But
toleration did not mean equality; full civil and political rights were
still denied the several hundred thousand Huguenots in France.
[Sidenote: Summary of Weaknesses in the Catholic Church]
The strength of the Roman Catholic Church in the eighteenth century was
impaired by four circumstances: (1) the existence of bitterly
antagonistic Protestant sects; (2) the growth of royal power and of the
sentiment of nationalism, at the expense of papal power and of
internationalism; (3) the indolence and worldliness of some of the
prelates; and (4) the presence of internal dissensions. The first three
circumstances should be clear from what has already been said, but a
word of explanation is necessary about the fourth.
[Sidenote: Jansenism]
The first of these dissensions arose concerning the teachings of a
certain Flemish bishop by the name of Cornelius Janssen (1585-1638),
[Footnote: Janssen is commonly cited by the Latin version of his name--
Jansenius.] whose followers, known as Jansenists, had possessed
themselves of a sort of hermitage and nunnery at Port-Royal in the
vicinity of Paris.
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