The advice these prelates gave was what might have been expected from the state of things at the time.
They indorsed the action of the government on four points of discussion with the holy see:
1. The royal perquisite, which Fleury and Bossuet could not approve.
2. The book of the Abbé Gerbais, censured by Rome as schismatical, suspected of heresy, and injurious to the holy see; but which they found full of good doctrine and of deep learning.
3. In the affair of Charonne. This was a case of exemption from royal nomination in which the king had violated that right. The religious women of the convent of Charonne, near Paris, which belonged to the Augustinian rule, enjoyed the privilege, recognized by the civil power, of electing every three years their superior. Louis XIV., however, in 1676, named for their superior a Cistercian nun, whom the Archbishop of Paris, Harlay de Champvallon, acknowledged, and to whom he gave the position. The religious appealed to the sovereign pontiff, who, by a brief dated August 7th, 1680, annulled the act of the archbishop, and ordered them to proceed to the triennial election, and take for their superior one of their own number.
4. In the affair of the diocese of Pamiers, of which we have spoken above.
"On the 2d of May the assembly resolved to ask the king to call a national council, or general assembly of the clergy, composed of two deputies of the first order and two of the second from each province, the latter to have a consulting voice only. The other details were to be arranged according to the advice of the commissaries."[134]
The action of this assembly was much criticised and was disapproved by the people, as can be seen, according to M. Gérin's statement, in the MSS. of St. Sulpice, i. ii. iii.; Bibl. Mazarine, MSS. 2392, 2398 fr. From these he makes several long and interesting extracts.
In consequence of this resolution of the Little Assembly, "the king, on the 16th of July, 1681, addressed letters of convocation to the agents of the clergy, through whom the archbishops of the territory subject to his majesty were charged to hold provincial assemblies and cause to be chosen two deputies of the first order and two of the second, for the general assembly assigned for the 1st of October, 1681."
Before entering upon a history of this body, M. Gérin gives a clear idea of the question at issue between the king and the pontiff, and shows that it was of the same nature as that which caused the struggle, in which the church was finally victorious, between Gregory VII. and the German emperor, Henry IV. The appointment of proper pastors for the flock was at stake. Rome sought likewise to put a stop to the abuse by which laymen were pensioned on dioceses, whose funds ought to have been devoted to supplying the spiritual wants of the people, and relieving the poor and orphans. The church was in imminent danger of servitude, spiritual and temporal, as Fleury himself states. So far had the usurpation of ecclesiastical jurisdiction gone that, when Louis XIV., at Strasburg, gave audience to the bishop of that place, the act of the king in putting his hand on the crozier of the prelate as he leant forward to hear him was interpreted as a resumption of investiture by the ring and crozier. Pelisson, however, the intimate friend of the king, tells us this was not the case, as he heard him say afterward that such an idea had not occurred to him; but as the prelate spoke in a rather low tone, he bent toward him and leaned for support on the crozier.