Such are the Christian words which Benedict XIII. directed to be recited or sung in the churches, for the edification of the faithful and instruction of kings. But the parliament of Paris took offence at this very pious legend, condemned it as seditious, and forbade its publication.—The parliaments of Metz, of Rennes, and Bourdeaux, opposed themselves, not less vigorously, to the insertion in the breviaries of this novel style of praying to God. There were even French bishops, those of Montpelier, Troyes, Metz, Verdun, and Auxerre, who would not recognize this new supplement to the divine office, and published directions, to refuse expressly the worship of St. Hildebrand. It may be proper to observe, that Cardinal Fleury, who then ruled France, abstained from mingling his voice with that of those who remonstrated against this canonization: in truth, he did not take up more openly the defence of the legend;³²⁶ but he knew where to find the members of the parliament who had rejected it; he obliged them to register, on the 3rd of April 1730, without any modification, the bull ‘Unigenitus’, which was not a whit more pleasing to them. In France then they were quit for this bull; and the government did not compel the celebration of the sainted pontiff who had dethroned an emperor. Benedict was obliged to content himself with establishing this devout practice in Italy, where, since 1729, all the churches pay religious adoration annually to Gregory VII. The sovereigns of Europe are either ignorant of it, or disdain to complain of it. ³²⁶ He contented himself with neutralizing as much as he could, the effects of the resistance of the bishops, and the resolutions of the parliament. The 18th of February 1730, he wrote to the council “that it sufficed in the present circumstances that the essential, that is, the maxims of the kingdom be secured. Prudence requires that we seek not to encrease the evil rather than cure it. The king desires especially that no mention be made of the mandate of the bishop of Auxerre; he ought to know that it was his duty, before its publication, to have made himself acquainted with the intentions of H. M. on so delicate an affair, and have come to concert the mode in which it should have been expounded.” In a letter to the first president, dated 24th of February, the same year, Fleury testifies ‘much joy’ that kings passed off so well in the parliament with respect to the decree by which the briefs of Benedict XIII. had been condemned and suppressed; but the cardinal adds: "I have forgotten to represent to you, that it would not be suitable that this decree should be cried about the streets, for fear of wrong interpretations, and the noise that the ill-disposed might make about it.”