The French Jesuits were divided in opinion on the issue. The shrewder fathers at Marseilles were disposed to borrow money and meet the obligations, but the Parisian authorities believed that they were still strong enough to win a conflict, and they insisted that Lavalette must plead bankruptcy. It was the last and most fatal of the long series of blunders they had perpetrated; to say nothing of the moral aspect of their procedure. The law was set in motion; in March 1761 the lawyers of the Paris Parlement were set the task of judging their traditional enemy, and the long trial, amidst intense excitement, ended in the Jesuits, as a collective body, being condemned to pay the whole of Lavalette's debts--about five million francs. In order to determine the responsibility, the lawyers had compelled the Jesuits to produce their Constitutions and other documents which they were eager to keep from the laity, and this exposure led to a broader and more determined attack on the Society. Their action in refusing to meet the obligations of the West Indian business, by which they had profited so much, was, and always will be, regarded as morally dishonourable. It is pleaded on their behalf that the Jesuits are a "simple-minded" and spiritual body of men, with no inclination or aptitude for commerce, and that Lavalette had concealed his operations--as they compelled him to state--from his superiors. Such statements merely increase the cynicism of their procedure. We have found them repeatedly engaging in commerce, and we know that the Jesuit system made it absolutely impossible for an inferior, even if he wished to do so, to conceal large commercial operations from his superiors. The Jesuit documents made this plain to the whole of Paris, and their adversaries advanced to the last attack.
The Parlement declared that the Jesuit Constitutions were unfit for a body of French priests, and demanded that they should be altered; it forbade the Society to form congregations among the laity, to teach the young, or to receive novices. The Jesuits at court induced the King to summon a meeting of the higher clergy and elicit a counter-declaration in favour of the Society; but a fearful storm was now raging in their ears. In their extreme apprehension they disavowed the most characteristic Jesuit principles. They proclaimed that they accepted the four articles of the Gallican Declaration of 1682, and that they would be loyal to the Gallican Church even if their General commanded them to do something contrary to its principles. They were fighting for life; but men in France knew from their previous history in the country that such declarations as this were merely diplomatic, and were set aside the moment they returned to power.