Note 121 — LETTER IV.

Francis Annat was born in the year 1590. He was made rector of the College of Toulouse, and appointed by the Jesuits their French provincial; and, while in that situation, was chosen by Louis XIV. as his confessor. His friends have highly extolled his virtues as a man; and the reader may judge of the value of these eulogiums from the fact, that he retained his post as the favorite confessor of that licentious monarch, without interruption, till deafness prevented him from listening any longer to the confessions of his royal penitent. (Bayle, art. Annat.) They have also extolled his answer to the Provincial Letters, in his “Bonne Foy des Jansenistes,” in which he professed to expose the falsity of the quotations made from the Casuists, with what success, appears from the Notes of Nicole, who has completely vindicated Pascal from the unfounded charges which the Jesuits have reiterated on this point. (Notes Preliminaires, vol. i. p. 256, &c.; Entretiens de Cleandre et Eudoxe, p. 79.)