His correspondence with Pelisson, came to the knowledge of Louisa, Princess Palatine, and Abbess of Maubrusson.  She was a daughter of Frederick, the Elector, and Count Palatine of the Rhine, and a sister, of the Duchess of Hanover.  In early life, she had been converted to the Roman Catholic religion, and had the conversion of her sister, very much at heart.  With this view, she sent to her, the correspondence between Leibniz and Pelisson, and received from her an account of what was passing, between the Bishop of Neustadt, and Molanus.  Both the ladies were anxious, to promote the measure, and that Bossuet should take in it, the leading part, on the side of the Catholics.  This was mentioned to Lewis the Fourteenth, and had his approbation.  The Emperor and both the Princes, by all of whom Bossuet, was personally esteemed, equally approved of it, and it was finally settled that Bossuet and Leibniz, should be joined, to the Bishops of Neustadt, and Molanus, and that the correspondence with Bossuet, should pass through the hands of Madame de Brinon, who acted, as secretary to the Abbess of Maubrusson, and is celebrated, by the writers of the times, for her wit and dexterity in business.  Thus the matter assumed, a still more regular form, and much was expected from the acknowledged talents, learning, and moderation of the actors in it, and their patrons.

III. 2.

The conferences between the Bishop of Neustadt, and Molanus continued for seven months, and ended in their agreeing on 12 articles, to serve for the basis of the discussion, on the terms of the reunion.

The Bishop of Neustadt, communicated these articles to Bossuet.  He seems, to have approved of them generally, but to have thought, that some alteration in them, was adviseable.  This being mentioned to Molanus, he published his Cogitationes Privatae, a profound and conciliating dissertation.  Without entering into any discussion, on the points in dispute, between the churches, he suggested in it a kind of truce, during which, there should be ecclesiastical communion between them:  the Lutherans, were to acknowledge the Pope, as the first of Bishops, in order, and dignity:  the Church of Rome, was to receive the Lutherans, as her children, without exacting from them, any retractation of their alledged errors, or any renunciation, of the articles in their creed, condemned by the Council of Trent.  The anathemas of that council, were to be suspended, and a general council was to be convened, in which the Protestants were to have a deliberative voice:  the sentence of that council, was to be definitive, and, in the mean time, the members of each party, were to treat the members of the other, as brethren, whose errors, however great they might appear, were to be tolerated, from motives of peace, and in consideration, of their engagements to abandon them, if the council should pronounce against them.  To show the probability of a final accommodation, Molanus notices, in his Dissertation, several points, in which one party imputed to the other errors, not justly chargeable on them; several, on which they disputed, merely for want of rightly understanding each other; and several, in which the dispute was of words only.