By this time Louis XIV. had entered on his later phase of decaying power and sincere interest in religious matters. Mme de Maintenon had consolidated her influence over him by a secret marriage in 1684, and given a religious direction to his thoughts. One terrible consequence of this tardy and ill-balanced zeal was, as history tells, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), and a horrible oppression of the Protestants. It would be a mistake to cast the whole blame of this lamentable cruelty and its evil effects for the country upon the Jesuits. The higher French clergy generally still entertained the persecuting spirit, and had for years pressed for violent measures against the sectarians, who refused to yield to their arguments. Père la Chaise was only one of many narrow-minded priests who impelled Louis XIV. to crown a series of unjust measures against the Protestants with this cruel and impolitic act. It was, however, the consummation of the violent policy which the Jesuits had urged from the beginning, and one may justly doubt whether Louis XIV. would, even in his last phase, have adopted such a measure if the court-Jesuits had not pressed for it. In the sobered court the Jesuits continued for some time to enjoy a great influence, though it was increasingly checked by Mme de Maintenon and the prelates she favoured. In 1688, Louis determined to make the French Jesuits independent of the Roman authorities; but they contrived to dissuade him. They continued to fight the Regalists and the Jansenists with the poisoned weapons of calumny, abuse, and intrigue. The most unedifying scenes were witnessed in the southern dioceses, and Jansenist leaders, like Arnauld, were pursued even beyond the frontiers. One illustration of this prolonged and misguided campaign must suffice. In the year 1690 the theologians of Douai received a number of letters bearing the signature of Arnauld; and, in what they understood to be a private correspondence with the Jansenist leader, they committed themselves to phrases which no other occasion would have extracted from them. This correspondence was then published by the Jesuits, and the professors of the Douai University were expelled and replaced by members of the Society. The fraud, however, proved one more detail in the long account which France would presently settle with the Jesuits. Arnauld, who was living in the Netherlands, at once denounced the letters as forgeries, and held up the Jesuits to public contempt as the direct or indirect authors.