"I declare," he wrote to M.de Baville, "that I am and have always been of opinion, first, that princes may by penal laws constrain all heretics to conform to the profession and practices of the Catholic church; secondly, that this doctrine ought to be held invariable in the church, which has not only conformed to, but has even demanded, similar ordinances from princes." He at the same time opposed the constraint put upon the new converts to oblige them to go to mass, without requiring from them any other act of religion.
"When the emperors imposed a like obligation on the Donatists," he wrote to the Bishop of Mirepoix, "it was on the supposition that they were converted, or would be; but the heretics at the present time, who declare themselves by not fulfilling their Easter (communicating), ought to be rather hindered from assisting at the mysteries than constrained thereto, and the more so in that it appears to be a consequence thereof to constrain them likewise to fulfil their Easter, which is expressly to give occasion for frightful sacrilege.

They might be constrained to undergo instruction; but, so far as I can learn, that would hardly advance matters, and I think that we must be reduced to three things; one is, to oblige them to send their children to the schools, or, in default, to find means of taking them out of their hands; another is, to be firm as regards marriages; and the last is, to take great pains to become privately acquainted with those of whom there are good hopes, and to procure for them solid instruction and veritable enlightenment; the rest must be left to time and to the grace of God.

I know of nothing else." About the same time Fenelon, engaged upon the missions in Poitou, being as much convinced as the Bishop of Meaux of a sovereign's rights over the conscience of the faithful, as well as of the terrible danger of hypocrisy, wrote to Bossuet, telling him that he had demanded the withdrawal of the troops in all the districts he was visiting: "It is no light matter to change the sentiments of a whole people.

What difficulty must the apostles have found in changing the face of the universe, overcoming all passions, and establishing a doctrine till then unheard of, seeing that we cannot persuade the ignorant by clear and express passages which they read every day in favor of the religion of their ancestors, and that the king's own authority stirs up every passion to render persuasion more easy for us! The remnants of this sect go on sinking little by little, as regards all exterior observance, into a religious indifference which cannot but cause fear and trembling.

If one wanted to make them abjure Christianity and follow the Koran, there would be nothing required but to show them the dragoons; provided that they assemble by night, and withstand all instruction, they consider that they have done enough." Cardinal Noailles was of the same mind as Bossuet and FEnelon.