The Sorbonne offered a strong opposition to the Jansenists, as did also the bishops (1656). In the same year Alexander VII. issued the Bull, /Ad Sanctam Petri Sedem/, by which he condemned the distinction drawn between law and fact, and declared that the five propositions were to be found in /Augustinus/ and were condemned in the sense in which they were understood by the Jansenists. The Assembly of the Clergy having accepted this Bull drew up a formulary of faith based on the teaching it contained. The greater part of the Jansenists either refused entirely to subscribe to this formulary, or else subscribed only with certain reservations and restrictions. The nuns at Port Royal were most obstinate in their refusal. As they persisted in their attitude notwithstanding the prayers and entreaties of the Archbishop of Paris he was obliged reluctantly to exclude them from the sacraments. One of the principal objections urged against the acceptance of the formulary being that the Assembly of the Clergy had no authority to prescribe any such profession of faith, Alexander VII. at the request of many of the bishops issued a new constitution, /Regiminus Apostolici/ (1664), in which he insisted that all priests secular and regular and all members of religious communities should subscribe to the anti-Jansenist formulary that he forwarded. Most of the Jansenists refused to yield obedience even to the commands of the Pope. They were strengthened in their refusal by the fact that four of the French bishops set them a bad example by approving publicly in their pastorals the Jansenist distinction between law and fact. The Council of State promptly suppressed these pastorals (1665), and at the request of Louis XIV. Alexander VII. appointed a commission for the trial of the disobedient bishops. In the meantime, before the commission could proceed with the trial, Alexander VII. died, and was succeeded by Clement IX. (1667). Several of the French bishops addressed a joint letter to the new Pope, in which by a rather unfair use of extracts from the works of theologians they sought to excuse the attitude of their brother bishops, and at the same time they hinted to the king that the controversy was taking a course likely to be fraught with great danger to the liberties of the Gallican Church. Louis XIV., who had been hitherto most determined in his efforts against the Jansenists, began to grow lukewarm, and the whole situation in France was fast becoming decidedly critical. Some of the French bishops offered their services as mediators. Through their intervention it was agreed that without expressly retracting their pastorals the bishops should consent to sign the formulary drawn up by the Pope, and induce the clergy to do likewise. The bishops signed the formulary, and held synods in which they secured the signatures of their clergy, but at the same time in their conversations and in their addresses they made it perfectly clear that they had done so only with