(4) That the decisions of the Pope are not irreformable, except by the consent of the universal Church. These resolutions thus passed by the clergy were registered by the Parlements, and accepted by the Sorbonne, and became law of the land which all loyal subjects were bound to obey. [Sidenote: =Constitutional question between the Crown and the Pope.=] Thus was raised once more the old constitutional question between the Church and the Pope. The decisions of the Assembly of S. Germain had behind them a weight of authority and practice, unquestioned in the primitive Church, repeatedly asserted in the medieval Church, formulated at the council of Constance, lately vindicated at serious risk by the English Church, but clean contrary to the pretensions of the Hildebrandine Papacy and the decisions of the council of Trent. It was absurd to expect that a Pope however weak could at a moment’s notice turn his back upon a theory on which the Papacy had continuously acted for six hundred years. Innocent felt that he had no choice in the matter. He at once condemned the decrees, and refused to issue the usual bulls sanctioning the consecration of priests who had accepted them to the episcopate. Before many years had passed there were no less than thirty sees in France without a bishop, and hundreds of cures without canonically instituted priests. The condition of affairs was singularly like that in England when the statute in restraint of the payment of Annates was passed. [Sidenote: =Analogy to the English Reformation.=] Each country had solemnly asserted a view of the constitutional rights of the Church within its borders, which was diametrically opposed to that of the Papacy, and was denounced by the Curia as schismatical. In support of the national theory the majority of the clergy in each country was prepared to enter at the bidding of the Crown into a contest with the Pope, which could but result in the increase of the royal authority over them. In the mouth of Louis XIV. as in that of Henry VIII. the liberties of the national Church meant in reality the power of the national king. But unlike Henry VIII. Louis XIV. was too wary to be pushed to extremes. He carefully avoided any overt act which could be construed into an undue assertion of independence. He contented himself with a purely negative position. Where bulls were refused the sees remained vacant, and the Crown enjoyed the profits of the vacancy. There was no divorce question to complicate matters. Henry VIII. could not wait, Louis XIV. could. Consequently, in spite of much talk about a patriarchate of France, no definite steps had been taken to increase the difficulties of a settlement, when it became the obvious interest of both sides to restore peace. [Sidenote: =Settlement of the quarrel, 1693.=] In 1693, when Louis was involved in the war of the League of Augsburg, and the influence of Madame de Maintenon had become paramount at court, he