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Rh only available recourse. It was thought that he might be amenable to papal reasoning; that something might be gained by a friendly interference to obtain a revocation, or at least a suspension of the obnoxious decree. The plan was tried and failed. Indeed the pope's brief of April 16th, overpraising the virtues and other merits of the Jesuits, at that particular time, and bespeaking favor for them, was a blunder; at all events, it did not mend matters.

The king submitted the brief for advice to his council, which on the 30th of the same month met in extra session, and after minutely reviewing its contents, expressed the opinion that the pope had no business to interfere in a matter so entirely temporal in its nature, and of the king's exclusive province; and that no power on earth had any right to call him to account for his decision thereon, much less after he had, from pure courtesy, advised the pope of his action in the premises. The council, furthermore, not recognizing in the Jesuits the merits ascribed to them, but on the contrary many serious faults that made them dangerous, could see no reason why the sovereign should abandon or even modify his order. It concluded