Money will not flow into our churches, no one will buy our scapularies or girdles or anything else, and when we cease to be rich we shall no longer be able to control consciences." "But we shall always have our estates, our property." "All will be lost as we lost them in Europe! And the worst of it is that we are working toward our own ruin.

For example, this unrestrained eagerness to raise arbitrarily the rents on our lands each year, this eagerness which I have so vainly combated in all the chapters, this will ruin us! The native sees himself obliged to purchase farms in other places, which bring him as good returns as ours, or better.

I fear that we are already on the decline; _quos vult perdere Jupiter dementat prius_.

[49] For this reason we should not increase our burden; the people are already murmuring.

You have decided well: let us leave the others to settle their accounts in that quarter; let us preserve the prestige that remains to us, and as we shall soon appear before God, let us wash our hands of it--and may the God of mercy have pity on our weakness!" "So your Reverence thinks that the rent or tax--" "Let's not talk any more about money," interrupted the sick man with signs of disgust.