to humanity as they are, contain few examples of persecutors
such as Calvin or Torquemada, to whom, ruthless as they were
in their savage and narrow malignity and zeal for what they thought the truth,
no suspicion of venal motives is attributed.

Of the Jesuits' intrigues, adventures, rise and fall in Europe,
much may be said in attack or in extenuation; but it is not
the intention of the present work to deal with this aspect of the question.
It was in Spanish America, and especially in Paraguay and Bolivia,
where the policy of the Company in regard to savage nations
was most fully developed, as it was only the Jesuits who ever succeeded
in reclaiming any large number of the nomad or semi-nomad tribes
of those countries.

Many excellent works in French, and the celebrated `Christianismo Felice
nel Paraguay' of the Abbate Muratori in Italian, certainly exist.
But neither Father Charlevoix, the French historian of the missions,
nor Muratori was ever in Paraguay, and both their books contain
the faults and mistakes of men, however excellent and well intentioned,
writing of countries of which they were personally ignorant.
Both give a good account of the customs and regimen of the missions,
but both seem to have believed too readily fabulous accounts
of the flora and fauna of Paraguay.* The fact of having listened too readily
to a fable about an unknown animal in no way detracts from
the general veracity of an author of the beginning of the eighteenth century,
for in all other respects except natural history Charlevoix keeps
within the bounds of probability, though of course as a Jesuit
he holds a brief for the doings of the Company in Paraguay.
Muratori is more rarely led into extravagances, but is concerned in the main
with the religious side of the Jesuits, as the title of his book indicates.