Bossuet penetrated the real piety of the lady, and was unwilling to distress her by opposition, as long as her tenets were confined to her own mind. For what would be highly injurious if spread abroad, was innocuous while it related solely to herself. He therefore recommended retirement and quiet, to which she for a time adhered; but as she had the spirit of proselytism awake in her, she soon grew weary of obscurity, and applied to madame de Maintenon to prevail on the king to appoint commissioners to inquire into her doctrines and morals. The bishops of Meaux and Chartres, and M. Tronson, were accordingly named. For six months they held conferences, and discussed the subject. Bossuet admitted that he was little conversant with the writings of the mystical saints, whose doctrines and expressions were the model of those of madame Guyon; and Fénélon made a variety of extracts, at his request, which were to serve as authorities for the lady's writings. At the conclusion of the conferences, thirty articles were drawn up, to which Fénélon added four; in which, without direct allusion to madame Guyon, the commissioners expressed the doctrines of the church of Rome on the disputed points. In these they name salvation as the proper subject of a Christian's desire and prayer; and assert, that prayer does not consist in a state of mind, but in an active sense of resignation: they do not reprobate passive prayer; but they regard it as unnecessary; while they agree in the propriety of direct addresses to the Deity, and frequent meditation on the sufferings of the Saviour. Although these articles subverted her favourite doctrine of the holy state of mind being the life in God necessary to a Christian, Madame Guyon, as a dutiful daughter of the church, signed the articles without hesitation.