the civil authority that the cardinal brought upon himself the bitter reproaches of such unflinching zealots as the ex-Jesuits, Feller and Dedoyar. His protests, however, were met by the government in an ill-humoured and disdainful way. It affected, indeed, to pay no attention to them. The most serious of the conflicts broke out over the General Seminary, founded at Leuven in 1786 by the emperor, and to which he ordered the bishops to send their students, closing at the same time their diocesan seminaries. The heretical teaching of the professors in this new institution, and the avowed purpose of using it as an instrument of ecclesiastical reform and a weapon against "ultramontanism", soon provoked among the students an agitation that ended in a general dispersion. The irritated emperor, forthwith, summoned the cardinal to Vienna to intimidate him by means, as he wrote to Kaunitz, "of those vigorous and unanswerable arguments of which you know so well how to make use". Ill, bereft of his advisers, threatened with indefinite detention at a great distance from his diocese; reared, moreover, in those principles of respect for the sovereign power, which to us seem so exaggerated, the cardinal consented to sign a rather equivocal declaration, in which he stated that he was convinced of his obligation to conform to the imperial decrees "relative to the General Seminary", but reserved to himself the right to appeal to the emperor in cases where the eternal salvation of souls appeared to him to be imperiled. On his return to the Austrian Netherlands, Franckenberg regained his former energy. He felt himself upheld by the ardent Catholic spirit of the nation, and announced to the government that his conscience would not permit of him to concur in the establishment of the General Seminary. Despite all threats, he thenceforth remained firm. The emperor called on him to express on his opinion on the doctrines then taught at the General Seminary, whereupon the cardinal condemned that teaching in his "Declaration," a document that created a profound impression throughout the Austrian Netherlands. The country was already disturbed by insurrectionary movements, and the government was obliged to close the General Seminary. It was too late, however, to repress the rebellious agitation. The government sought, therefore, to make the cardinal responsible for it, and wished to place him under arrest. From his place of refuge, the cardinal protested against the accusation: "I take