8. Cardinal Richelieu, though himself a theological writer, took great care to maintain the liberties of the French crown and church. No extravagance of Hildebrandic principles would find countenance under his administration. Their partisans endeavoured sometimes to murmur against his ecclesiastical measures; it was darkly rumoured that he had a scheme of separating the Catholic church of France, something in the manner of Henry VIII., from the supremacy of Rome, though not from her creed; and one Hersent published, under the name of Optatus Gallus, a book so rapidly suppressed, as to be of the greatest rarity, the aim of which was to excite the public apprehension of this schism.[64] It was in defence of the Gallican liberties, so far as it was yet prudent to assert them, that De Marca was employed to write a treatise, De Concordaniâ Sacerdotii et Imperii. This book was censured at Rome; yet it does not by any means come up to the language afterwards usual in the Gallican church; it belongs to its own age, the transitional period in which Rome had just ceased to act, but not to speak as a mistress. De Marca was obliged to make some concessions before he could obtain the bulls for a bishopric. He rose however afterwards to the see of Paris. The first part of his work appeared in 1641, the second after the death of the author. [64] Biogr. Univ.--Grot. epist. 982, 1354. By some other letters of Grotius, it appears that Richelieu tampered with those schemes of reconciling the different religions which were then afloat, and all which went on setting the Pope nearly aside. Ruarus intimates the same. Epist. Ruar. p. 401. |Controversy of Catholics and Protestants.| |Increased respect for the fathers.|