THE second half of the seventeenth century was the Age of Louis XIV. He established a new type of kingship, absolute in power and resplendent in dignity. In subtle ways he created the atmosphere which pervaded Europe, and the standards which he established profoundly affected the life of the church.

His personal rule did not coincide with his reign. When he came to the throne he was a minor, and power rested in other hands. Cardinal Mazarin was the dominant influence in the state, pursuing with skilful persistence the policies inaugurated by his great predecessor, Cardinal Richelieu. The Peace of Westphalia crowned Mazarin’s efforts, but for a decade the full fruits of victory were withheld. By 5659, however, he had achieved his purpose; at home he had laid the foundations of royal supremacy, and abroad he had humbled the Catholic empire of Spain. Neither of the great churchmen who directed the destinies of France allowed his religious convictions to dictate his foreign policies. Both believed that at home there must be an end to attempts to use religious loyalties to create a state within the state. Richelieu curbed the power of the French Protestants by stripping them of some of their constitutional safeguards. Disunity was rife within the Catholic Church; Richelieu aimed to create a uniformity which would subject all reforming impulses to royal control. Mazarin consolidated what his predecessor had done. Thus the lines along which policy might develop had been clearly indicated; it remained for the king to show what he could achieve.

In 1659 Louis XIV came of age. Two years later, Mazarin died and the king announced that henceforth he himself would direct national affairs. The religious history of his reign reflects the consequences of his exalted view of royal authority. The king was absolute. National strength demanded unity; this presupposed uniformity, and consequently dissent could not be tolerated. So the Protestants were repressed, and royal policy achieved a Pyrrhic victory in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. [The edict which closed the French Wars of Religion in 1598, allowing the Protestants to exercise their religion in certain places, giving them full civic equality with Catholics, and certain garrison towns as safeguards within the constitution.] The king’s authority embraced every aspect of the nation’s life; the church was not exempt, and rival pretensions to authority over it would need to be closely scrutinized and if necessary resisted. So came the renascence of Gallicanism, with the consequent tensions between the king and the pope.

Political considerations might have suggested to Louis that his Protestant subjects could profitably be left in peace. The Huguenots had once been a serious problem, but they had lost the political aspirations and the aristocratic alliances which had formerly made them so formidable. In 1662, Louis acknowledged that they had given incontestable proof of ‘their affection and fidelity’. They were no longer a menace to the Catholic Church. Some of their pastors were able orators and learned scholars, but few were conspicuous for proselytizing zeal. Moreover, the Huguenots had shown that they were an economic force of great importance. Instead of being encouraged or even tolerated, they were subjected to increasingly . severe persecution. This was a reversal of the policy which had served France so well in the past, which had brought her diplomatic advantages and commercial benefits, and had placed her in the forefront of European progress. It was at variance with the trends which would characterize the new age.

The responsibility for the change lay in part with the king himself. His theory of government made it impossible to treat dissent as unimportant; he believed that national strength demanded a unified people with a single official faith. The disposition of the king was strongly fortified by the desires of the church. The Catholic Church in France seemed to be at the peak of its power. Its clergy were eminent for eloquence, learning, zeal, even for social sympathies. But they regarded the continued existence of the Huguenots as an affront. They had always resented the Edict of Nantes, which was the charter of the Protestants’ rights. The higher clergy were engaged in intermittent controversy with the papacy about their distinctive privileges, and found it desirable to emphasize their anti-Protestant zeal. Here the king assured his bishops of his support; he, too, had his differences with Rome; each could encourage the other by attacking Protestant pretensions.

At the outset the king and his clergy merely proposed that the Edict of Nantes should be interpreted in the most stringent sense and its benefits curtailed as severely as possible. The church asked, not that Protestantism be crushed by a single blow’, but that it should be enfeebled and gradually starved by the retrenchment of its liberties’. As a first step, the assembly of the clergy suggested in 166o that commissioners be appointed to investigate the administration of the Edict, and from that point onward the liberties of the Edict were steadily removed. Each year some ancient privilege was rescinded, some new burden imposed. In 1666 a royal edict set forth in some sixty clauses the various ways in which Protestants could he harassed. Scarcely an aspect of their life remained untouched. Conversions to Catholicism were encouraged by a variety of expedients. Economic inducements were offered to those who apostasized. Protestants were excluded even from the humblest grades of government service. All the while the king solemnly affirmed that the essential provisions of the Edict of Nantes remained unchanged. If his policy was creating concern at home, it was causing consternation abroad. Colbert warned him of the serious economic results that would follow. The Great Elector of Brandenburg registered a vigorous protest. For the moment Louis called a halt; he even revoked the edict of 1666. But the harrying of Protestants continued, and daily their insecurity became more manifest.

Ten years later Louis reverted to his repressive policy. He was free from foreign distractions, and his outlook was insensibly changing. The influence of Mme de Maintenon (subsequently his unofficial wife) fortified the vein of superstitious zeal in his character. His private morals improved; the gaiety and splendour of his court gave way to a sedate preoccupation with religious observances. The king had much to atone for; as a contemporary remarked, he was eager ‘to do penance for his own sins on the backs of the Jansenists and the Huguenots’. Since his conversion had ‘no root in reason and bore no fruit in charity’, there was nothing to halt his progress as a persecutor, and he eagerly advanced toward one of the political blunders of his reign. Measures against the Huguenots increased in number and in severity. Their facilities for public worship were drastically curtailed. Their share of the burden of taxation was sharply increased. Their ministers could live only in certain places and for limited periods. Endowments given for the support of their poor were seized for the benefit of Catholic institutions. Their hospitals, schools, and colleges were closed. Their churches, in great numbers, were destroyed. Their members were barred from the learned professions. Homes were invaded on the pretext that children (who were thereupon abducted) wished to become Catholics. Restrictions on personal freedom were more vexatious than the destruction of property; both culminated in the infamous dragonnades. Soldiers quartered on Protestants were allowed a latitude which made ruin or even death the only alternatives to conversion. Thousands gave verbal adhesion to the Catholic faith. Those who were able to flee sought refuge abroad, and the great exodus of Huguenots began.

In theory the Edict of Nantes was still law; the enactments, nearly two hundred in number, which had been passed during the last twenty years, merely clarified the manner of its operation. Every influence in high circles now encouraged Louis to take the final step. He was assured that few Protestants persisted in their heresy; one more effort, declared the Jesuit Maimbourg, and the disastrous conflagration which has wrought such ruin in France and of which little more than the smoke remains, will soon be utterly extinguished’. The king was eager to be convinced, and in 1685 revoked the Edict of Nantes. All the remaining privileges of the Huguenots were rescinded. Their ministers were exiled, but lay people attempting to leave the country were subject to the severest penalties. Those who quietly submitted, it was said, would not be disturbed. But such assurances proved valueless. The dragonnades were revived. Multitudes were sent to the galleys. In spite of all precautions, thousands escaped to other lands. Goaded beyond endurance, the Huguenots of the south rose in rebellion; for twenty years the fighting in the Cevennes valleys distracted France’s concentration from other objectives and drained away her resources.

While the existence of Protestantism challenged the king’s authority at one point, the claims of the pope challenged it at another. Absolutism could not tolerate dissent nor acquiesce in intervention by a foreign power. The pope was an Italian prince as well as a spiritual leader. What kind of authority could he exercise over the French church? The form which the Roman primacy had assumed inevitably aggravated in all Catholic countries the problem of the relation of church and state. In France it was further complicated by a body of traditions and convictions known as Gallicanism. The antecedents of Gallicanism can be traced back to the Middle Ages, and parallel manifestations can be found in many other countries. France was unique not only by virtue of her strength and her preeminence, but also because of the type of relationship which still prevailed between the national church and the Roman see. Elsewhere the challenge posed by the Reformation had promoted centralization; local autonomy usually resisted it, but for most of the Roman Catholic world the canons of the Council of Trent had given authoritative sanction to this trend. In France, however, only the doctrinal findings of that Council had been accepted, and the relations of church and state were still governed by the Concordat of 1516.  Though the Concordat still guided the relations between France and the papacy, it reflected an outmoded state of affairs, which elsewhere the church was ceasing to sanction.

By the middle of the seventeenth century it was clear that the issue was certain to increase in gravity. As soon as Louis XIV assumed control of national affairs, he showed that he regarded the church as an appropriate instrument for advancing his political ambitions. A ruler who claimed unlimited authority regarded Gallicanism as an appropriate theory for regulating ecclesiastical affairs. In addition, public opinion welcomed a new emphasis on the rights and dignities of the French Church. The unification of the country under Bourbon rule had intensified national pride; a heightened self-consciousness within the church inevitably followed.

Gallicanism was a theory admirably adapted to existing needs. Behind it lay the force of a strong tradition, yet it had not been too rigidly defined. It took its stand on the Galli. can Liberties — certain ancient rights in which Frenchmen took a patriotic pride. These ‘liberties’ stipulated that papal bulls might enter France only with the permission of the Crown; that judicial decisions of the Vatican had no legal force in France; that French subjects could not be cited before a Roman tribunal; and that the civil courts of France could legitimately deal with church affairs whenever the laws of the land appeared to be infringed. Gallicanism, however, was much more than a reaffirmation of customary Privileges. It owed part of its appeal to a reaction against the centralizing tendencies at work in the Roman Church. Ultramontanism seemed to many Frenchmen to be historically indefensible and theologically unsound. It also threatened to produce administrative changes of a revolutionary character: Frenchmen had been accustomed to settling their ecclesiastical disputes at home, and they believed that their own courts could handle such matters more wisely and effectively than a foreign tribunal which commanded little confidence. Moreover, Roman theologians like Bellarmine had linked papal infallibility with a body of political theory which many Frenchmen intensely disliked. The Ultramontanes affirmed that the interests of the church took precedence of all others; since the pope was the only judge of such matters, he could override the will of all temporal rulers whenever church affairs were at stake. Gallicanism, therefore, naturally developed a two-fold emphasis. Theologically it declared that the infallible authority of the church was not committed to the pope alone, but was vested jointly in the pope and the bishops, and that consequently the final decision lay with a general council. Politically it denied the right of the pope to interfere with the temporal rights of sovereign rulers, no matter how serious the provocation might be. This led naturally to a reaffirmation of the divine right of kings, a doctrine which Bossuet set forth with great cogency in France. Gallicanism was thus a position which could be held in a variety of ways. The French bishops were primarily concerned to defend the collective mind of the church, and to protect the autonomy of the national church against an autocratic and infallible papacy. The parlements, with their strong legal bent, were determined to prevent the intrusion of an alien authority. But the lines of demarcation were never rigidly drawn. In spite of attempts to make Gallicanism a unified and comprehensive doctrine, reconciling the duties of the good citizen and the good Catholic, it was usually held with primary emphasis on one aspect or the other. Indeed, some of the French Jesuits showed that under the influence of national and patriotic fervour it was possible to be an Ultramontane in theology and a Gallican in political theory. The absence of sharp definition suggests that Gallicanism should be regarded as an atmosphere rather than as a system.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century, an infallible papacy faced an absolute monarchy; the theoretical claims of both had been hardening, and conflicts were bound to arise. Some of these were relatively trivial in character, some were precipitated by the overweening pride and autocratic methods of Louis XIV. The crucial dispute of the reign concerned the ‘regale’ — the royal right to the temporalities of a vacant see. What might seem a simple claim had been magnified by generations of crown lawyers into an extreme and extensive system. The issue became acute because Louis, in the interests of absolutism and uniformity, wished to extend the ‘regale to the sees of provinces which he had added to the possessions of the Crown. Bishops who had hitherto been exempt from this imposition protested and appealed to the pope. In 1681, the assembly of the French clergy conceded Louis’ claims, and extended the ‘regale’ to all his domains. When the pope ignored this action, the king temporarily shifted his ground, and demanded that his clergy define more explicitly the position of the Gallican Church. The result was the formulation of the famous Four Articles of 1682:

(1) the pope has no power in temporal matters;

(2) general councils are superior to the pope in spiritual affairs;

(3) the generally accepted laws of the French church are inviolable, and the papacy must conform to them;

(4) in matters of faith, the pope’s decisions become irreversible only when ratified by a general council.

These affirmations were set forth with all the grandiloquence that Bossuet could impart to them, and Louis at once commanded that they be accepted by the clergy and constitute a part of the education of the French priesthood. As a result Frenchmen increasingly invested the king with the quasi-divine authority which he claimed, and in the process the political theory characteristic of the ancien régime steadily assumed more explicit form. Moreover the rift between the king and the pope inevitably widened. The pope refused to yield, and retaliated by declining to institute the new bishops whom the king appointed. In exasperation Louis seriously toyed with the idea of a schism. In 1689, however, his bitter antagonist, Innocent XI, died. The new pope was prepared to be conciliatory and the king had no desire to be permanently at enmity with the head of the Church. Louis had good reason to welcome a rapprochement. He faced the cumulative results of serious reverses abroad, and needed to strengthen his position by means of any alliances he could make. In 1693 he capitulated. The Gallican articles were revoked, but with a secrecy in marked contrast with the fanfare which had marked their promulgation. Indeed, they were withdrawn so unostentatiously that they continued to represent the convictions of many Frenchmen, and throughout the eighteenth century Gallicanism remained a force in French life.

As far as a fuller elaboration of theory was concerned, the reign of Louis did little to resolve the ambiguities which beset the relations of church and state. But the practical application of Gallicanism was always apt to outstrip its theoretical development, and in seventeenth-century France the doctrine tended to be a decent cloak for the determination of an autocratic monarchy to treat the church as a department of state. Louis regarded the clergy as civil servants. He expected them to be subservient to his wishes, and he had the power to make and keep them so. He could reward the deserving with comfortable sinecures; he could ruin the recalcitrant by burdening their revenues with pensions for his courtiers.

If Gallicanism sought to safeguard the autonomy of the church of France, Jansenism sought to achieve its purification. The latter controversy was more complex than the former, both in its causes and throughout its course; it was even more productive of passion and of lasting bitterness.

It arose out of the writings of Cornelius Jansen (d. 1638), a Dutch theologian who was Bishop of Ypres at the time of his death. He was appalled at the aridity of prevailing systems of theology. He contended that the stoical self-sufficiency which marked most popular morality ignored the helplessness of man and forgot his absolute dependence on his Maker.

The ceremonialism which was rampant in the church merely hid from the people the essential fact that a man can be saved only through the love of God creating faith.

This love becomes effective through conversion, and conversion is dependent on the good pleasure of God, Thus Jansen’s teaching on grace implied the doctrine of predestination.

Vehement in opposing Jesuitism, he was no less emphatic in repudiating Protestantism. He was seeking a Christian position which would be genuinely ‘evangelical but not Protestant, Catholic but not Jesuitical’. He found his inspiration in St Augustine, whose doctrine of grace had been obscured by the medieval preoccupation with merit. Into his work Augustinus (1640), he distilled a lifetime of thought and study.

Though Jansenism was an active force in the Low Countries, it achieved its greatest influence in France. An intimate friend of Jansen, du Vergier, Abbot of St Cyran, popularized its views, among which he particularly stressed the love of God and man’s need of conversion. Even more important than his teaching was his gift of enlisting able disciples. He attracted several members of the brilliant legal family of Arnauld. Through Angélique Arnauld, Prioress of Port Royal, Jansenism established its intimate connexion with this famous nunnery.

The Jansenist controversy thus began with a particular doctrine of grace (theologically a complex question) and involved the baffling mysteries of election and predestination. But it was not enthusiasm for such abstract matters that explains the furore which Jansenism created. Gallican clergy, the higher nobility — even at court — and men of learning were drawn within the orbit of the party. Morally its impact was powerful. In a corrupt period it was austere and stringent in its demands; in a servile age it maintained a dignified self-respect; at a time when conformity was a passion, it remained a body of independent opinion, as feared as it was formidable. To such a group the government of Louis XIV could not remain indifferent.

Yet the actual controversy was little concerned with the things to which Jansenism owed its true appeal. By 1648, the doctrinal issue had been effectually obscured. It is true that five propositions taken from the Augustinus were censured in 1649 by the Sorbonne, and were forwarded to Rome for condemnation. The general tenor of these propositions reflected a twofold emphasis detected in Jansenist teaching by its critics: (t) without the assistance of a special grace from God, men cannot perform his commandments; (2) the operation of grace is irresistible, and men are therefore subject to a determinism either of a natural or supernatural kind, though neither is violently coercive in character. Latent in these was a theological pessimism repugnant to the dominant schools of thought. But theological considerations had already yielded place to others. A consistently important element in the conflict was the opposition between the Jesuits and the Jansenists. Antoine Arnauld, for many years the foremost leader of the Jansenist party, had attacked Jesuit methods in a particularly damaging way. In addition, the contestants were drawn into a struggle in the Sorbonne between the members of the regular’ and the ‘secular’ clergy — i.e., between those who were members of the religious orders and those who were not. Gallicanism and Jansenism became intertwined in various ways. To complicate the situation, the papacy was not primarily concerned about the theological aspect of the matter. Seventeenth-century popes often gave the impression that they were more interested in power than in doctrine, and Alexander VII in particular was anxious to assert and confirm his authority. Almost from the outset, therefore, partisan and political prejudices eclipsed the genuine religious concerns and embittered the controversy. For the space of nearly twenty years hardly a month passed without some clash between the Jesuits and their civil and ecclesiastical allies on the one hand, and the defenders of grace’ on the other.,Then, after a brief interval, the struggle was resumed, and continued through most of the eighteenth century.

The course which the debates assumed threw the Jansenists on the defensive; for years Antoine Arnauld and his colleagues conducted a skilful rearguard action. The Jansenist position was tactically strong, since it could not readily be overthrown; it was morally weak, since it bore little relation to the fundamental religious concerns of its adherents. Its opponents had seized on certain heretical propositions assumed to be found in the Augustinus; but were they? This apparently simple question of fact was capable of almost endless debate. Were the offending words used in the book in the sense that their critics assumed? And was this really a matter for papal definition? The Jansenists had suffered a serious reverse when the Sorbonne condemned the propositions. In due course, Arnauld’s opponents decided to deprive him of his university degrees. They succeeded, but their manoeuvre precipitated the intervention of the man who immortalized the controversy. Pascal’s Provincial Letters originated in an attempt to fend off Arnauld’s deprivation, but they widened into an attack on the whole system of moral casuistry practised by the Jesuits. The brilliance of the Letters, their union of devastating wit and intense moral earnestness, created a profound effect. The Jesuits and their sympathizers claimed that Pascal was not properly qualified for the task he had undertaken; he had been furnished with extracts from works of casuistry (i.e., on the way to resolve moral problems) but he did not understand the basic principles of moral theology. But the practice of the Jesuits had made them vulnerable to attack, and a system which offends a sensitive conscience cannot hope to be exonerated by an appeal to a complex theory. As far as the cultured public was concerned, the Letters brought irrevocable discredit on the Jesuits.

The fate of Jansenism was decided, however, in a very different court of appeal. The alliance of the French crown, the papal curia, and the Society of Jesus proved decisive. In 166o, the period of persecution began. Louis XIV instructed the General Assembly of the Clergy to devise a means of extirpating the heresy. Early in the following year the clergy suggested that the holding of any benefice in France should be made conditional upon the signing of a formula condemning the five crucial propositions. Every attempt was made to circumvent the wiles of the Jansenists and to evade the intricate ‘questions of fact or of law’. Many of the Jansenist leaders went into hiding, the nuns of Port Royal were exposed to the full fury of official displeasure. There is probably no parallel in monastic history to their resistance, on a doctrinal issue, to their bishop, to the clergy of their national church, to their king, and to the pope; but it has been remarked with equal truth that there is no precedent for the attempt to make doctrinal heresy depend on the question whether or not certain words could be interpreted as conveying a certain meaning when found in a certain book.

The king discovered that his wrath, though unbounded, was not irresistible. In 1665 he turned to the pope. Alexand-der VII, who had suffered many things at Louis’ hands, seized his opportunity. The Constitution (Regiminis apostolici) which he issued treated the dispute as purely one of insubordination towards the Holy See, and the formulary it imposed was framed in appropriate terms. The complex interrelation of the various problems of this period is reflected in the fact that four bishops who had resisted the king on the ‘regale’ were equally resolute in opposing the pope.

The year 1668 brought a lull in the controversy. Careful negotiation devised formulas by which those who had resisted either the pope or the king could submit with dignity. The agreement initiated a decade of comparative calm known as the Peace of the Church’ (1669-79). Many women of high social standing were drawn to Port Royal. But the peace’ was at best precarious, and it was not permanent. Death robbed the nunnery of some of its most effective protectors, Louis’ zeal for orthodoxy rekindled his anger against Jansenism, and the position of Port Royal became increasingly insecure. But Jansenism, though quiescent, was by no means dead. Quesnel’s Reflexions morales -- a most popular work by one of the leaders of the party — helped to keep it alive, and round this book the defenders’ intrigues began to thicken. Early in the eighteenth century, a tactless academic question precipitated an explosion. A Jansenist posed to the Sorbonne the problem whether the condemnation against the Augustinus might be received with ‘respectful silence’. This implied a passive outward acquiescence in a law which might inwardly be repudiated as wrong. The whole controversy erupted with astonishing violence. Louis proposed to the pope that they should collaborate in eradicating Jansenism for ever. In 1705, accordingly, Clement XI explicitly condemned ‘respectful silence’. The king proceeded to further severities. The nunnery of Port Royal was desecrated. Nor was this enough. As foreign disasters multiplied upon the king, his zeal became a kind of superstitious frenzy. He again sought the assistance of the pope, this time against Quesnel’s Réflexions. In 1713 appeared the famous Bull Unigenitus, which condemned over a hundred propositions culled from the work. A more drastic condemnation of everything that Jansenism had ever advocated could scarcely be conceived, but the severity of the Bull aroused a corresponding reaction. Fénelon, who approved of Unigenitus, admitted that many Frenchmen believed that it condemned St Augustine, St Paul, and even Jesus Christ himself. The Bible-reading which Bossuet had so carefully fostered was blighted by the Bull. And the wave of sympathy which it awakened meant that throughout the eighteenth century Jansenism persisted as a disturbing ferment in French life.

Jansenism began as a reaction against the Jesuits and all their ways. As a movement of protest it did not stand alone. The Jesuits were an aggressive body, and their vigour invited opposition. They were moulded by a discipline of military rigour, and were committed to explicit and practical objectives. They favoured a type of belief as precise and compelling as mathematical proof, and in their regulation of religious practice they exalted expediency above all other considerations. They pressed the plea of utility to the point where many theologians felt compelled to protest. The great controversy about the proper limits of utilitarianism concerned moral theory, and particularly the regulation of the confessional. What standards should priests apply to penitents? Should they be lax or stringent? The Jesuits argued for a flexible attitude; severity defeated its own ends by repelling those who needed the church — and who might in turn be useful to it. In urging confessors to be lenient, they appealed to the doctrine of Probabilism, which stipulated that a priest should grant absolution if there were any good grounds for doing so, even if there were also other and stronger reasons for refusing it. Such grounds required definition, and so there arose an elaborate system of casuistry, designed to shield the penitent from the confessor’s zeal. ‘Casuistry’ was originally a word free of sinister implications; it owes its unhappy connotation to the methods advocated by the Jesuits. Their critics contended that the Jesuits debased morality: they encouraged people to take their standards ready-made from their confessors and to abandon the duty of facing their own responsibility, while the custodians of morals were compelled to adopt a lax view of Christian conduct. Prevailing tendencies were opposed to Jesuit theories. Dominican theologians had developed a counter theory (known as Probabiliorism) which stressed the duty of a stricter attitude. In 1665, 1666, and ₁₆₇₉ laxist views were condemned by the papacy. The Jesuits were commanded to permit in their seminaries both the criticism of their favoured position and the exposition of alternative views. In France the weight of theological opinion rallied behind the critics of Probabilism. Pascal was stern in his denunciations, and many others were equally severe. Bossuet was particularly cogent in his criticism, and his prestige invested his condemnation with immense authority. By the end of the century, the discredit of the system seemed to be virtually complete, and in 1700 the French clergy, led by Bossuet, formally censured Probabilism. This was not the end of the matter. Throughout much of the eighteenth century a bitter controversy raged between the Jesuits and the Dominicans, and subsequently a Probabilism with safeguards re-established itself as a dominant moral theory in the Roman Church. There seems little doubt, however, that in the reign of Louis XIV the controversy relaxed moral restraints at a time when the inducements to licentiousness were already strong.

By the end of the seventeenth century the cult of reason had made sufficient progress to warrant a protest. The formalism which had invaded religious practice and the ceremonialism which marked the worship of the age predisposed dissatisfied souls to respond to the movement known as Quietism. The mystical revival aroused considerable interest in France, but its inspiration came from foreign sources, In Spain the tradition of St Teresa was still strong, and something both of its teaching and of its atmosphere was carried to Italy by Michael de Molinos. His activities aroused a mixed response. The bishops, even the cardinals, were divided in their attitude. The Jesuits vigorously attacked Molinos’ methods of spiritual direction. His personal morals were not above reproach. His views were condemned by the pope. He was arrested by the Inquisition; sixty-eight propositions from his works were condemned, and he was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. But some of his books, particularly his Spiritual Guide, were extremely popular. The soul, he taught, attains Christian perfection when it is wholly at rest in God. When it abandons all effort and resigns itself to complete passivity, it loses itself in God, and takes no interest in its own well-being.

This doctrine was introduced into France, and was expounded by a number of minor mystics. Certain convictions were common to all the French Quietists. The believer, they taught, must become a stranger to the world; then he would experience the continual presence of God and live a life of unbroken prayer. They found their incentive in disinterested love of God, their method in the exaltation of passivity, their goal in the abandonment of the will to God. Their contemplation was so inward and personal that they sometimes appeared to undervalue the external proofs of Christian life, even vocal prayer. They conceded to the church a limited and temporary role; it could bring the soul to the outer boundaries of Paradise, but those who aspired to true holiness must look beyond its ministrations to a life of immediate fellowship with God. Such views were certain to find critics as well as advocates. Under normal circumstances Quietism would have caused scarcely a ripple on the surface of French life; Mme Guyon gave it both notoriety and importance.

This remarkable woman came of a good family and possessed great personal charm; her critics claimed that she was also a person of undisciplined zeal and of unbalanced character. Her initial efforts were unquestionably indiscreet, but she soon showed that she could commend her views in high places. She won adherents at Court; she even gained the support of Fénelon. In her writings — particularly in her Short and Easy Method of Prayer (1685) — she elaborated her views. Contemplation, she claimed, was the essential activity of the Christian life. In rapt contemplation of God, the soul, losing all concern for its own well-being, grows indifferent alike to reprobation and to eternal felicity. There is no need to ponder the great truths of the Gospel, not even the life and death of our Saviour, since these are not the proper objects of pure contemplation. The one thing needful is to yield to the torrent of the forces of God’.

Such teachings could not pass unchallenged. Fénelon, who sympathized with her emphasis though he did not share all her views, invited Bossuet to pass judgement on her case. After an interview with Mme Guyon, Bossuet administered a stern warning. He was also the moving spirit in a commission of inquiry which condemned the teachings of Molinos and La Combe, and by implication those of Mme Guyon herself. Not content with this, he began a treatise which would indicate the proper limits of mysticism. But Fénelon anticipated him by publishing his Explanation of the Maxims of the Saints (1697). Fénelon was anxious to conserve the values in Quietism and to guard against its possible abuses. This, he felt, was not an impossible task. The two most distinguished leaders of the French Church were thus openly at variance on a doctrinal issue. Fénelon appealed to the pope, and the pope condemned his views, though in the mildest possible terms (1699). Fénelon at once submitted, and thereafter played little part in the public affairs of the Church.

Though this might seem a controversy of little consequence, its results were serious. It forms an excellent illustration of the complexity of religious issues under Louis XIV; Jansenism, Gallicanism, the rivalries of political parties, and the jealousies of factions at Court all became involved. Issues were blurred, and it became difficult to recognize their true character. The spectacle of an open breach between the two most honoured spiritual guides of the French episcopate confused the faithful and encouraged those who favoured greater laxity.

The age of Louis XIV was entangled in continuous theological debate, but an account of its controversies does not exhaust the record of its religious life. At the outset of the reign there was some disposition to look abroad for spiritual inspiration. Spanish and Italian schools of devotion had their disciples, but neither the torrid fervour of the one nor the sentimental dilettantism of the other accorded well with the cool and critical character of the mood which prevailed in France. But there were indigenous movements which were healthier in tone and far more permanent in their effect. St Vincent de Paul (d. 166o) was deeply distressed at the benighted condition of the country curés, and he founded the Lazarists (Priests of the Mission) to evangelize the neglected areas of France. Poverty and its consequences were prevalent in rural districts; to alleviate them he established the Sisters of Charity. In important respects he deviated from normal practice. Religious orders had usually demanded as large a measure of independence as they could achieve; St Vincent de Paul insisted that his workers be subject to the bishops. The conventual life, isolated from the world and devoted to prayer, had formed the accepted pattern for women with a religious bent; the Sisters of Charity were founded to work in close contact with their neighbours.

St Vincent de Paul was not alone in his concern for the training of the clergy. The need was great, and little had been done to meet it. The average curé was usually poor and often astonishingly ignorant: some did not even know the common formula of absolution. Those who desired a theological education had little chance of getting it. Theology was wholly ignored in most of the provincial universities, and diocesan seminaries, recent in origin, were still few in number. The French Oratory had been founded to train clergy, but its distinction as a centre of learning restricted its wider effectiveness. It numbered among its members some scholars of great eminence, but it did not fulfil its founder’s hope that it would help to train a better educated country clergy. The Congregation of Saint-Maur was a home of critical and historical studies, and Mabillon’s labours in church history earned it a distinguished reputation, but it, too, was restricted in its scope. The task of educating the ordinary clergy was largely discharged by two orders founded in. 1642 and 164.3 — the Sulpicians and the Eudists. They emphasized piety, not learning, and they notably improved the standards of the priesthood. Similar to them in spirit, though committed to a different task, were the Christian Brothers (founded 168o) — an order of celibate laymen who provided teachers for the humblest type of school. The first half of the seventeenth century had seen the establishment of a variety of other orders; many of these were still in the first flush of their enthusiasm, and played an important role in the rejuvenation of church life.

No account of the age of Louis XIV could pretend to be complete if it ignored the influence of the leading preachers of the capital. Sermons were one of the few means of moulding public opinion; they were almost the only vehicle of criticism in matters of high public concern. This was not without its perils: the preacher was tempted to prostitute his pulpit to political ends, and even to use it for his personal advancement. In a self-conscious and literary age, sermons often became over-elaborate in structure and highly stylized in form. Prominent court preachers in particular sometimes subordinated their message to then- method of presenting it. Such artificiality was attacked by St Vincent de Paul and by other leaders of the religious revival, and was rebuked by the example of Bossuet, one of the most splendid ornaments of the French pulpit. In his preaching, he aimed to combine theology and ethics in such a way that theory would fortify practice. A passion for the Gospel and a concern for Christian conduct were held in skilful equipoise, and both were reinforced by the magnificent rhetoric with which he clothed them. In the latter years of the reign, Bossuet seldom preached in Paris, and his place as the leading preacher of the capital was taken by the Jesuit Bourdaloue. It was of his sermons that Fénelon remarked that they were superb arguments about Christianity, but they were not religion.