Page:Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1775).djvu/249

This page needs to be proofread.

II. That the Pope cannot deprive the king of any of his rights by excommunication.

III. That the ecclesiastics are, like other people, entirely subject to the king.

IV. That a priest who, by confession, is apprized of a conspiracy against the king or the state, should reveal it to the magistrates.

On the 22d, the parliament published an arret, forbidding the Jesuits to instruct youth, until they had signed those four articles. But the court of Rome was at that time so powerful, and that of France so weak, that the arret was disregarded.

It is worth notice, that this court of Rome, which would not suffer confession to be revealed when the life of a sovereign was concerned, obliged the confessors to inform the Inquisition in case any female should accuse another priest of having seduced or attempted to seduce her. Paul IV, Pius IV, Clement VIII, and Gregory XV,