Vol. 1 - History of the Catholic Church from Renaissance to French Revolution

interpretation, but the Popes refused to change the decisions that had
been given by their predecessors. The Parliament of Paris espoused the
cause of the /Appellants/, and refused to allow the bishops to take
energetic action against them, until at last the king grew alarmed at
the danger that threatened France. The energetic action taken by the
provincial council of Embrun against some of the /Appellant/ bishops
(1727) received the approval of the court. In the following year
(1728) Cardinal Noailles was induced to make his submission, and in a
short time the Sorbonne doctors by a majority imitated his example.
Though these submissions were not without good results, yet they
served only to embitter still more the minds of a large body of the
Jansenist party, and to strengthen them in their opposition to the
Bull, /Unigenitus/.

The Jansenists having failed to secure the approval of Pope or king
for their heretical teaching appealed to the visible judgment of God.
The deacon, Francis of Paris,[4] who was one of the leaders of the
sect, and whose sanctity was vouched for, according to his friends, by
the fact that he had abstained from receiving Holy Communion for two
years, died in 1727, and was buried in the cemetery of Saint Medard.
Crowds flocked to pray at his tomb, and it was alleged that wonderful
cures were being wrought by his intercession. One of the earliest and
most striking of these miracles was investigated by the Archbishop of
Paris and was proved to be without foundation, but others still more
remarkable were broadcast by the party, with the result that hosts of
invalids were brought from all parts of France in the hope of
procuring recovery. Many, especially women, went into ecstasies and
violent convulsions round the tomb, and while in this state they
denounced the Pope, the bishops, and in a word all the adversaries of
Jansenism. Owing to the unseemly and at times indecent scenes that
took place the cemetery was closed by the civil authorities (1732),
but the /Convulsionnaires/, as they were called, claimed that similar
miracles were wrought in private houses, in which they assembled to
pray, and to which clay taken from the tomb of the Deacon of Paris had
been brought. The great body of the people ridiculed the extravagances
of the sect, and many of the moderate Jansenists condemned the
/Convulsionnaires/ in unsparing terms. Instead of doing Jansenism any
good these so-called miracles, utterly unworthy as they were of divine
wisdom and holiness, served only to injure its cause, and indeed to
injure the Christian religion generally, by placing a good weapon in
the hands of its rationalist adversaries.

But even though heaven had not declared in favour of the Jansenists
the Parliament of Paris determined to protect them. It defended
bishops who refused to accept the Bull /Unigenitus/ against the Pope,
tried to prevent the orthodox bishops from suspending appellant
priests, and forbade the exclusion of appellant laymen from the
sacraments. The Parliament of Paris condemned the action of the clergy
in refusing the last sacraments to the dying unless they could prove
they had made their confession to an approved priest. Though the privy
council annulled this condemnation Parliament stood by its decision,
and challenged the authority of the Archbishop of Paris by punishing
priests who refused the sacraments (1749-52). The bishops appealed to
the king to defend the liberty of the Church, but the Parliament
asserted its jurisdiction by depriving the Archbishop of Paris of his
temporalities and by endeavouring to have him cited before the civil
courts. Louis XIV. annulled the sentence of the Parliament, and
banished some of the more violent of its members from the capital
(1753). They were, however, soon recalled, and a royal mandate was
issued enforcing silence on both parties. For infringing this order de
Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris, was banished from his See, and several
other bishops and priests were summoned before the legal tribunals.

The Assembly of the Clergy in 1755 petitioned the king to give more
freedom to the Church, and to restore the exiled Archbishop of Paris
to his See. A commission was established to examine the whole question
of the refusal of the sacraments, and as the Commission could not
arrive at any decision, the case was submitted to Benedict XIV., who
decided that those who were public and notorious opponents of the
Bull, /Unigenitus/, should be treated as public sinners and should be
excluded from the sacraments (1756). The Parliament of Paris and some
of the provincial parliaments forbade the publication of the papal
decision, but a royal order was issued commanding the universal
acceptance of the Bull, /Unigenitus/, even though it might not be
regarded as an irreformable rule of faith. According to this mandate