Duchesne's opinion, being not continuous but, following the primitive Roman custom, broken by intervals.
When very young he showed his interest in the past history of his native land, and in 1617, at the age of twenty-three, he had set to work looking through archives, copying charters, and corresponding with the principal men of learning of his time, the brothers Dupuy, Andre Duchesne and Jean Besly, whom he visited in Poitou.
Louis Duchesne, who was a member of the papal commission, on the general question would be interesting in the highest degree.
When a proposal was set on foot to bring about a reconciliation between the Roman Church and the Christian Churches of the East, the Abbe Duchesne endeavoured to show that the union of those churches was possible under the Roman supremacy, because unity did not necessarily entail uniformity.
In these lectures Duchesne touches cleverly upon the most delicate problems, and, without any elaborate display of erudition, presents conclusions of which account must be taken.