"When it was resolved to oblige the ecclesiastics to profess the maxims of France, what difficulties stood in the way? It was necessary to extort from many of them their consent. Others opposed obstacles which all the authority of the parliament could only with difficulty remove. It became necessary to use all the zeal and light of several prelates, and of several doctors, who were favorable to the true teaching, to bring back the great number of ultramontanes in the French clergy.... The ecclesiastics did not cease from resistance until the parliament used its authority to restrain them.... The university and the faculty of law submitted without difficulty, but they were obliged to proceed by way of authority to make the faculty of theology obey."
The facts given above, the testimony of witnesses above suspicion, of those whose interest it would have been to conceal what they say, the action of the parliament, and the petty ways adopted to coerce the professors, v. g., withholding their pay,[139] all evince that the maxims known as Gallican were forced upon the clergy and people of France. But not only is this the case, but so fully were the king and the bishops themselves convinced of their falsity that they retracted them. Before showing this, we will add a curious and precious document from the hands of the wily Achille de Harlay, procureur-général, addressed to Colbert on the 2d of June, 1682. After saying that the proposed visit of the parliament to the faculty would have been unfortunate, because it would have revealed to Rome the divergence between the latter and the government, he goes on to add that "of the assembly of the clergy, the greater part would change to-morrow, and willingly, if they were allowed to do so."[140]
The act of the assembly, as we have seen, drew from the sovereign pontiff an authoritative censure. This was not all; the pope refused the bulls of consecration for those who had taken part in it, unless they made their formal submission to his decision. The king, who at heart was a sincere Catholic, opened his eyes to the danger of the church. As we have said, he withheld the minutes of the proceedings in the first instance, although he allowed a private protest to be made. Later he revoked his decree ordering the doctrine of the four articles to be taught in the French schools. Page 454 has a letter of Louis to the sovereign pontiff, in which he informs his holiness of this, September 14th, 1693. A posthumous work of Daguesseau[141] says,
"This letter of Louis XIV. to Pope Innocent was the seal put upon the accommodation between the court of Rome and the clergy of France; and conformably to the engagement it contained, his majesty did not any longer enforce the observation of the edict of March, 1682, which obliged all who wished to obtain degrees to sustain the declaration of the clergy made that year with regard to ecclesiastical authority; ceasing thus to impose, on this point, the obligation existing, while the edict was in force, and leaving for the future, as before the edict, full liberty to sustain the doctrine."
L'Abbé de Pradt, in his work, Les Quatre Concordats, speaks of the letter of Louis XIV., and says that Pius VII. had it with him—"an old scrap of paper," as Napoleon expressed it—and wished the emperor to sign it. This, however, Napoleon declined to do, until he could consult his theologians. On their advice he refused to sign it. He did more. The abbé says,
"When the archives of Rome were brought to Paris, Napoleon went one day to the Hôtel de Soubise, in which they were kept. There he obtained the letter of Louis XIV. He took it with him, and, on his return to the Tuileries, threw it into the fire, saying, 'We'll not be troubled hereafter with these ashes.'"
Montholon tells us in his Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de France, that Napoleon dictated to him these words concerning the book of the Abbé de Pradt,
"'This work is not a libel: if it contains some erroneous ideas, it contains a great number which are sound and worthy of meditation.' He afterward dictated six notes upon different points contained in the work; he takes notice in them of all that appeared to him deserving of censure; but he has not a single word to say against the story of the destruction by himself of the letter of Louis XIV."[142]
With regard to the bishops who had taken part in the declaration, they had the good sense and virtue to submit to him whom Christ has named his vicar and the pastor of pastors. On the 14th of September, each one of them wrote to Innocent XII. in the following terms,
"Prostrate at the feet of your holiness, we profess and declare that we grieve deeply from our heart, and beyond what we can express, on account of what has been done in the assembly, so greatly offensive to your holiness and your predecessors; and therefore whatever may have been deemed (censeri potuit) decreed against ecclesiastical power and pontifical authority, we hold, and declare that all should hold it, as not decreed. Moreover, we hold as not determined on whatever may have been deemed (censeri potuit) determined on in prejudice of the rights of churches; for our intention was not to decree any thing nor to do any thing prejudicial to the said churches."