'I have always admired the policy of the Jesuits,' he writes in 1608, 'and their method of maintaining secrecy.
Their Constitutions are in print, and yet one cannot set eyes upon a copy.

I do not mean their Rules, which are published at Lyons, for those are mere puerilities; but the digest of laws which guide their conduct of the order, and which they keep concealed.

Every day many members leave, or are expelled from the Company; and yet their artifices are not exposed to view.'[170] In another letter, of the date 1610, Sarpi returns to the same point.

'The Jesuits before this Aquaviva was elected General were saints in comparison with what they afterwards became.
Formerly they had not mixed in affairs of state or thought of governing cities.

Since then, they have indulged a hope of controlling the whole world.
[Footnote 169: A book with this title was published in 1612 at Cracow.
It was declared a forgery at Rome by a congregation of Cardinals.] [Footnote 170: _Lettere_, vol.i.p.