In France they were, as hath been above said, in the greatest favour at Court, under Henry the Third: this Prince, who, before he was called to the Throne on the death of his Brother, had given every hope of an able warrior, and a great King, having inlisted in one of these Fraternities. As a powerful party was at that time set up, in France, against the authority of the Crown, and most of the people in Paris favoured that party, the King had attempted to overaw them by a display of Majesty, and being constantly accompanied when he made his appearance in public, by a numerous body of Halberdiers; but this not having succeeded, he tried to amuse the People by public shews; and in that view, as a Writer of those times says, instituted in Paris Fraternities of Penitents, in which he made himself a Brother. This expedient, however, did not succeed: these disciplining processions only served to bring sarcasms upon the Court, and the King himself; and among them that of Maurice Poncet has been recorded, who, besides other invectives he delivered from the pulpit, compared the disciplining Penitents, as hath been abovementioned, to men who should cover themselves with a wet cloth to keep off the rain. This reflection of Poncet was thought to be the more pointed, as, the very day before, the King had Walked in a procession of Penitents, during which a most heavy shower of rain had fallen, and the King with his Chancellor, and the whole train of Disciplinants, had been thoroughly soaked. The King was informed, the next day, of the jest of Poncet; and this, together no doubt with the remembrance of the rain of the day before, caused him to be much incensed against the Preacher: however, as notwithstanding his vices and weakness, he was a Man of the mildest temper, as well as of unbounded liberality, he contented himself with having the Monk sent back to his Convent. In subsequent times, that is in the year 1601, under the reign of Henry IV. a Sentence was passed, as hath been abovementioned, by the Parliament of Paris, to abolish the Fraternity of the _Blue Penitents_, in the City of Bourges. The motive of the Parliament was not, however, their tender care for the skin of these Blue Penitents: but that Fraternity had been rendered a kind of political Association against the reigning King, who was during his whole life persecuted by bigotry, till he fell a victim to it at last; and they had joined several treasonable declarations and engagements, to their Statutes: for this reason the Fraternity was forbidden to meet again, under pain of being prosecuted as guilty of High Treason. From that time Brotherhoods of Penitents have been constantly discountenanced in France; and they are continued only in some Towns in the Southern Provinces, distant from the Metropolis.