without name, the famous work, 'La Tradition des Faits.' In it we read a summary of all I have endeavoured to detail.
'When the attempt was made to oblige all ecclesiastics to profess the (maximes de France) opinions of France, what difficulties were there not to be encountered! It was necessary to wrest an assent from many of them; others opposed obstacles which all the authority of Parliament had great difficulty in overcoming. There was need of all the zeal, and all the lights of certain prelates, and certain doctors attached to the true opinions, to reclaim the great number of Ultramontanes who were found among the clergy of France. There may be counted seventeen orders which Parliament was obliged to make, to force the Faculty of Theology to register the regulations of 1665, and the doctors to conform to them. The learned prelates who drew up the celebrated Declaration of 1682 met with no less contradiction in getting it adopted. The ecclesiastics never ceased to rise against it, until the Parliament employed its authority to constrain them. When the Parliament endeavoured to enforce the registration of the Edict of 1682 by the Faculties, the pretexts and the subterfuges to avoid it multiplied without end. The University and the Faculty of Law submitted without any difficulty. But it was necessary to come to the exercise of authority, to bring the Faculty of Theology to obedience.'[1]
We seem rather to be reading the history of the Anglican Reformation than of the glorious Church of France.
- ↑ Gérin, p. 389.
