Throughout the regalian rights controversy, Port-Royal was able to thwart Louis XIV's efforts to impose a commendatory abbess in the 1670s and 1680s by appealing to Pope Innocent XI for help. Relations between Church and Crown were at their worst during Innocent XI's reign, and it was not until after this pope's death that Louis XIV was able to begin mending relations with Rome under his successors Alexander VIII (1689–91) and Innocent XII (1691–1700). In 1693, Louis XIV and Innocent XII finally reached an agreement in which the pope confirmed forty-three bishops nominated by Louis XIV in exchange for the French bishops' renunciation of the Gallican articles of 1682. Louis XIV and the bishops capitulated on these articles because of the crippling effect the vacant sees had on the Crown's ability to raise funds for its war chest and on the Church's ability to administer these dioceses.

The international and domestic concerns that led Louis XIV to settle with the pope were among a host of problems that plagued him in the 1690s and 1700s. In these final decades of his reign, Louis XIV's hold over France weakened noticeably, and the fault lines of both old political conflicts and new economic tensions began to reveal themselves. This crisis in royal authority also resonated in the realm of literature and culture.