About the same time Ferdinand of Bourbon, duke of Parma, reformed the inveterate abuses in the churclies and monasteries, and disregarded the rights which the pope arrogated to himself, of conferring benefices, and deciding all suits in the territories of Parma, Placentia and Guastalla. Clement assembled the cardinals: in the midst of them he condemned as sacrilege all the acts of Ferdinand’s administration; he declared unlawful whatever he had dared to do in a duchy which appertained to the Holy See “in ducatu nostto” he annulled the edicts published by the dukes; he directed the anathemas of the ‘holy thursday bull’, “in cœna Domini,” against those who drew up these edicts, those who executed them, and whoever adhered to them. Ferdinand, by new decrees, suppressed the pope’s brief and banished the Jesuits. Naples, Venice, Spain, Austria, France, all Europe, took up the duke of Parma’s cause against the holy father. The brief is condemned as invasive of the independent rights of sovereigns; the parliament of Paris extends this condemnation to the bull of holy thursday and, while the king of Naples makes himself master of Beneventum and Ponte Corvo, Louis XV. like Louis XIV. resumes possession of the Comtat Venaissin; the parliament of Aix declares this territory to belong to France, and the count de Rochechouart arrives, and thus addresses the vice-legate, governor of Avignon: “Sir, the king commands me “to replace Avignon in his hands, and you are so− “licited to withdraw:” this was the usual formula in such cases. They spoke also of obliging the pope to restore Ronciglione; Portugal thought of appointing for herself a patriarch: the Romans themselves murmured; and they had in all probability taken very decisive measures, if Clement had not departed this life the 3d of February 1769,³²⁷ and behold wherefore those arms are directed against the church, with which sovereigns are only armed to defend her; behold the cause why they dare to attack with arms in their hands the pastor of the flock of Jesus Christ, even to seduce the people from the authority of their only legitimate sovereign, to invade our states, and a patrimony, which is not ours, but that of St. Peter, of the church, and of "God.” He alludes to Beneventum, Ponte-Corvo, Avignon, &c. and these domains he here calls in direct terms, ‘the patrimony of God.’ ³²⁷ The 19th of June 1768, he wrote, with his own hands, to Maria Theresa, to implore the assistance of this princess against the other sovereigns of Europe. "Thank God,” said he, “we have resisted with a sacerdotal heart unworthy collusions.”