"The charge made by the Jansenists that the popes curtailed the rights of archbishops in order to increase and strengthen their own claim of universal primacy, is best refuted by the fact that the metropolitan authority in it struggles against encroaching primates and patriarchs or rival metropolitans, found no stronger support than that given by the Holy See. On the other hand, Rome had also to defend the native or acquired rights and privileges of suffragan bishops against usurping claims of their metropolitans. That the Holy See did not exceed its powers is further proved by the fact the Council of Trent restricted rights of metropolitans even more than the popes had done."