The struggle continued through the winter, and in the spring (1762) the King annulled the measures taken against them, but bade them modify their Constitutions. They were in future to have a Vicar-General in France, independent of the Roman General, and to be subject to the bishops. Louis had secretly consulted the Roman authorities, and urged them that this compromise was absolutely necessary to save the French Province; and, although General Ricci bitterly replied: "Sint ut sunt, aut non sint" ("Let them be as they are, or not be at all"), the proposal was openly made in France. But Parlement refused to register the King's decree, and went on to close eighty-four Jesuit colleges. All through the spring and summer the fusillade of pamphlets and the fiery debates of Parlements were sustained, the Jesuits straining every resource to avert the blow, and on 6th August 1762 the Paris Parlement decreed that the Society must cease to exist in France. The Jesuits were expelled from their residences, and a small pension was allotted them out of the confiscated property. Their entire property in France was valued at nearly 60,000,000 francs, and they had, as it proved, forfeited this rather than pay the just debts of Lavalette. At the same time the Paris Parlement condemned one hundred and sixty-four works written by Jesuits between 1600 and 1762. Louis XV. signed the decree of suppression in December 1764, and from school and palace, from humble residences among the poor and the mansions of princes, the Jesuits sadly made their way toward the frontiers of the land in which they had so long enjoyed and abused a remarkable power. In vain was the Pope induced to protest against the action of Louis XV. Some of the chief provincial Parlements condemned the Pope's bull to be burned in the public square, and the Parlement of Paris disdainfully rejected it. The vast majority of the nation applauded the suppression; and, once their power was gone, the Jesuits were overwhelmed by the flood of hatred that now rose freely against them. It was useless to plead that a few sceptical lawyers or statesmen had wrought their ruin. In a few localities they were still protected by the Provincial authorities; but the country at large, by the mouths of its officials and the great body of its clergy, rejoiced in their fall. They sought at first to parry the blow with customary manoeuvres. Large numbers of them laid aside their dress and name, and remained to intrigue against their opponents; and in 1767 the Paris Parlement decreed that they must all leave the country. Except for a few who still remained as private teachers of the young, having ostensibly quitted the Society, and a few who were sheltered in ultramontane localities, the Jesuits were now ignominiously expelled from the land of St. Louis. And few will read the long story of their work in France and not acknowledge that it was a just conclusion of their intrigues,