Any jealousy that may have existed with the ecclesiastics against interference on the part of the State with functions elsewhere held as belonging to the control of the Church, appears in France to have been more than offset by the determination of the Gallic Church to maintain its full independence against Rome. Censorship in France remained, therefore, a matter kept under the direct control of the Crown, to an extent which was paralleled in no country excepting England. The Kings of France, during the two centuries succeeding the invention of printing, were for the most part more keenly interested in furthering the operations of the printer-publishers, than in protecting the doctrines of the Church and the faith of believers against the risks of heretical literature. The undertakings of the printers had been made part of the work of the royal university, and the literary achievements of the Paris press brought prestige to the rulers of France. Censorship was, of course, exercised, and in the case of theological works, the supervision of which was confided to the divines of the Sorbonne, the prohibitions and restrictions were not infrequently narrow and burdensome. It was the case, however, that the press of Paris was on the whole less seriously interfered with during the censorship period than that of any other Catholic State. It was further true, also, that while the prohibition of a book by the Sorbonne did from time to time block the sale of the Paris edition, bringing serious loss to the original publisher, it could not prevent the distribution of copies even among French readers. A work that had proved of sufficient importance to be placed on a Paris Index was pretty sure to be promptly printed in Lyons or in Tours, and if or when the authority of the censors had succeeded in stopping the operations of the provincial printers, the presses of Geneva, Cologne, and Amsterdam were always ready to supply the demand that was quite certain to continue for a work classed as heretical or dangerous. The total circulation and final influence of the book was, therefore, likely to be furthered rather than restricted by the action of the censors.