His enemies sought in vain to find a flaw in his submission. One of his followers wrote: “Your conduct is a living exemplification of the maxims of the saints;” as indeed it was. The dignified humility with which he met misfortune gave him added reputation. He sent out a pastoral letter, short and affecting, which comforted his friends and afflicted his enemies, falsifying every prediction which they had made of the nice subtleties and distinctions with which he would seek to disguise his defeat. His letters at this time breathed in all cases the most amiable spirit of peace and resignation. But in general he declined all writing and discourse on the subject, and at an early moment dismissed the controversy as far as possible from his thoughts. The Bishop of Chartres wrote to Fénelon that he was delighted with his perfect submission: “I have no words to express how my heart is affected with your humble and generous action.” The pope wrote most kindly, and all the cardinals, except Cassanata, sent messages to Fénelon by the Abbé de Chanterac, conveying their respect and attachment. “It is impossible,” wrote the abbé, “to praise more than they did your submission, your pastoral letter, your letters to the pope, and the whole of your conduct.” As one eminent person wrote from Rome, “He was more glorious than if he had never been condemned.” The Chancellor d’Aguesseau writes that Fénelon’s submission made him the hero of the day. “It stands the solitary example in history of a controversy upon a point of such moment which one single sentence terminated at the instant, without its reproduction in any other form, without any attempt to reverse it by power or elude it by distinctions. The glory of it is due to Fénelon, who was able to see that a very great desire to justify one’s self often does more harm than good, and that the surest way to obliterate wrongs unjustly imputed is to let them be forgotten and die out in silence.”