The King, employed like a good father, according to the expression of a celebrated author, in parting his children who were fighting, was desirous of supporting himself by an authority respectable to both parties, and especially to the most numerous: he thought proper to consult on this question, by which all France was agitated, the late pope Benedict XIV. a man of understanding, who loved not the Jesuits, and who at the bottom despised this controversy. The pope replied like a crafty Italian; on one side he ordained the acceptance of the bull, the work of one of his _infallible_ predecessors, which he could not decently condemn; on the other, he declared at the same time, that the Jansenists who rejected it, ought nevertheless to have the sacraments administered to them at their deaths, “but at their own risque and hazard,” and after having been _thoroughly advertized_ of the danger which they ran with respect to their eternal salvation. From this period the refusals of the sacraments became less frequent; the Jansenists and their adversaries thought they had alike the pope for them, and tranquillity seemed almost re-established. It was not even lessened by the step which the parliament thought itself obliged to take some time after, of protesting anew against this bull _Unigenitus_; the acceptance of which it had registered with reluctance. It called not in question indeed the doctrine of the bull; that would have been to encroach on the authority of the church, and it knew too well the limits of its own rights: it protested only against the execution of this bull, declaring it contrary to what is termed in France “the liberties of the Gallican Church.” This protest had not the glory it merited; it was the sequel of a number of writings, of which the French levity began to be tired. Nay, the partisans of the bull even made a jest, with an indecency that deserved punishment, of the “pretended liberties of the Gallican Church,” by virtue of which, the parliament, according to the terms of its decrees, enjoined the priests, under ignominious penalties, to administer the sacraments: they saw not, said they jeeringly, how such decrees supported and favoured the liberty of the church of France, by forcing its ministers to do what they did not think they ought to do. This way of talking, these contests, the pieces without number, which resulted from them, served to feed the frivolous disposition and gaiety of the nation: people laughed at the reciprocal animosity of the theologists of both parties, for questions which deserved it so little: for that animosity, though very usual, and of all ages, always astonishes and amuses reasonable people. Every body laughed no less at seeing, that notwithstanding the reiterated orders issued by the Sorbonne, to mention no more of the bull _Unigenitus_, either in their writings or their theses, the college displayed an attachment the most obstinate to this bull, which it had rejected so long.