The fact is also noted that in 1714 "he had accepted the Constitution Unigenitus against Jansenism, and insisted on its acceptance by the students."
Between 1731 and 1740, on account of the controversies over the Bull Unigenitus, Dom Félix Hodin and Dom Etienne Brice, who were preparing the latter volumes of the Gallia Christiana, were expelled from Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
He appealed repeatedly against the papal bull Unigenitus; he was the anonymous author of twelve "Lettres sur la justice chrétienne" (Paris, 1733), in which, to support the Jansenists whom the bishops deprived of the sacraments, he endeavoured to prove the inutility of sacramental confession.
The publication of Tanzaï et Neadarne, histoire japonaise (1734), which contained veiled attacks on the Papal bull Unigenitus, the cardinal de Rohan and others, landed him briefly in the prison at Vincennes.
In 1721, he was counsel to the Parlement of Paris, in 1728 he was maître des requêtes, and ten years later was made president of the Great Council; although he had opposed the court in the Unigenitus dispute, he was appointed intendant of Hainaut in 1743.
The papal bull Unigenitus, in which no fewer than 101 sentences from the Réflexions morales were condemned as heretical, was obtained from Clement XI on September 8, 1713.