awe, and reduce them to the obedience they owe to their lawful sovereigns, thinks I ought to use the same method, and to thunder monitories against the obstinate: Whereupon I cannot but present your Excellency with a few reflections, before we proceed to the execution; and, for that end, it will be necessary to enter into the examination and discussion of the matter.

"It is true, the prelates of the Church have made use of censures upon the like occasions; but it is also certain that they hardly ever proved successful. They were never made use of in Spain, but against the rebellions and conspiracies of the Goths; and more resistance and changes were never found in this Kingdom than at that time. And, if we consider the monitories of Leo. X. and the effects of them in Castile, we shall plainly-see, that the battle of Villadur, and not the excommunications, kept Charles V. upon the Throne. In the reign of Henry V. of Castile, pope Paul II. proceeded to censures, at the request of that Prince, and by the ministry of the nuncio An

tonio Venerio, against the conspirators; but it produced no other effect than affronts to the Pope's ministers, against whom they were ready to take up arms, without regard to the Pope's authority upon such occasions, concerning which they appealed to the next council. And though his Majesty prosecuted those conspirators with the most severe chastisements, yet so far were they from amending, that they were not so much as terrified; as we read in Mariana, Lib. xxiii. Cap. 2. The precautions used by the Pope in a like case, against the kingdoms of Sicily and Arragon, in the reign of Don Pedro the Great, met with no better success; no more than in Germany, Milan, and Florence, upon divers occasions ; it being almost generally certain, that where temporal weapons have not the ascendant, spiritual make not the least impression.

"By this consideration we may see the force of the people's obstinacy, which refers to what St. Austin says of it in his letter to Parmenius, viz. That we must not excommunicate obstinate and such like persons, because, upon those occasions, instead of obtaining the desired effect, we incur other misfortunes, by their contempt of the censures, of which we have seen several pernicious examples in the church.

"Wherefore, I must tell your Excellency, that the obstinacy of the consciences of these inhabitants is now greater than ever; and so general,

that

that the King has actually fewer servants than when this Kingdom was subject to the enemy. Many reasons may be assigned for this, and as it is not fit I should enter into the examination thereof, but rather explode them, I find that, during these dispositions, my censures cannot be followed with any wholesome effect, especially at a juncture when the ill success of affairs abroad gives more life than ever to the hope, which this people never lost, of changing their master. These weighty reasons oblige me to suspend the publication of the edicts till it is seen how the other prelates behave themselves, that we may follow them with more safety; and it will be a great comfort to me, if I may receive a model of the expressions I must make use of; inasmuch as I am willing to behave myself, upon all occasions, according to my duty, and for your content and service.

Lerida,

Jan. 22, 1709.

Signed,

BARBUNALES."

FAMINE IN FRANCE, 1709.

There were several causes which concurred to produce that dreadful visitation of the human race, the principal of which was the protracted war with England and her allies. The male population of the country; enticed from their agricultural labours, became soldiers; and, far from practising their usual domestic frugality, wasted

provisions

provisions at every opportunity. Besides supplying the necessary consumption of vast armies, the government was compelled to stock all the frontier towns, to prepare for the sieges they afterwards underwent; these were successively captured, and the magazines of the troops in camp were often taken the consequences might easily have been foreseen, but Lewis XIV. preferred the sounds of the cries of his people in distress to their blessings for a continued peace. At length part of France refused the usual fruits of the earth, and the misery of a portion of the community became too apparent for doubt or contradiction. The King, roused to a true sense of the general calamity, and alarmed at the unproductive season just passed, caused the clergy to divert the public attention from the original cause of the exhausted state of the granaries of the kingdom, and they, faithful to the monarch, encouraged acts of devotion. The order of the Cardinal de Noailles on this subject follows; and it will be perceived, that he makes more use of the sins of the people, in accounting for the famine, than of those of Lewis, though they were tolerably numerous in this particular point of view.

66

THE CARDINAL DE NOAILLES ORDER CONCERNING

THE PROCESSIONS IS AS FOLLOWS:

Louis-Anthony Noailles, by Divine Permission, Cardinal Prince of the Holy Roman

Church,