Abbé Oroux, the best-informed 'ecclesiastical' historian of the court, claimed that the day before he died Jean Ferrier sent the king a list of his candidates for five to six vacant dioceses, and that Louis XIV 'hardly changed any of them'. ..... Petitions and protests were made by the bishop of Arras and the provincial estates of Artois, so that the confessor, Tellier, found himself exchanging letters with those involved (the provincial intendant, the minister for war, ...
