Note 365 — XCII.—To Viret.[364]
Reading edition
The Seigneury of Berne, jealous of the authority which they claimed the right to exercise in ecclesiastical as well as in civil affairs, and looking on every attempt of the ministers to maintain the dignity of their office as a direct infringement on their power, began to introduce the system of despotism in Church matters, which had met at first but slight resistance in the Pays de Vaud, recently brought under government, but which was destined gradually to excite there an energetic opposition, and to occasion the voluntary retirement of the most distinguished ministers.—Ruchat, Hist. de la Réf. tom. vi. p. 256, et seq.