"The king will be pained to decide against your opinion as regards the new converts," says a letter to him from Madame de Maintenon; "meanwhile the most general is to force them to attend at mass.

Your opinion seems to be a condemnation of all that has been hitherto done against these poor creatures.

It is not pleasant to hark back so far, and it has always been supposed that, in any case, they must have a religion." In vain were liberty of conscience and its inviolable rights still misunderstood by the noblest spirits, the sincerity and high-mindedness of the great bishops instinctively revolted against the hypocrisy engendered of persecution.

The tacit assuagement of the severities against the Reformers, between 1688 and 1700, was the fruit of the representations of Bossuet, Fenelon, and Cardinal Noailles.

Madame de Maintenon wrote at that date to one of her relatives, "You are converted; do not meddle in the conversion of others.