the head of James II, the absolutist, who was Louis' ally and therefore strengthened French absolutism. James might have added an English schism to that which was brewing in France.
The Pope's firm resistance to Gallican claims was rewarded. Under Pope Alexander VIII, Louis surrendered the ambassadorial right to accord refuge and ceded Avignon. Pope Innocent XII lived to see a change of heart in the Bourbon monarch, who had need of the tiara during the quarrel that broke out between France and the Emperor Leopold over the Spanish succession. Louis now agreed to a reconciliation with regard to ecclesiastical matters. The Gallican articles themselves remained in force, but the obligation to teach them was removed and the appointed bishops were permitted to obtain Papal confirmation. In so far, however, as they had participated personally in the Assembly, they had to demonstrate their contriteness to Rome. For the sake of the support he desired, the King gladly permitted them to confess "kneeling at the feet of His Holiness, their inexpressible sorrow."
The War of the Spanish Succession also spread to the Papal States. The Papacy lost its rights to Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, and later also to Parma and Piacenza. No attention was paid to the protests of Pope Clement XL Throughout the conflict between France and the Habsburgs, there lingered on, sometimes in association with that conflict, a quarrel of eighty years standing over Jansenism* This was enkindled by a book which Cornelius Jansenius of Holland had written in 1640 concerning the theology of St. Augustine. The book delved deeply into problems which had tormented Luther and which still disturb every pious soul problems concerning the extent to which human nature which has been corrupted by the Fall, concerning the power of the will, concerning the efficacy of grace, and concerning predestination. In Jansenius' book the emphasis was placed on tightness of conscience in the innermost soul, and upon a condition of freedom arrived at by surrender a freedom that is really the necessity which compels the will to love the Eternal Law and the Good in itself. Though he approximated to the point of view of the reformers (Augustine was their source and his) , Jansenius and his friend Vergier de Hauranne of Saint Cyran remained on the whole in conformity with
