[52] M. J. Noury, _La Champmeslé_, p. 193. [53] Letter of Madame de Sévigné to Madame de Grignan, March 13, 1671. [54] "You know," he wrote to his son, Louis Racine, "what I have said to you about operas and plays; there will probably be some performances at Marly; the King and the Court are aware of the scruples which I entertain about attending them, and they will have a poor opinion of you, if you show so little regard for my sentiments. I know that you will not be dishonoured before men should you go to the play, but do you count it nothing to be dishonoured before God?" [55] Charles Boileau, Abbé of Beaulieu, and a member of the Academy. [56] Here is the renunciation: "In the presence of M. Claude Botte de la Barondière, priest, doctor of theology of the Sorbonne, curé of the church and parish of Saint-Sulpice, at Paris, and the witnesses hereinafter named, Guillaume Marconnau de Brécourt has declared that, having formerly followed the profession of an actor, he renounces it, and promises, with a true and sincere heart, to exercise it no more, even if restored to full and complete health."--Extract from the Register of Saint-Sulpice, cited by M. Gaston Maugras, _Les Comédiens hors la loi_, p. 154 _note_. It appears also to have been customary in the case of an actor to pin to the register of deaths the following paper: "The said person was not absolved and received into holy ground until after having publicly renounced the profession he had formerly exercised, by an act before the notaries." [57] Among Bossuet's supporters was Père Lebrun, of the Oratory, who published a _Discours sur la comédie_. One of this good father's chief objections to the theatre was "because it is perpetually turning into Ridicule parents who strive to prevent their children from contracting love-matches." [58] According to Saint-Simon, the immediate cause of their expulsion was the representation of a licentious comedy, called _La Fausse Prude_, in which character Madame de Maintenon was easily recognised. [59] In 1696, the French actors, desirous of testing the legality of the attitude of the Church towards them, addressed a petition to Innocent XII., in which, after representing that they performed in Paris "none but honest plays, purged of all obscenities, and more calculated to influence the faithful for good than for evil, and inspire them with a horror of vice and a love of virtue," they besought him to inform them if the bishops had the right to excommunicate them. The Holy See, however, unwilling to provoke a conflict with the independent French bishops, who, it well knew, would not hesitate to resist its orders, if it took the part of the actors, referred the petitioners to the Archbishop of Paris, "that they might be treated according to the law." A similar fate awaited a second appeal to Clement XI. in 1701. [60] M. Gaston Maugras, _Les Comédiens hors la loi_, p. 154 _et seq._