His character for consistency and principle suffered in consequence. In 1732, the old quarrel of ultra-montanism and Jesuits was renewed with great animosity. Some bishops and ecclesiastics resisted the Papal Bull. Those who suffered for their opposition appealed to the Parliament, who, as of old, upheld liberty of conscience, and, in connexion with it, personal freedom. Daguesseau sought to act as moderator, to calm at once the resistance of the Parliament and the rigour of the court. He was obliged, in consequence, to make himself party to some of the complaints of the one, and to some acts of persecution on the part of the other. Four of the more violent young counsellors were exiled. The high personal character of the Chancellor alone enabled him to bear up against the obloquy and reproach that were directed against him from both sides; but fortunately the storm was of short duration, for the menaces of foreign war drowned the voices of ecclesiastical and legal disputants. On the disgrace of Chauvelin, in 1737, the seals were returned to Daguesseau, who thus once more reunited in his person all the functions and honours of his place. He kept them until the year 1750, when, feeling that his infirmities rendered him incapable of performing his duty, he resigned. At the King’s request, he retained the titular dignity of Chancellor until his death, February 9, 1751. It is hard, in a brief and popular memoir, to assign reasons for the high reputation enjoyed by Daguesseau. His celebrity is rather traditional than historical; it can be appreciated only by those skilled in the science and history of French law, by those who are acquainted with the great and innumerable ameliorations wrought in the system of law and legal proceeding by his assiduity and talents. Indeed that part of his career, which is necessarily most prominent in history, the share which he took in politics and administration, was by far the least honourable. Renowned as a pleader, his very talents in this respect are said to have unfitted him for judicial functions. “Long habits of the _parquet_ (the office of the Attorney-General) had perverted his talents. The practice is there to collect, to examine, to weigh, and compare the reasons of two different parties; to display, in different balances, their various arguments, with all the grace and flowers of eloquence, omitting nothing on either side, so that no one could perceive to which side the Advocate-General leaned. The continual habit of this during twenty-four years, joined to the natural scruples of a conscientious man, and the ever-starting points and objections of the learned one, had moulded him into a character of incertitude, out of which he could never escape. To decide was an _accouchement_ with him, so painful was it.” From this account by St. Simon, we learn how honourable and impartial was the office of the public accuser in the old French courts; and that he blended with his functions the high