The negotiation of the Three Propositions was considered a private matter, but it came to the ears of the Pope. Innocent probably was aware that it was to a great extent managed by a section of the secular clergy, who, perhaps from their close connection with the intellectual society of Paris, held Gallican views of so extreme a type that they would gladly have settled the matter without reference to Rome, and who saw in the whole affair a nice opportunity of getting rid of their enemies the Jesuits, whom they thoughtfully suggested should be excluded from the general toleration; indeed, one of the chief supporters of the scheme was a priest named Holden, who was a great friend of Sir Kenelm Digby and Thomas White, and who had long been noted for the extravagance of his opinions.[358] This gentleman, now resident in Paris, wrote encouraging letters to his co-religionists in England, assuring them that their attitude on the questions raised by the Three Propositions was that of all the learned and judicious men of France. It is true that some of the more timid English Catholics, notwithstanding such encouragement, became alarmed, and wrote an exculpatory letter to the Holy Father, in which they informed him that the denial they had given to the Three Propositions was "in, the negative to theyr affirmative who presented them unto us, not absolutely in theyr negative, for that had indeed intruded further upon the Pope's authority than the subscribers were willing to doe."[359] But even such refinements could not save the conduct of the English Catholics from condemnation at Rome, where the deposing power was not so lightly to be parted with. Thus it is not surprising that Henrietta waited for a reply from the Pope with the heart-sickness of hope deferred. She did not know, what had long been confessed among the initiated, that the Holy Father's chief object was the success of the Confederate Catholics,[360] to whom in the spring of that same year he had sent, together with his paternal benediction, the sum of 50,000 crowns. In September she took up her ever-ready pen and wrote herself to Innocent, a sad letter, in which she speaks of her devotion to the Catholic faith, and of the good intentions which had not been seconded as they should have been. It is not known whether the Pope replied to these reproaches, but a month later he received Sir Kenelm Digby once again, though he was probably aware of the fact that that gentleman was hand-in-glove with those whom he had censured in England.