It was Dupanloup's great desire to be supported by Newman's teaching and authority; and to be accompanied by him as his theologian at the Council in Rome. Newman, however, says Thureau Dangin,[1] declined a proposal which he felt would displease Pius IX. But the Bishop had Newman's perfect sympathy. The clergy of the diocese sent him assurances of loyal devotedness. Montalembert wrote in fervid terms of admiration. And Gratry's famous incisive letters on the controversy added much to the intellectual support of Dupanloup's work.
Dupanloup's public declaration of opposition roused on every side the strongest emotions. Louis Veuillot, journalist, the extreme of Ultramontanes, editor of the Univers, declared this attack to be "most unexpected, and more important than any, owing to the position of its author."[2] It was to his mind much more serious than the efforts of Döllinger. The Catholic Bishop had provided poisonous arguments for an infidel press. Dupanloup penned impulsively a vigorous and impassioned reply, in which he applied to the journalist the title given in the Apocalypse to Satan—the accuser of the brethren. He could have tolerated Veuillot's personalities, but not his doctrinal exaggerations. From dogmatic assertions of the crudest extremest kind, which had appeared in his pages during the previous year, the Bishop selected the following examples: Veuillot declared that Ecumenical Councils never had so much authority as the Decrees of the Holy See. Dupanloup asks whether that applies to the Nicene proclamation of the Divinity of Christ. Veuillot misinterpreted the text "Lo, I am with you always"—you collectively (for it is in the plural) into you singular—that is, "you, the Pope." He further declared that when
