The nuns were now permitted gradually to return to their valley, and the Solitaries renewed the attack upon the morality of the Jesuits. On this side the Jesuits could securely rely upon the sympathy of Louis XIV., and the second brilliant criticism which the Jansenists published, the _Practical Morality of the Jesuits_, was condemned by Parlement, at the intervention of the royal procurator, to be publicly burned. Jesuit succeeded Jesuit in the care of the King's conscience, in spite of his notorious and continuous immorality during nearly twenty years. Their French apologist ventures to tell us that they "declared war on the King's heart," and quotes Bayle as saying, in regard to the _liaison_ with Mlle de la Vallière, that "Father Annat teased the prince daily about it and gave him no rest." It is one of the most flagrant pieces of "Jesuitry" in M. Crétineau-Joly's work. Bayle (in a note to the article _Annat_) merely quotes these words from a pamphleteer whom he describes as utterly unworthy of credence; and I may add that the purpose of the pamphleteer is merely to prove that the later confessor, Père la Chaise, was worse than Père Annat. The truth is that Annat remained in his charge during the whole of the eight years when Louis clung to Mlle de la Vallière, and, when the brilliant and unscrupulous Marquise de Montespan succeeded in securing the position of royal mistress in 1670, and Père Annat retired on the ground of age, his colleague Père Ferrier took his place. For four years he remained in charge of the King's remarkable conscience, and it is not irrelevant to observe that he was rewarded with a power that no royal confessor had hitherto had in France. He and his colleagues now had the sole right to nominate bishops, and the character of the French episcopacy in the later years of Louis XIV. is largely attributable to them. Ferrier died in 1674, and the famous Père la Chaise, a man of moderate ability but courtly manners, was appointed royal confessor. He remained at his post during the remaining five years of the _liaison_ with Mme de Montespan, and it was Mme de Maintenon (and advance in years), rather than his confessor, who led the royal sinner into the paths of virtue.