o 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