This wholesome caution was not long sustained, nor indeed was it really necessary. The time was one of keen political excitement. It was in this very summer of 1732 that the great conflict of old French privilege and tradition against the arrogant zeal of the Ultramontane party reached its acutest stage; and it happened that that was the question of all others with which d'Argenson was competent to deal. He had been for some years a member of the ecclesiastical committee of the Council, and at the Entresol, as we have seen, he had been charged with the department of canon law.[178] Upon the questions at issue he entertained ideas at once liberal and politic. He admitted in principle the plea of ecclesiastical authority; but as a politician he deprecated any encouragement of its supporters in their factious proceedings against the Jansenists; the attitude of the Government in regard to heterodoxy should be simply one of passive disapproval. But it was no longer time to think of principles and policies; the matter had now resolved itself into a fierce conflict of privilege between the Crown and the Parlement of Paris. On the 13th of June the Parlement accepted an appeal in the teeth of direct orders from the King. The reception was quashed by a decree of Council, and four magistrates were sent to join Pucelle in exile. The Chambers of Inquests and Requests immediately resigned.[179] D'Argenson's views upon the crisis were strong and clear. They were laid before the Ministry; and the author received a letter from Chauvelin, the Warden of the Seals, to the effect that two hours' conversation with him would be of material service to the Government. He set out at once for Compiègne, halted a moment for breath, scribbled out a "policy complete," and presented it to Chauvelin in a secret interview which lasted from five o'clock in the morning until nine.[180] In the whole of the discussions he appears to have taken a prominent part; he was kept informed, by secret channels, of the deliberations of the Cabinet;[181] and he seems to have been treated throughout as an active and esteemed adviser. The nature of his advice we are at no loss to determine. Among the documents destroyed at the Louvre was one written by d'Argenson when the struggle was at its height. It is in the form of a letter from an Englishman to a Frenchman.[182] In the course of it he says: