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.  “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.  I confess to you that I do not like the idea of answering before God and the king for all those conversions.”