In a bed of justice held December 13, 1756, the King forbade the Parliament to decree the administration of the sacraments, to convene general assemblies, to interfere with the course of justice, to suspend the registration of edicts. He suppressed the chambers of inquests, and declared that he would punish any who would not obey. One hundred and fifty members of the Parliament sent in their resignations. All Paris was in commotion. A riot was momentarily expected. Nothing was heard but oaths and curses. The Parliament and Jansenistic diatribes had the result of exciting Damiens to the insanity of fanaticism. He thought that in striking Louis XV. he was acting for God and the people. Madame de Pompadour, still more versatile than the King, was at this time the enemy of the Parliament. However, the exile of the Archbishop continued, because nothing could induce him to curry-favor with the favorite. The charge which he sent from Conflans to Paris displeased the Marquise. “Let us enter into our own selves, my dear brethren,” said he, “and see whether the aberrations of our own minds and hearts have not drawn upon us so terrible an effect of the divine wrath. Examine without prejudice what has been deserved by so many errors diffused among the public, so much license in speech, such blasphemies against God and His Christ, such disputing against the known truth, such scandals in every condition and of all kinds; observe, in particular, whether, since the weakening of faith among us, a multitude of principles tending to disobedience and even to rebellion against the sovereign and his laws have not insinuated themselves into men’s minds and books. It would be easy for us to remind you of the maxims of the holy doctors which have never ceased to inspire those sentiments of fidelity that are due to earthly princes; the decisions of councils which have anathematized every doctrine capable of revolting peoples against the sovereign; the perpetual instructions of pastors, who have always said with the great Apostle: Obey your temporal masters in all things.... What are we to think of the execrable crime which has been conceived in the bosom of the country and executed under our eyes? What must be our indignation at the memory of a treasonable attempt, deliberately planned, and made in that palace where everything announces the majesty of the sovereign?”