It has been stated that in his earlier years Döllinger was a pronounced Ultramontane. This does not appear to have been altogether the case; for, very early in his professorial career at Munich, the Jesuits attacked his teaching of ecclesiastical history, and the celebrated J. A. Möhler (q.v.) who afterwards became his friend, on being appealed to, pronounced on the whole in his favour. He also entered into relations with the well-known French Liberal Catholic Lamennais, whose views on the reconciliation of the Roman Catholic Church with the principles of modern society had aroused much suspicion in Ultramontane circles. In 1832 Lamennais, with his friends Lacordaire and Montalembert, visited Germany, and obtained considerable sympathy in their attempts to bring about a modification of the Roman Catholic attitude to modern problems. Döllinger seems to have regarded favourably the removal, by the Bavarian government, in 1841, of Professor Kaiser from his chair, because he had taught the infallibility of the pope. On the other hand, he published a treatise in 1838 against mixed marriages, and in 1843 wrote strongly in favour of requiring Protestant soldiers to kneel at the consecration of the Host when compelled officially to be present at Mass. Moreover, in his works on _The Reformation_ (3 vols. Regensburg, 1846-1848) and on _Luther_ (1851, Eng, tr., 1853) he is very severe on the Protestant leaders, and he also accepts, in his earlier works, the Ultramontane view then current on the practical condition of the Church of England, a view which in later days he found reason to change. Meanwhile he had visited England, where he was well received; and he afterwards travelled in Holland, Belgium and France, acquainting himself with the condition and prospects of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1842 he entered into correspondence with the leaders of the Tractarian movement in England, and some interesting letters have been preserved which were exchanged between him and Pusey, Gladstone and Hope Scott. When the last-named joined the Church of Rome he was warmly congratulated by Döllinger on the step he had taken. He, however, much regretted the gradual and very natural trend of his new English allies towards extreme Ultramontane views, of which Archdeacon, afterwards Cardinal, Manning ultimately became an enthusiastic advocate. In 1845 Döllinger was made representative of his university in the second chamber of the Bavarian legislature. In 1847, in consequence of the fall from power of the Abel ministry in Bavaria, with which he had been in close relations, he was removed from his professorship at Munich, but in 1849 he was invited to occupy the chair of ecclesiastical history. In 1848, when nearly every throne in Europe was shaken by the spread of revolutionary sentiments, he was elected delegate to the national German assembly at Frankfort,--a sufficient proof that at this time he was regarded as no mere narrow and technical theologian, but as a man of wide and independent views.