It was seen at an early period of the controversy that there was no probability of its being settled by any tribunal short of that of the pope himself. Fénelon, seeing the unscrupulous, powerful forces that were arrayed against him in Paris, applied to the king in July, 1697, for permission to go to Rome under any restrictions His Majesty might think appropriate. This the monarch absolutely refused, knowing well, no doubt, that the personal charm of the saintly disputant would be likely to carry everything before it. He would only permit him to send agents there to act in his behalf. Fénelon himself he curtly ordered to proceed immediately to his diocese, to remain there, and not to stop in Paris on the way any longer than his affairs made his stay absolutely necessary. Fénelon received this undeserved sentence of banishment, very roughly couched, with his customary calmness and submission. In passing through the city he stopped before the seminary of St. Sulpice, where he had spent so many happy hours, and which he was never to see again; but he forbore from entering the house lest his showing a regard for it might expose its inhabitants to His Majesty’s displeasure. The king, with his own hands, some time after this, crossed off Fénelon’s name from the list of court officials, and also dismissed from service every one connected with him, save only the Abbé Fleury, who, though a devoted friend of the archbishop, had never taken any part in the exciting topics of the day. But the rest who had been employed about the Duke of Burgundy for nine years, not blamelessly alone but how successfully his altered character and advanced education could show, were rudely sent off without any acknowledgment whatever of their valuable services, without even a civil word or a penny of reward.