Note 59 — Front matter (continued 2)

In 1696, the French actors, desirous of testing the legality of the attitude of the Church towards them, addressed a petition to Innocent XII., in which, after representing that they performed in Paris "none but honest plays, purged of all obscenities, and more calculated to influence the faithful for good than for evil, and inspire them with a horror of vice and a love of virtue," they besought him to inform them if the bishops had the right to excommunicate them. The Holy See, however, unwilling to provoke a conflict with the independent French bishops, who, it well knew, would not hesitate to resist its orders, if it took the part of the actors, referred the petitioners to the Archbishop of Paris, "that they might be treated according to the law." A similar fate awaited a second appeal to Clement XI. in 1701.