 CHAPTER XVIII. THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE PART XI. Finally there was enough in such and so free an exercise of mind, in such a rich abundance of thoughts and sentiments, in such a religious, political, and domestic life, to occupy and satisfy a soul full of energy and power. But as has already been said, an idea cherished with the lasting and supreme passion, the idea of the crusade took entire possession of Saint Louis. For seven years after his return from the East, from 1254 to 1261, he appeared to think no more of it, and there is nothing to show that he spoke of it even to his most intimate confinance. But in spite of apparent tranquility, he lived so far in a ferment of imagination and a continual fever, resembling in that respect, though the end aimed at was different, those great men, ambitious warriors or politicians, of nature's forever at boiling point, for whom nothing is sufficient, and who are constantly fostering, beyond the ordinary course of events, some vast and strange desire, the accomplishment of which becomes for them a fixed idea and an insatiable passion. As Alexander and Napoleon were incessantly forming some new design, or to speak more correctly, some new dream of conquest and dominion, in the same way Saint Louis, in his pious armor, never ceased to aspire to a re-entry of Jerusalem, to the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre, and the victory of Christianity over Mohammedism in the East, always flattering himself that some favorable circumstance would recall him to his interrupted work. It has already been told, at the termination in the preceding chapter of the Crusader's history, how he had reason to suppose, in 1261, that circumstances were responding to his desire, how he first of all prepared, noiselessly and patiently, for his second Crusade, how, after seven years' labor, less and less concealed as days went on, he proclaimed his purpose, and swore to accomplish it in the following year, and how at last, in the month of March 1270, against the will of France, of the Pope, and even of the majority of his comrades, he actually set out to go and die on the twenty-fifth of the following August before Tunis, without having dealt the Muslims of the East even the shadow of an effectual blow, having no strength to do more than utter, from time to time, as he raised himself on his bed, the cry of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, and at the last moment, as he lay in satcloth and ashes, pronouncing merely these parting words, Father, after the example of our Divine Master, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Even the Crusader was extinct in St. Louis, and only the Christian remained. The world has seen upon the throne greater captains, more profound politicians, vaster and more brilliant intellects, princes who have exercised beyond their own lifetime a more powerful and a more lasting influence than St. Louis. But it has never seen a rarer king, never a man who could possess, as he did, sovereign power without contracting the passions and vices natural to it, and who in this respect displayed in his government human virtues exalted to the height of Christian. For all his moral sympathy, and superior as he was to his age, St. Louis nevertheless shared and even helped to prolong two of its greatest mistakes. As a Christian he misconceived the rights of conscience in respect of religion, and as a king he brought upon his people deplorable evils and perils for the sake of a fruitless enterprise. War against religious liberty was, for a long course of ages, the crime of Christian communities and the source of the most cruel evils, as well as of the most formidable, irreligious reactions the world has had to undergo. The thirteenth century was the culminating period of this fatal notion, and the sanction of it conferred by civil legislation as well as ecclesiastical teaching. St. Louis joined, so far, with sincere conviction, the general and ruling idea of his age, and the jumbled code which bears the name of establishment de St. Louis, and in which are collected many ordinances anterior or posterior to his reign, formally condemned his heretics to death, and bids the civil judges to see to the execution in this respect of the bishop's sentences. In 1255 St. Louis himself demanded of Pope Alexander IV leave for the Dominicans and Franciscans to exercise, throughout the whole kingdom, the Inquisition already established, on account of the Albigensians, in the old domain of the Counts of Toulouse. The bishops, it is true, were to be consulted before condemnation could be pronounced by the inquisitors against a heretic. But that was a mark of respect for the Episcopate and for the rights of the Gallican Church, rather than a guarantee for liberty of conscience. And such was St. Louis' feeling upon this subject, that liberty, or rather the most limited justice, was less to be expected from the kingship than from the Episcopate. St. Louis' extreme severity towards what he called the Navish oath, Bélin-sormant, that is, blasphemy, an offence for which there is no definition save what is contained in the bare name of it, is perhaps the most striking indication of the state of men's minds and especially of the kings in this respect. Every blasphemer was to receive on his mouth the imprint of a red-hot iron. One day the king had a burger of Paris branded in this way, and violent murmurs were raised in the capital and came to the king's ears. He responded by declaring that he wished a like-brand might mark his lips and that he might bear the shame of it all his life if only the vice of blasphemy might disappear from his kingdom. Some time afterwards, having had a work of great public utility executed, he received on that occasion, from the landlords of Paris, numerous expressions of gratitude. I expect, said he, a greater recompense from the Lord for the curses brought upon me by that brand inflicted upon blasphemers than for the blessings I get because of this act of general utility. Of all human errors the most in vogue are the most dangerous, for they are just those from which the most superior minds have the greatest difficulty in preserving themselves. It is impossible to see, without horror, into what aberrations of reason and of moral sense men otherwise most enlightened and virtuous may be led away by the predominant ideas of their age. And the horror becomes still greater when a discovery is made of the iniquities, sufferings, and calamities, public and private, consequent upon the admission of such aberrations amongst the choice spirits of the period. In the matter of religious liberty, Saint Louis is a striking example of the vagaries which may be fallen into, under the sway of public feeling, by the most equitable minds and the most scrupulous consequences. A solemn warning in times of great intellectual and popular ferment, for those men whose hearts are set on independence in their thoughts as well as in their conduct, and whose only object is justice and truth. As for the Crusades, the situation of Louis with respect to them was quite different and his responsibility far more personal. The Crusades had certainly, in their origin, been the spontaneous and universal impulse of Christian Europe, towards an object lofty, disinterested, and worthy of the devotion of men. And Saint Louis was, without any doubt, the most lofty, disinterested, and heroic representative of this grand Christian movement. But towards the middle of the thirteenth century the moral complexion of the Crusades had already undergone great alteration. The salutary effect they were to have exercised for the advancement of European civilization still loomed obscurely in the distance, whilst their evil results were already clearly manifesting themselves, and they had no longer that beauty lent by spontaneous and general feeling which had been their strength and their apology. Weariness, no doubt, and common sense, had so far, as this matter was concerned, done their work amongst all classes of the feudal community. As sire de Joineville, so also had many knights, honest burgers, and simple country folks recognized the flaws in the enterprise, and felt no more belief in its success. It is the glory of Saint Louis that he was, in the thirteenth century, the faithful and virtuous representative of the Crusade, such as it was when it sprang from the womb of United Christendom, and when Godfrey de Bouillon was its leader at the end of the eleventh. It was the misdemeanor of Saint Louis, and a great error in his judgment, that he prolonged by his blindly prejudiced obstinacy a movement which was more and more inopportune and illegitimate, for it was becoming day by day more factitious and more inane. In the long line of kings of France, called most Christian kings, only two, Charlemagne and Louis IX, have received the still more august title of saint. As for Charlemagne, we must not be too exacting in the way of proofs of his legal right to that title in the Catholic Church. He was canonized in 1165 or 1166, only by the Antipope Pascal III, through the influence of Frederick Barbarossa, and since that time the canonization of Charlemagne has never been officially allowed and declared by any popes recognized as legitimate. They tolerated and tacitly admitted it, on account no doubt of the services rendered by Charlemagne to the papacy. Since Charlemagne had ardent and influential admirers outside the pale of popes and emperors, he was the great man and the popular hero of the Germanic race in Western Europe. His saint ship was welcomed with acclamation in a great part of Germany, where it had always been religiously kept up. From the earliest state of the University of Paris, he had been the patron there of all students of the German race. In France, nevertheless, his position as saint was still obscure and doubtful, when Louis IX, towards the end of the fifteenth century, by some motive now difficult to unravel, but probably in order to take from his enemy, Charles the Rash, Duke of Burgundy, who was in possession of the fairest province of Charlemagne's empire, the exclusive privilege of so great a memory ordained that there should be rendered to the illustrious emperor the honors due to the saints, and he appointed the twenty-eighth of January for his feast day with a threat of the penalty of death against all who should refuse conformity with the order. Neither the command nor the threat of Louis IX had any great effect. It does not appear that, in the Church of France, the saint ship of Charlemagne was any more generally admitted and kept up, but the University of Paris faithfully maintained its traditions, and some two centuries after Louis IX in 1661, without expressly giving to Charlemagne the title of saint, it loudly proclaimed him its patron, and made his feast day an annual and solemn institution, which in spite of some hesitation on the part of the Parliament of Paris, and in spite of the revelations of our time, still exist as the grand feast day throughout the area of our classical studies. The University of France repaid Charlemagne for the services she had received from him. She protected his saint ship as he had protected her schools and her scholars. The saint ship of Louis IX was not the object of such doubt, and had no such need of learned and determined protectors. Claimed as it was on the very morrow of his death, not only by his son Philip III, called the bold, and by the barons and prelates of the kingdom, but also by the public voice of France and of Europe, it at once became the object of investigations and deliberations on the part of the Holy See. For twenty-four years, new popes, filling in rapid succession the Chair of Saint Peter, Gregory X, Innocent V, John XXI, Nicholas III, Martin IV, Honorius IV, Nicholas IV, St. Celestine V, and Boniface VIII, prosecuted the customary inquiries touching the faith and life, the virtues and miracles of the late King. And it was Boniface III, the Pope destined to carry on against Philip the Handsome, grandson of Saint Louis, the most violent of struggles, who declared on the 11th of August, 1297, the canonization of the most Christian amongst the kings of France, and one of the truest Christians, king or simple, in France and in Europe. Saint Louis was succeeded by his son Philip III, a prince no doubt of some personal valor, since he has retained in history the nickname of the bold, but not otherwise beyond mediocrity. His reign had an unfortunate beginning. After having passed several months before Tunis, in slack and unsuccessful continuation of his father's crusade, he gave it up, and re-embarked in November 1270, with the remnants of an army anxious to quit that accursed land, wrote one of the crusaders, where we languish rather than live, exposed to torments of dust, fury of winds, corruption of atmosphere, and purification of corpses. A tempest caught the fleet on the coast of Sicily, and Philip lost by it several vessels, four or five thousand men, and all the money he had received from the Muslims of Tunis as the price of his departure. Whilst passing through Italy at Cosenza, his wife, Isabella Berrigan, six months gone with child, fell from her horse, was delivered of a child which lived barely a few hours, and died herself a day or two afterwards, leaving her husband almost as sick as sad. He at last arrived at Paris on the 21st of May 1271, bringing back with him five royal beers, that of his father, that of his brother John Tristan Count of Nevers, that of his brother-in-law Théobald King of Navarre, that of his wife, and that of his son. The day after his arrival he conducted them all in state to the Abbey of Saint Denis, and was crowned at Rem, not until the 30th of August following. His reign, which lasted fifteen years, was a period of neither repose nor glory. He engaged in war several times over in southern France and in the north of Spain, in 1772, against Roger Bernard Count of Foy, and in 1285 against Don Pedro III, King of Aragon, attempting conquest and gaining victories, but becoming easily disgusted with his enterprises and gaining no result of importance or durability. Without his taking himself any official or active part in the matter, the name and credit of France were more than once compromised in the affairs of Italy through the continual wars and intrigues of his uncle Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily, who was just as ambitious, just as turbulent, and just as tyrannical as his brother Saint-Louis was scrupulous, temperate, and just. It was in the reign of Philip the Bold that there took place in Sicily, on the 30th of March 1282, that notorious massacre of the French, which is known by the name of Sicilian Vespers, which was provoked by the unbridled excesses of Charles of Anjou's comrades, and through which many noble French families had to suffer cruelly. At the same time the celebrated Italian Admiral Roger Deloria inflicted, by sea, on the French party in Italy, the provincial navy and the army of Philip the Bold, who was engaged upon incursions into Spain, considerable reverses and losses. At the same period the foundations were being laid in Germany and in the north of Italy, in the person of Rudolph of Hapsburg, elected emperor, of the greatness reached by the House of Austria, which was destined to be so formidable arrival to France. The government of Philip III showed hardly more ability at home than in Europe, not that the king was himself violent, tyrannical, greedy of power or money, and unpopular. He was, on the contrary, honourable, moderate in respect of his personal claims, simple in his manners, sincerely pious and gentle towards the humble. But he was at the same time weak, credulous, very illiterate, say the chroniclers, and without penetration, foresight or intelligent and determined will. He fell under the influence of an inferior servant of his house, Peter de la Brosse, who had been surgeon and barber first of all to Saint Louis and then to Philip III, who made him before long his Chancellor and Familiar Counselor. Being, though a skillful and active intrigue, entirely concerned with his own personal fortunes and those of his family, this barber-mushroom was soon a mark for the jealousy and the attacks of the great lords of the court. And he joined issue with them, and even with the young queen, Maria of Brabant, the second wife of Philip III. Of poisoning and peculation were raised against him, and in 1276 he was hanged at Paris on the Thieves' jibbit, in the presence of the Dukes of Burgundy and Brabant, the Count of Artois and many other personages of note, who took pleasure in witnessing his execution. His condemnation, the cause of which remained unknown to the people, says the chronicler William of Nongus, was a great source of astonishment and grumbling. Peter de la Brosse was one of the first examples, in French history, of those favourites who did not understand that, if the scandal caused by their elevation were not to entail their ruin, it was incumbent upon them to be great men. CHAPTER XVIII. In spite of the want of ability and the weakness conspicuous in the government of Philip the Bold, the kingship in France had, in his reign, better fortunes than could have been expected. The death without children of his uncle Alfonso, St. Louis' brother, Count of Poitiers, and also Count of Toulouse, through his wife Joan, daughter of Raymond VII, put Philip in possession of those fair provinces. He at first possessed the Countship of Toulouse merely with the title of Count, and as a private domain which was not definitely incorporated with the Crown of France until a century later. Certain disputes arose between England and France in respect of this great inheritance, and Philip ended them by ceding Agenois to Edward I, King of England, and keeping Caercy. He also ceded to Pope Urban IV the County of Venaissin, with its capital Avignon, which the Court of Rome claimed by virtue of a gift from Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse, and which, through a course of many disputes and vicissitudes, remained in possession of the Holy See until it was reunited to France on the 19th of February 1797 by the Treaty of Tolentino. But notwithstanding these concessions, when Philip the Bold died at Perpignan the 5th of October 1285, on his return from his expedition in Aragon, the sovereignty in southern France as far as the frontiers of Spain had been won for the kingship of France. A Flemish chronicler, a monk at Edgmont, describes the character of Philip the Bold's successor in the following words. A certain king of France, also named Philip, eaten up by the fever of avarice and cupidity, and that was not the only fever inherent in Philip IV, called the handsome. He was a prey also to that of ambition, and above all to that of power. When he mounted the throne at seventeen years of age, he was handsome, as his nickname tells us, cold, taciturn, harsh, give it need, but without fire or dash, able in the formation of his designs and obstinate in prosecuting them by craft or violence, by means of bribery or cruelty, with wit to choose and support his servants, passionately vindictive against his enemies, and faithless and unsympathetic towards his subjects, but from time to time taking care to conciliate them, either by calling them to his aid in his difficulties or his dangers, or by giving them protection against other oppressors. Never, perhaps, was King better served by circumstances or more successful in his enterprises. But he is the first of the Capetians who had a scandalous contempt for rights, abused success, and thrust the kingship in France upon the high road of that arrogant and reckless egotism which is sometimes compatible with ability and glory, but which carries with it in the germ, and sooner or later brings out in full bloom the native vices and fatal consequences of arbitrary and absolute power. Away from his own kingdom, in his dealings with foreign countries, Philip the handsome had good fortune, which his predecessors had lacked, and which his successors lacked still more. Through William the Conqueror's settlement in England, and Henry II's marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the kings of England had, by reason of their possessions and their claims in France, become the natural enemies of the kings of France, and war was almost incessant between the two kingdoms. But Edward I, king of England, ever since his accession to the throne in 1272, had his ideas fixed upon, and his constant efforts directed towards, the conquest of the countries of Wales and Scotland, so as to unite under his sway the whole island of Great Britain. The Welsh and the Scotch, from prince to peasant, offered an energetic resistance in defense of their independence, and it was only after seven years' warfare, from 1277 to 1284, that the conquest of Wales by the English was accomplished, and the style of Prince of Wales became the title of the heir to the throne of England. Scotland, in spite of dissensions at home, made a longer and a more effectual resistance, and though it was reduced to submission, it was not conquered by Edward I. Two national heroes, William Wallace and Robert Bruce, excited against him in surrections which were often triumphant and always being renewed, and after having, during eighteen years of strife, maintained a precarious dominion in Scotland, Edward I died in 1307 without having acquired the sovereignty of it. But his persevering ardour in this twofold enterprise kept him out of war with France. He did all he could to avoid it, and when the pressure of circumstances involved him in it for a time, he was anxious to escape from it. Being summoned to Paris by Philip the Handsome in 1286 to swear fealty and homage on account of his domains in France, he repaired thither with a good grace, and on his knees before his sous-rond repeated to him the solemn form of words, I become your liegeman for the lands I hold of you this side the sea, according to the fashion of the peace which was made between our ancestors. The conditions of this peace were confirmed, and by a new treaty between the two princes, the annual payment of fifty thousand dollars to the King of England, in exchange for his claims over Normandy, was guaranteed to him, and Edward renounced his pretensions to Caercy in consideration of a yearly sum of three thousand leavers of tour. In 1292 a quarrel in some hostilities at sea between the English and Norman commercial navies grew into a war between the two kings, and it dragged its slow length along for four years in the south-west of France. Edward made an alliance in the north with the Flemish, who were engaged in a deadly struggle with Philip the Handsome, and thereby lost Aquitaine for a season. But in 1296 a truce was concluded between the belligerents. And though the importance of England's commercial relations with Flanders decided Edward upon resuming his alliance with the Flemish, when in 1300 war broke out again between them and France, he withdrew from it three years afterwards, and made a separate peace with Philip the Handsome, who gave him back Aquitaine. In 1306 fresh differences arose between the two kings, but before they had rekindled the torch of war Edward I died at the opening of a new campaign in Scotland, and his successor Edward II repaired to Bologna, where he in his turn did homage to Philip the Handsome for the Duchy of Aquitaine, and espoused Philip's daughter Isabel, reputed to be the most beautiful woman in Europe. In spite then of frequent interruptions the reign of Edward I was on the whole a period of peace between England and France, being exempt at any rate from premeditated and obstinate hostilities. In southern France at the foot of the Pyrenees Philip the Handsome just as his father Philip the Bold was during the first years of his reign at war with the kings of Aragon, Alfonso III and Jaime II. But these campaigns, originating in purely local quarrels or in the ties between the descendants of St. Louis and of his brother, Charles of Anjou, king of the two Sicilies, rather than in furtherance of the general interests of France, were terminated in 1291 by a treaty concluded at Tarascombe between the Sambur-Ligerans and have remained without historical importance. The Flemish were the people with whom Philip the Handsome engaged in and kept up during the whole of his reign with frequent alternations of defeat and success, a really serious war. In the thirteenth century Flanders was the most populous and the richest country in Europe. She owed the fact to the briskness of her manufacturing and commercial undertakings, not only amongst her neighbors but throughout southern and eastern Europe, in Italy, in Spain, in Sweden, in Norway, in Hungary, in Russia, and even as far as Constantinople, whereas we have seen, Baldwin I, Count of Flanders, became in 1204 Latin Emperor of the East. Cloth and all manner of woolen stubs were the principal articles of Flemish production, and it was chiefly from England that Flanders drew her supply of wool, the raw material of her industry. Thence arose between the two countries' commercial relations which could not fail to acquire political importance. As early as the middle of the twelfth century several Flemish towns formed a society for founding in England a commercial exchange which obtained great privileges and under the name of the Flemish Hands of London reached rapid development. The merchants of Bruges had undertaken the initiative in it, but soon all the towns of Flanders, and Flanders was covered with towns. Ghent, Lille, Ypres, Quatre, Ferns, Halast, St. Omer, and Douy entered the confederation and made unity as well as extension of liberties in respect of Flemish commerce the object of their joint efforts. Their prosperity became celebrated and its celebrity gave it increase. It was a burger of Bruges who was Governor of the Hands of London, and he was called the Count of the Hands. The Fair of Bruges, held in the month of May, brought together traders from the whole world. "'Dither came for exchange,' says the modern and most enlivened historian of Flanders, bearing Curvan de Ledinhove, Istvah de Flandre, page 300. The produce of the North and the South, the riches collected in the pilgrimages to Novogorod, and those brought over by caravans from Samarkand and Baghdad, the pitch of Norway and the oils of Antalusia, the furs of Russia and the dates from the Atlas, the medals of Hungary and Bohemia, the figs of Granada, the honey of Portugal, the wax of Morocco and the spice of Egypt, whereby, says an ancient manuscript, no land is to be compared and merchandise to the land of Flanders. At Epris, the chief center of cloth fabrics, the population increased so rapidly that, in 1247, the sheriffs prayed Pope Innocent IV to augment the number of parishes in their city, which contained, according to their account, about two hundred thousand persons. So much prosperity made the Council Flanders very puissant lords. Called the Black, Countess of Flanders and Hanold, from 1244 to 1280, was extremely rich, says a chronicler, not only in lands but in furniture, jewels and money. And, as is not customary with women, she was right liberal and right sumptuous, not only in her largesse, but in her entertainments and whole manner of living, in so much that she kept up the state of Queen rather than Countess. Nearly all the Flemish towns were strongly organized communes, in which prosperity had won liberty, and which became, before long, small republics sufficiently powerful, not only for the defense of their municipal rights against the Counts of Flanders, their lords, but for offering an armed resistance to such of the sovereigns of their neighbors as attempted to conquer them or to trample them in their commercial relations, or to draw upon their wealth by forced contributions or by plunder. Philip Augustus had begun to have a taste of their strength during his quarrels with Count Ferdinand of Portugal, whom he had made Count of Flanders by marrying him to the Countess Joan, heiress of the Countship, and whom, after the battle of Bouvine, he had confined for thirteen years in the Tower of the Louvre. Philip the handsome laid himself open to and was subjected by the Flemings to still rougher experiences. At the time of the latter king's accession to the throne, Peter d'Ampierre of noble Champagne's origin had been for five years Count of Flanders as heir to his mother Marguerite II. He was a prince who did not lack courage, or, on great emergency, high-mindedness and honour, but he was ambitious, covetous, as parsimonious as his mother had been munificent, and above all concerned to get his children married in a manner conducive to his own political importance. He had by his two wives Matilda of Bethune and Isabelle of Luxembourg, nine sons and eight daughters, offering free scope for combinations and connections, in respect of which Guy d'Ampierre was not at all scrupulous about the means of success. He had a quarrel with his son-in-law, Florence V, Count of Holland, to whom he had given his daughter Beatrice in marriage, and another of his sons-in-law, John I, Duke of Brabant, married to another of his daughters, the Princess Marguerite, offered himself as mediator in the difference. The two brothers-in-law went together to see their father-in-law, but on their arrival Guy d'Ampierre seized the person of the Count of Holland, and would not release him until the Duke of Brabant offered to become prisoner in his place, and found himself obliged, in order to obtain his liberty, to pay his father-in-law a tough ransom. It was not long before Guy himself suffered from the same sort of iniquitous surprise that he had practiced upon his sons-in-law. In 1293 he was secretly negotiating the marriage of Philippa, one of his daughters, with Prince Edward, eldest son of the King of England. Philip the Handsome, having received due warning, invited the Count of Flanders to Paris, to take counsel with him and the other barons touching the State of the Kingdom. At first Guy hesitated, but he dared not refuse, and he repaired to Paris with his sons John and Guy. As soon as he arrived he bashfully announced to the King the approaching union of his daughter with the English Prince, protesting that he would never cease for all that to serve him loyally, as every good and true man should serve his Lord. In God's name, sir Count, said the enraged King, this thing will never do. You have made alliance with my foe without my wit, wherefore you shall abide with me. And he had him, together with his sons, marched off at once to the Tower of the Louvre, where Guy remained for six months, and did not then get out-saved by leaving us hostage to the King of France's daughter, Philippa herself, who was destined to pass in this prison her young and mournful life. On once more entering Flanders, Count Guy oscillated for two years between the King of France and the King of England, submitting to the exactions of the former, at the same time that he was privily renewing his attempts to form an intimate alliance with the latter. Driven to extremity by the haughty severity of Philip, he at last came to a decision, concluded a formal treaty with Edward I, affianced to the English Crown Prince the most youthful of his daughters, Isabella Flanders, youngest sister of Philippa, the prisoner in the Tower of the Louvre, and charged two ambassadors to go to Paris as the bearers of the following declaration. Everyone doth know in how many ways the King of France has misbehaved towards God and justice. Such is his might in his pride that he doth acknowledge not above himself, and he hath brought us to the necessity of seeking allies who may be able to defend and protect us. By reason whereof we do charge our ambassadors to declare and say, for us and from us, to the above said King, that because of his misdeeds and defaults of justice, we hold ourselves abound, absolved, and delivered from all bonds, alliances, obligations, conventions, subjections, services, and dues whereby we may have been bounden toward him. This meant war, and it was prompt and sharp on the part of the King of France, slow and dull on the part of the King of England, who was always more bent upon the conquest of Scotland than upon defending, on the continent, his ally the Count of Flanders. In June 1297 Philip the Handsome, in person, laid siege to Lille, and on the thirteenth of August Robert, Count of Artois, at the head of the French chivalry, gained at Ferns, over the Flemish army, a victory which decided the campaign. Lille capitulated. The English reinforcements arrived too late and served no other purpose but that of inducing Philip to grant the Flemings a truce for two years. A fruitless attempt was made, with the help of Pope Boniface VIII, to change the truce into a lasting peace. The very day on which it expired, Charles, Count of Alois, and brother of Philip the Handsome, entered Flanders with a powerful army, surprised due, passed through Bruges, and on arriving at Ghent, gave a reception to its magistrates, who came and offered him the keys. The burgers of the towns of Flanders, says a chronicler of the age, were all bribed by gifts or promises from the Kings of France, who would never have dared to invade their frontiers had they been faithful to their count. Guy de Dampierre, hopelessly beaten, repaired with two of his sons and fifty-one of his faithful knights to the camp of the Count of Alois, who gave him a kind reception and urged him to trust himself to the King's generosity, promising at the same time to support his suit. Guy set out for Paris with all his retinue. On approaching the city palace which was the usual residence of the Kings, he aspired at one of the windows, Queen Joan of Navarre, who took a supercilious pleasure in gazing upon the humiliation of the victim of defeat. Guy drooped his head and gave no greeting. When he was close to the steps of the palace he dismounted from his horse and placed himself in all his following at the mercy of the King. The Count of Alois said a few words in his favour, but Philip, cutting his brother short, said, addressing himself to Guy, I desire no peace with you, and if my brother has made any engagement with you he had no right to do so. And he had the Count of Flanders taken off immediately to Campania, to a strong tower such that all could see him, and his comrades were distributed amongst several towns where they were strictly guarded. The whole of Flanders submitted, and its principal towns, Ipri, Odenard, Termond, and Cassell, fell successively into the hands of the French. Three of the sons of Count Guy retired to Namour. The constable Raoul of Nessla was lieutenant for the King of France in his newly won country of Flanders. Next year in the month of May, 1301, Philip determined to pay his conquest a visit, and the Queen his wife accompanied him. There is never any lack of gallows for conquerors. After having passed in state through Tournai, Courtre, Odenard, and Ghent, the King and Queen of France made their entry into Bruges. All the houses were magnificently decorated, on platforms covered with the richest tapestry thronged the ladies of Bruges, there was nothing but haberdashery and precious stones. Such an array of fine dresses, jewels, and riches excited a woman's jealousy in the Queen of France. There is none but Queen's, quotes she, to be seen in Bruges. I had thought that there was none but I who had a right to royal state. But the people of Bruges remained dumb, and their silence scared Philip the Henson, who vainly attempted to attract a concourse of people about him by the proclamation of brilliant jowts. These gallows, says the historian Villeney, who was going through Flanders at this very time, were the last whereof the French knew ought in our time, for Fortune, who till then had shown such favor to the King of France, on a sudden turn her wheel, and the cause thereof lay in the unrighteous captivity of the innocent maid of Flanders, and in the treason whereof the count of Flanders and his sons had been the victims. There were causes, however, for this new turn of events of a more general and more profound character than the personal woes of Flemish princes. James to Chiltillon, the governor assigned by Philip the Handsome to Flanders, was a greedy oppressor of it. The municipal authorities whom the victories or the gold of Philip had demoralized became the objects of popular hatred, and there was an outburst of violent sedition. A simple weaver, obscure, poor, undersized, and one-eyed, but valiant and eloquent in his Flemish tongue, one Peter Decaning, became the leader of revolt in Bruges. Accomplices flocked to him from nearly all the towns of Flanders, and he found allies amongst their neighbors. In 1302 war again broke out, but it was no longer a war between Philip the Handsome and Guy de Dompierre. It was a war between the Flemish communes and their foreign oppressors. Everywhere resounded the cry of insurrection, our bucklers and our friends for the line of Flanders, death to all Walloons. Philip the Handsome precipitately levied an army of sixty thousand men, says Villainy, and gave the command of it to count Robert of Artois, the hero of Ferns. The forces of the Flemings amounted to no more than twenty thousand fighting men. The two armies met near Courtray. The French chivalry were full of ardour and confidence, and the Italian archers in their service began the attack with some success. My lord, said one of his knights to the count of Artois, these names will do so well that they will gain the honour of the day, and if they alone put an end to the war, what will be left for the no-bless-to-do? Attack, then, answered the prince. Two grand attacks succeeded one another, the first under the orders of the Constable Raoul of Nestle, the second under those of the count of Artois in person. After two hours fighting, both failed against the fiery national passion of the Flemish communes, and the two French leaders, the Constable and the count of Artois, were left, both of them, lying on the field of battle amidst twelve or fifteen thousand of their dead. I yield me, I yield me, cried the count of Artois, but we understand not Thy lingo, ironically answered in their own tongue, the Fleming's who surrounded him, and he was forthwith put to the sword. Too late to save him galloped up a noble ally of the insurgents, Guy of Namur. From the top of the towers of our monastery, says the abbot of St. Martins of Tornay, we could see the French flying over the roads, across fields and through hedges, in such numbers that the sight must have been seen to be believed. There were, in the outskirts of our town and in the neighbouring villages, so vast a multitude of knights and men-at-arms tormented with hunger, that it was a matter horrible to see. They gave their arms to get bread. CHAPTER XVIII of Volume II of a popular history of France from the earliest times. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Volume II of a popular history of France from the earliest times, by François Guizot, translated by Robert Black. CHAPTER XVIII A French Knight, covered with wounds, whose name has remained unknown, hastily scratched a few words upon a scrap of parchment dyed with blood, and that was the first account Philip the Hensom received of the Battle of Courtray, which was fought and lost on the 11th of July, 1302. The news of this great defeat of the French spread rapidly throughout Europe, and filled with joy all those who were hostile to or jealous of Philip the Hensom. The Fleming's celebrated their victory with splendour, and rewarded with bounteous gifts their burger-heroes, Peter de Conning, amongst others, and those of their neighbours who had brought them aid. Philip, greatly affected and a little alarmed, sent for his prisoner, the aged Guy de Dompierre, and loaded him with reproaches, as if he had to thank him for the calamity, and forthwith levying a fresh army, as numerous say the chroniclers, as the grains of sand on the borders of the sea from Poupandas to the ocean. He took up a position at Eris, and even advanced quite close to Douay. But he was of those in whom obstinacy does not extinguish prudence, and too, persevering all the while in their purposes, have witt to understand the difficulties and clangers of them. Instead of immediately resuming the war, he entered into negotiations with the Fleming's, and their envoys met him in a ruined church beneath the walls of Douay. John of Chalon, one of Philip's envoys, demanded in his name that the king should be recognised as Lord of All Flanders, and authorised to punish the insurrection of Bruges, with a promise, however, to spare the lives of all who had taken part in it. How! said a Fleming, bawled when to pup-road, our lives would be left us, but only after our goods had been pillaged in our limbs subjected to every torture. Sir Castellan, answered John of Chalon, why speak ye so? A choice must needs be made, for the king is determined to lose his crown rather than not be avenged. Another Fleming, John de Renès, who leaning on the broken altar had hitherto kept silence, cried, Since so it is, let answer be made to the king that we come hither to fight him, and not to deliver up to him our fellow-citizens, and the Flemish envoys withdrew. Still Philip did not give up negotiating, for the purpose of gaining time and of letting the edge wear off the Fleming's confidence. He returned to Paris, fetched Guy de Dampierre from the Tower of the Louvre, and charged him to go and negotiate peace under a promise of returning to his prison if he were unsuccessful. Guy respected as he was throughout Flanders on account of his age and his long misfortunes failed in his attempt, and faithful to his word went back and submitted himself to the power of Philip. I am so old, said he and his friends, that I am ready to die when soever it shall please God. And he did die on the 7th of March, 1304, in the prison of Campagne, to which he had been transferred. Philip, all the while pushing forward his preparations for war, continued to make protestation of Pacific intentions. The Flemish communes desired the peace necessary for the prosperity of their commerce, but patriotic anxieties wrestled with material interests. A burger of Ghent was quietly fishing on the banks of the shelled, when an old man accosted him, saying sharply, Knowest thou not, then, that the king is assembling all his armies? It is time the Ghentees shook off their sloth. The lion of Flanders must no longer slumber. In the spring of 1304 the cry of war resounded everywhere. Philip had laid an impost extraordinary upon all real property in his kingdom. Regulars and reserves had been summoned to Eris to attack the Flemings by land and sea. He had taken into his pay a Genoese fleet commanded by Rene de Grimaldi, a celebrated Italian admiral, and it arrived in the North Sea, and blockaded Xerix Sea, a maritime town of Zeeland. On the 10th of August 1304 the Flemish fleet, which was defending the place, was beaten and dispersed. Philip hoped for a moment that this reverse would discourage the Flemings, but it was not so at all. A great battle took place on the 17th of August between the two land armies at Mon and Puell, or Mont and Povel, according to the true local spelling, near Lille. The action was for some time indecisive, and even after it was over both sides hesitated about claiming the victory. But when the Flemings saw their camp swept off and rifled, and when they no longer found in it, say the chroniclers, their fine stuffs of bruge and ypre, their wines of Rochelle, their beers of Cambrai, and their cheeses of Bethune, they declared that they would return to their hearths, and their leaders, unable to restrain them, were obliged to shut themselves up in Lille, with their Philip, who had himself retired at first to Eris, came to besiege them. When the first days of downheartedness were over, and at the sight of the danger which threatened Lille and the remains of the Flemish army assembled within its walls, all Flanders rushed to arms. The labours of the workshops and the fields were everywhere suspended, say contemporary historians. The women kept guard in the towns. You might traverse the country without meeting a single man, for they were all in the camp at Courtray, to the number of twelve hundred thousand, according to popular exaggeration, swearing one to another that they would rather die fighting than live in slavery. Philip was astounded. I thought the Fleming's said he were destroyed, but they seemed to reign from heaven, and he resumed his protestations and Pacific overtures. Circumstances were favourable to him. Old Guy de Tompierre was dead. Robert of Bethune, his eldest son and successor, was still the prisoner of Philip the Handsome, who set him at liberty after having imposed conditions upon him. Robert, timid in spirit and weak of heart, accepted them, in spite of the grumblings of the Flemish populations, always eager to recommend war after a short respite from its trials. The burgers of Bruges had made themselves a new seal, wherein the old symbol of the bridge of their city, on a rye, was replaced by the lion of Flanders, wearing the crown and armed with the cross, with this inscription. The lion hath roared and burst his fetters. Rugid Leo, vincula frigate. During ten years from 1305 to 1314 there was between France and Flanders a continual alternation of reciprocal concessions and retractions, of treaties concluded and of renewed insurrections, without decisive and ascertained results. It was neither peace nor war, and after the death of Philip the Handsome his successors were destined, for a long time to come, to find again and again amongst the Flemish communes deadly enmities and grievous perils. At the same time that he was prosecuting this interminable war against the Flemings, Philip was engaged, in this case also beyond the boundaries of his kingdom, in a struggle which was still more serious, owing to the nature of the questions which gave rise to it and to the quality of his adversary. In 1294 a new pope, Cardinal Benedetto Gattani, had been elected under the name of Boniface VIII. He had been for a long time connected with the French party in Italy, and he owed his elevation to the influence, especially of Charles II, King of Naples and Sicily, grandson of St. Louis, and cousin German of Philip the Handsome. Shortly before his election Benedetto Gattani said to that prince, thy pope, Celestine V, was willing and able to serve thee, only he knew not how, as for me, if thou make me pope, I shall be willing and able and know how to be useful to thee. The long quarrel between the popes and the emperors of Germany, who as kings of the Romans, aspired to invade or dominate Italy, had made the kings of France natural allies of the papacy, and there had been a saying ever since, arising from a popular instinct which had already found its way into poetry, to as a goodly match as match can be, to marry the church and the fleur-de-lis, should either make a straying go, than each, too late, will own twasso. Boniface VIII did not seem fated to withdraw from this policy. He was old, 66. His party engagements were of long standing. His personal fortune was made. Three years before his election he possessed twelve ecclesiastical benefices, of which seven were in France. By his accession to the Holy See his ambition was satisfied, and as legate in France in 1290 he had made the acquaintance there of the young king, Philip the Handsome, and had conceived a liking for him. King Philip must have considered that he had ground for seeing in him a faithful and useful ally. Neither of the two sovereigns took into account the changes that had come, during two centuries past, over the character of their power, and of the influence which these changes must exercise upon their posture and their relations one toward the other. Louis the Fat in the first instance, and then in a special manner Philip Augustus and Saint-Louis, each with very different sentiments and by very different processes, had disentangled the kingship in France from the feudal system, and had acquired for it a sovereignty of its own, beyond and above the rites of the Sous-Ren over his vassals. The Popes for their part, Gregory VII and Innocent III, amongst others, had raised the papacy to a region of intellectual and moral supremacy once it looked down upon all the terrestrial powers. Gregory VII, the most disinterested of all ambitious men in high places, had dedicated his stormy life to establishing the dominion of the Church over the world, kings as well as people, and also to reforming internally the Church herself, her morals and her discipline. I have loved justice and hated iniquity, and that is why I am dying in exile, he said on his deathbed, but his works survived him, and a hundred years after him, in spite of the troubles which had disturbed the Church under eighteen mediocre and transitory Popes, Innocent III, whilst maintaining, only with more moderation and prudence, the same principles as Gregory VII had maintained, exercised peacefully for a space of eighteen years the powers of the right divine, whilst Philip Augustus was extending and confirming the kingly power in France. This parallel progress of the kingship and the papacy had its critics and its supporters. Learned lawyers on the authority of the maxims and precedents of the Roman Empire, proclaimed the king's sovereignty in the state, and profound theologians on the authority of the divine origin of Christianity, laid down as a principle the right divine of the papacy in the Church and in the dealings of the Church with the state. Thus at the end of the thirteenth century there were found face to face two systems, one leic and the other ecclesiastical of absolute power. But the teachers of the doctrine of the right divine do not expunge from human affairs the passions, errors, and vices of the individuals who put their systems in practice, and absolute power, which is the greatest of all demoralizers, entails before long upon communities, whether civil or religious, the disorders, abuses, faults, and evils, which it is the special province of governments to prevent or keep under. The French kingship and the papacy, the representatives of which had but lately been great and glorious princes, such as Philip Augustus and Saint Louis, Gregory VII and Ines III, were at the end of the thirteenth century, vested in the persons of men of far less moral worth and less political wisdom. Philip the Handsome and Boniface VIII. We have already had glimpses of Philip the Handsome's greedy, ruggedly obstinate, haughty and tyrannical character, and Boniface VIII had the same defects, with more hastiness and less ability. The two great poets of Italy in that century, Dante and Petrarch, who were both very much opposed to Philip the Handsome, paint Boniface VIII in similar colors. He was, says Petrarch, Epistolo Ramaliaris, Book II, Letter III, an inexorable sovereign, whom it was very hard to break by force, and impossible to bend by humility and caresses. And Dante, Inferno, Canto XIX, Verses 45 to 57, makes Pope Nicholas III say, Already art thou here in proudly upstanding, O Boniface? Hast thou so soon been sated with that wealth for which thou didst not fear to deceive that fair dame, the church, whom afterwards thou didst so disastrously govern? Two men so deeply imbued with evil and selfish passions could not possibly meet without clashing. And it was not long before facts combined to produce between them an outburst of hatred and strife which revealed the latent vices and fatal results of the two systems of absolute power of which they were the representatives. Philip the Handsome had been nine years king when Boniface the Eighth became Pope. On his accession to the throne he had testified an intention of curtailing the privileges and power of the church. He had removed the clergy from judicial functions in the domains of the lords as well as in the domain of the king, and he had everywhere been putting into the hands of laymen the administration of civil justice. He had considerably increased the percentage to be paid on real property acquired by the church, called possessions in Mortemaine, by way of compensation for the mutation dues which their fixity caused the state to lose. At the time of the crusades the property of the clergy had been subjected to a special tax of a tenth of the revenues, and this tax had been several times renewed for reasons other than the crusades. The church recognized her duty of contributing towards the defense of the kingdom, and the chapter general of the order of Sitot wrote to Philip the Handsome himself, on all grounds of natural equity and rules of law we ought to bear our share of such a burden out of the goods which God hath given us. In every instance the question had been as to the necessity for and the quota of the ecclesiastical contribution, which was at one time granted by the bishops and local clergy, at another expressly authorized by the papacy. There is nothing to show that Boniface VIII, at the time of his elevation to the Holy See, was opposed to these augmentations and demands on the part of the French crown. He was at that time too much occupied by his struggle against his own enemies at Rome, the family of the Colannas, and he felt the necessity of remaining on good terms with France. But in 1296 Philip the Handsome, at war with the King of England and the Flemmings, imposed upon the clergy two fresh tents. The bishops alone were called upon to vote them, and the order of Sitot refused to pay them, and addressed to the Pope a protest, with a comparison between Philip and Pharaoh. Boniface not only entertained the protest, but addressed the King a bull, called Clarychus Lachus, from its first two words, in which, led on by his zeal to set forth the generality and absoluteness of his power, he laid down as a principle that churches and ecclesiastics could not be taxed, save with the permission of the sovereign pontiff, and that all emperors, kings, dukes, accounts, barons, or governors whatsoever, who should violate this principle, and all prelates or other ecclesiastics who should, through weakness, lend themselves to such violation, would by this mere fact incur excommunication, and would be incapable of release therefrom, save in articular mortis, unless by a special decision of the Holy See. This was going far beyond the traditions of the French Church, and in the very act of protecting it, to strike a blow at its independence in its dealings with the French state. Philip was mighty wroth, but he did not burst out. He confined himself to letting the Pope perceive his displeasure by means of diverse administrative measures, amongst others by forbidding the exportation from the kingdom of gold, silver, and valuable articles, which found their way chiefly to Rome. Boniface, on his side, was not slow to perceive that he had gone too far, and that his own interest did not permit him to give so much offense to the King of France. A year after the bull Cléricus Lacos, he modified it by a new bull, which not only authorized the collection of the two tenths voted by the French bishops, but recognized the right of the King of France to tax the French clergy with their consent, and without authorization from the Holy See, whenever there was a pressing necessity for it. Philip, on his side, testified to the Pope his satisfaction at this concession by himself making one at the expense of the religious liberty of his subjects. In 1292 he had ordered the seneschal of Carcassonne to place limits to the power of the inquisitors in Languedoc, by taking from them the right of having their sentences against heretics executed without appeal, and in 1298 he issued an ordinance to the effect that to further the proceedings of the inquisition against heretics, for the glory of God and for the augmentation of the faith, he laid his injunctions upon all dukes, counts, barons, seneschals, bailiffs, and provosts of his kingdom, to obey the diocesan bishops and the inquisitors deputed by the Holy See, in handing over to them, whenever they should be requested, all heretics and their creed-fellows, favorers and harbors, and to see the immediate execution of sentences passed by the judges of the church, not withstanding any appeal and any complaint on the part of heretics and their favorers. Thus the two absolute sovereigns changed their policy and made temporary sacrifice of their mutual pretensions, according as it suited them to fight or to agree. But there arose a question in respect of which this continual alteration of pretensions and compromises of quarrels and accommodations was no longer possible, in order to keep up their position in the eyes of one another, they were obliged to come to a deadly clash, and in this struggle, perilous for both, Boniface VIII was the aggressor, and with Philip the Handsome remained the victory. End of CHAPTER XVIII of volume II of a popular history of France from the earliest times. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER XVIII On the 2nd of February 1300, Boniface VIII, who had much at heart the luster and popularity of the Holy See, published a bull which granted indulgences to the pilgrims who should that year, and every centenary to come, visit the Church of the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul at Rome. At this first celebration of the centenary and Christian jubilee, the concourse was immense. The most moderate historians say that there were never fewer than a hundred thousand pilgrims at Rome. Others put the numbers as high as two hundred thousand, and contemporary poetry as well as history has celebrated this pious assemblage of Christians of every nation, language, and age around the tomb of their fathers in the faith. The old man with white hair goeth far away, says Petrarch, sonnet 14, from the sweet haunts where his life hath been passed, and from his little family astonished to find their dear father missing. As for him, in the last days of his age, broken down by weight of years and a weary of the road, he drageth along as best he may by force of willing spirit, his old and tottering limbs, and cometh to Rome to fulfill his desire of seeing the image of him whom he hopedeth to see ere long up yonder in the heavens. The success of the measure and the solemn homage of Christendom filled with joy and proud confidence the heart of the Septigenarian Pontiff. He had three years before decreed to Louis IX, the most Christian of the Kings of France, the honors of canonization in the title of Saint. Being chosen as a mediator in 1298 by the Kings of France and England in a war which pressed heavily on both, the decree of arbitration which he pronounced, favorable rather to Philip than to Edward I, had been accepted by both of them, and the Pope, on laying his injunctions upon them with some severity of language, had exhibited authority in a manner salutary for both kingdoms. Everything seemed at that time to smile on Boniface, and to invite him to believe himself the real sovereign of Christendom. An opportunity for a splendid confirmation of his universal supremacy in the Christian world came to tempt him. A quarrel had arisen between Philip and the Archbishop of Narbonne on the subject of certain dues claimed by both in that great diocese. Boniface was loud in his advocacy of the Archbishop against the officers of the King. If, my son, thou tolerate such enterprises against the churches of thy kingdom, he wrote to Philip, on the 18th of July 1300, thou mayest thereafter have reasonable fear lest God, the author of judgments and the King of Kings, exact vengeance for it, and assuredly his vicar will not, in the long run, keep silence. Though he wait a while patiently, in order not to close the door to compassion, there will be full need at last that he rouse himself for the punishment of the wicked and the glory of the good. Nor did Boniface content himself with writing. He sent to Paris, to support his words, Bernard de Cesse, whom he, on his own authority, had just appointed Bishop of Pamier. The choice of bishops was not yet at that time subject to any fixed and generally recognized rule. Most often it was the chapter of the diocese that elected its bishop, with a subsequent application for the approbation of the King and the Pope. Sometimes the King and also the Pope made such appointments directly and independently. Boniface VIII had quite recently created a new bishopric at Pamier in order to immediately appoint it to Bernard de Cesse, hitherto simple abbot of Saint Antonine in that city. And who was devoted to his patron was further a passionate Langdakian and a foe to the dominion of the French kings of the north over southern France, and he gave himself out as a personal descendant of the last Counts of Toulouse. On arriving in Paris as the Pope's legate he made use there a violent and inconsiderate language. He even affirmed, it was said, that Saint-Louis had predicted the disappearance of his line in the third generation, and that King Philip was only an illegitimate descendant of Charlemagne. He was accused of having incessantly labored to excite revolts against the King in the south, at one time for the advantage of the local lords, at another in favor of foreign enemies of the kingdom. Being summoned before the King and his council at Sennlis, October 14th, 1301, he denied, but with an air of arrogance and aggression, the accusations against him. He had, at that time, as his chief councillors, lay lawyers, servants passionately attached to the kingship. They were Peter Flott, his chancellor, William of Nogaré, judge-major at Boccaire, and William of Placien, Lord of Vesinogre, the two latter belonging, as Bernard de Sausset belonged, to southern France, and determined to withstand in the south as well as the north the dominion of ecclesiastics. They in their turn rose up against the doctrine and language of the Bishop of Pamier. He was arrested and committed to the keeping of the Archbishop of Narbonne, and Philip sent to Rome his chancellor Peter Flott, himself, and William of Nogaré, with orders to demand of the Pope, that he should avenge the wrongs of God, the king, and the whole kingdom, by depriving of his orders and every clerical privilege that man whose longer life would taint the places he inhabited, and this in order that the king might make of him a sacrifice to God in the way of justice, for there could be no hope of his amendment if he were suffered to live, seeing that from his youth up he had always lived ill, and that baseness and abandonment only became more and more confirmed in him by inveterate habit. To this violent and threatening language Boniface replied by changing the venue to his own personal tribunal in the case of the Bishop of Pamier. We do bid thy majesty, he wrote to the king, to give this bishop free leave to depart and come to us, for we do desire his presence. We do warn thee to have all his goods restored to him, not to stretch out for the future thy ripacious hands toward the like things, and not to offend the divine majesty or the dignity of the apostolic sea, lest we be forced to employ some other remedy. For thou must know that, unless thou canst allege some excuse founded on reason and truth, we do not see how thou should escape the sentence of the holy canons for having laid rash hands on this bishop. My power, the spiritual power, said the pope to the chancellor of France, embraces the temporal and excludes it. Be it so, answered Peter-Flaught, but your power is nominal, the king's real. Here was a coarse challenge hurled by the crown at the tiara, and Boniface VIII unhesitatingly accepted it. But instead of keeping the advantage of a defensive position by claiming, in the name of lawful right, the liberties and immunities of the church, he assumed the offensive against the kingship by proclaiming the supremacy of the holy sea in things temporal, as well as spiritual, and by calling upon Philip the handsome to acknowledge it. On the 5th of December, 1301, he addressed to the king, commencing with the words, Harkin, most dear son, asculta, currisima fithi, a long bull, in which, with circumlocations and expositions full of obscurity and subtlety, he laid down and affirmed at bottom the principle of the final sovereignty of the spiritual power, being of divine origin over every temporal power being of human creation. In spite of the insufficiency of our deserts, said he, God has established us above kings and kingdoms by imposing upon us, in virtue of the apostolic office, the duty of plucking away, destroying, dispersing, dissipating, building up and planting in his name and according to his doctrine, to the end of that, sending the flock of the Lord, we may strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the broken limbs, raise the fallen, and pour wine and oil into all wounds. Let none, then, most dear son, persuade thee that thou hast no superior and that thou art not subject to the sovereign head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, for he who so thinketh is beside himself, and if he obstinately affirm any such thing, he is an infidel, and hath no place any longer in the fold of the good shepherd. At the same time Boniface summoned the bishops of France to a council at Rome, in order to labor for the preservation of the liberties of the Catholic Church, the reformation of the kingdom, the amendment of the king, and the good government of France. Philip the handsome and his counselors did not misconceive the tendency of such language, however involved in full of specious reservations it might be. The final supremacy of the pope in the body politic and over all sovereigns meant the absorption of the Laic community in the religious, and the abolition of the state's independence, not in favor of the national church, but to the advantage of the foreign head of the universal church. The defenders of the French kingship formed a better estimate than was formed at Rome of the effect which would be produced by such doctrine on France in the existing condition of the French mind. They entered upon no theological and abstract polemics. They confined themselves entirely to setting in a vivid light the pope's pretensions and their consequences, feeling sure that, by confining themselves to this question, they would enlist in their opposition not only all laymen, nobles and commoners, but the greater part of the French ecclesiastics themselves, who were no strangers to the feeling of national patriotism, and to whom the pope's absolute power in the body politic was scarcely more agreeable than the king's. In order to make a strong impression upon the public mind, there was published at Paris, as the actual text of the pope's bull, a very short summary of his long bull, Harkin, most dear son, in the following terms. Boniface, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Philip, king of the French, fear thou God, and keep his commandments. We would have thee to know that thou art subject unto us in things spiritual and temporal. The presentation to benefices and prebends appertaineth to thee in no wise. If thou have the keeping of certain vacancies, thou art bound to reserve the revenues of them for the successors to them. If thou have made any presentations, we declare them void and revoke them. We consider as heretics all those who believe otherwise. Together with this document there was put in circulation the king's answer to the pope, in the following terms. Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to Boniface, who giveth himself out for sovereign pontiff, little or no greeting. Let thy extreme faturity know that we be subject to none in things temporal, that the presentation to churches and prebends, that be vacant, belongeth to us of kingly right, and that the revenues therefrom be ours, that presentations already made, or to be made, be valid both now and hereafter, and we will firmly support the possessors of them to thy face and in thy teeth, and we do hold as senseless and insolent those who think otherwise. The pope disavowed, as a falsification, the summary of his long bull, and there is nothing to prove that the unseemly and insulting letter of Philip the handsome was sent to Rome. But at the bottom the situation of affairs remained the same. Indeed it did not stop where it was. On the 11th of February, 1302, the bull, Harkin, most dear son, was solemnly burned at Paris in the presence of the king in a numerous multitude. Philip convoked, for the 8th of April following, an assembly of the barons, bishops, and chief ecclesiastics, and of deputies from the communes to the number of two or three for each city, all being summoned to deliberate on certain affairs which in the highest degree concerned the king, the kingdom, the churches, and all in sundry. This assembly, which really met on the 10th of April at Paris in the Church of Notre-Dame, is reckoned in French history as the first state general. The three estates wrote separately to Rome, the clergy to the pope himself, the nobility and deputies of the communes to the cardinals, all however protesting against the pope's pretensions and matters temporal, the two Laic orders writing in a rough and threatening tone, the clergy making an appeal to the wisdom and paternal clemency of the Holy Father with tearful accents and psalms mingled with their tears. The king evidently had on his side the general feeling of the nation and the news from Rome was not of a kind to pacify him. In spite of the king's formal prohibition, forty-five French bishops had repaired to the council summoned by the pope for All Saints Day, 1302, and after this meeting a papal decree of November 18 had declared, There be two swords, the temporal and the spiritual, both are in the power of the church, but one is held by the church herself, the other by kings only with the ascent and by sufferance of the sovereign pontiff. Every human being is subject to the Roman pontiff, and to believe this is necessary to salvation. Philip made a seizure of the temporalities of such bishops as had been present at that council, and renewed his prohibition forbidding them to leave the kingdom. Boniface ordered those who had not been to Rome to attend there within three months, and the cardinal of Saint Marcellinus, the legate of the Holy See, called a fresh council in France itself without the king's knowledge. On both sides there were at one time words of conciliation and attempts to keep up appearances of respect, at another new explosions of complaints and threats, but amidst all these changes of languages the struggle was day by day becoming more violent, and preparations were being made by both parties for something other than threats. On the 12th of March, in the 13th of June, 1303, at two assemblies of barons, prelates, and legists held at the Louvre, in presence of the king, which several historians have considered to have been state's general, one of the crown's most intimate advisors, William of Placian, proposed against Boniface a form of accusation which imputed to him, beyond his ambition and his claims to absolutism, crimes as improbable as they were hateful. It was demanded that the church should be governed by a lawful pope, and the king, as defender of the faith, was pressed to appeal to the convocation of a general council. On the 24th of June, in the palace garden, a great crowd of people assembled, and after a sermon preached in French, the form of accusation against Boniface, and the appeal to the future council were solemnly made public. The pope, meanwhile, did not remain idle. He protested against the imputations of which he was the subject. Forty years ago, he said, we were admitted a doctor of laws, and learned that both powers, the temporal and the spiritual, be ordained of God. Who can believe that such fatuity can have entered into our mind? Who can also deny that the king is subject unto us on a score of sin? We be disposed to grant unto him every grace. So long as I was cardinal, I was French in heart. Since then, we have testified how we do love the king. Without us, he would not have even one foot on the throne. We do know all the secrets of the kingdom. We do know how the Germans, the Burgundians, and the folk who speak the yoke tongue do love the king. If he meant not, we shall know how to chastise him, and treat him as a little boy, sicut annum garcionum, though greatly against our will. On the thirteenth of April Boniface declared Philip excommunicate if he persisted in preventing the prelates from attending at Rome. Philip, being warned, affected the arrest at Troy of the priest who was bringing the pope's letter to his legate in France. The legate took to flight. Boniface, on his side, being warned that the king was appealing against him to an approaching council, declared by a bull on the fifteenth of August that it appertained to him alone to summon a council. After this bull, there was full expectation that another would be launched, which would pronounce the deposition of the king. And a new bull was actually prepared at Rome on the fifth of September, and was to be published on the eighth. It did not expressly depose the king. It merely announced that measures would be taken more serious even the next communication. Philip had taken his precautions. He had demanded and obtained from the great towns, churches and universities more than seven hundred declarations of support in his appeal to the future council, and an engagement to take no notice of the decree which might be issued by the pope to release the king's subjects from their oath of allegiance. Only a few, and amongst them the abbot of Sittot, gave him a refusal. The order of the Templars gave only a qualified support. At the approaching advent of the new bull which was being anticipated, the king resolved to act still more roughly and speedily. Notification must be sent to the pope of the king's appeal to the future council. Philip could no longer confide this awkward business to his chancellor, Peter Flott, for he had fallen at courtre in the battle against the Flemings. William of Nogret undertook it, at the same time obtaining from the king a sort of blank commission authorizing and ratifying in advance all that, under the circumstances, he might consider it advisable to do. Notification of the appeal had to be made to the pope at Aignani, his native town, whither he had gone for refuge, and the people of which, being zealous in his favour, had already dragged in the mud the lilies and banner of France. Nogret was bold, ruffianly, and clever. He repaired in haste to Florence, to the king's banker, got a plentiful supply of money, established communications in Aignani, and secured above all the cooperation of Skiar Calana, who was passionately hostile to the pope, had been formally prescribed by him, and having fallen into the hands of Corsairs, had worked at the ore for them during many a year rather than reveal his name and be sold to Boniface Gattani. On the 7th of September, 1303, Calana and his associates introduced Nogret and his following into Aignani, with shouts of death to Pope Boniface, long lived the king of France. The populace, dumbfounded, remained motionless. The pope, deserted by all, even by his own nephew, tried to touch the heart of Calana himself, whose only answer was a summons to abdicate, and to surrender at discretion. Those be hard words, said Boniface, and burst into tears. But this old man, seventy-five years of age, had a proud spirit, and a dignity worthy of his rank. Betrayed like Jesus said he, I shall die, but I will die pope. He donned the cloak of St. Peter, put the crown of Constantinople upon his head, took in his hands the keys in the cross, and as his enemies drew nigh he said to them, Here is my neck and here is my head. There is a tradition of considerable trustworthiness that Skiara Calana would have killed him, and did with his mailed hand strike him in the face. Nogret, however, prevented the murder and confined himself to saying, Thou, kid of pope, confess, and behold the goodness of my lord the king of France, who though so far away from thee in his own kingdom, both watchest over and defendeth thee by my hand. Thou, art of heretic family, answered the pope, At thy hands I look from Ardenham. The captivity of Boniface VIII, however, lasted only three days, for the people of Anyani, having recovered themselves, and seeing the scanty numbers of the foreigners, rose and delivered the pope. The old man was conducted to the public square crying like a child. Good folks, said he to the crowd around him, ye have seen that mine enemies have robbed me of all my goods in those of the church. Behold me here, as poor as Job. Not have I either to eat or drink. If there be any good woman who would give me an alms of wine and bread, I would bestow upon her God's blessing in mine. All the people began to shout, Long live the Holy Father! He was reconducted into his palace, and women thronged together thither, bringing him bread, wine, and water. Finding no proper vessels they poured them into a chest, and any one who liked went in, and talked with the pope as with any other beggar. So soon as the agitation was somewhat abated, Boniface set out for Rome, with a great crowd following him, but he was broken down in spirit and body. Scarcely had he arrived when he fell into a burning fever, which traditions, probably invented and spread by his enemies, have represented as a fit of mad rage. He died on the 11th of October, 1303, without having recovered his reason. It is reported that his predecessor, Celestine the Fifth, had said of him, Thou risest like a fox, Thou wilt rule like a lion and die like a dog. The last expression was unjustified. Boniface the Eighth was a fanatic, ambitious, proud, violent, and crafty, but with sincerity at the bottom of his prejudiced ideas, and stubborn and blind in his fits of temper, his death was that of an old lion at bay. CHAPTER XIII THE KINGSHIP AND FRANCE PART XV We were bound to get a good idea of and understanding of this violent struggle between the two sovereigns of France and Rome, not only because of its dramatic interest, but because it marks an important period in the history of the papacy and its relations with foreign governments. From the tenth century and the accession of the Capetians, the policy of the Holy See had been enterprising, bold, full of initiative, often even aggressive, and more often than not successful in the prosecution of its designs. Under Innocent III it had attained the apogee of its strength and fortune. At that point its motion forward and upward came to a stop. Boniface had not the wit to recognize the changes which had taken place in European communities, and the decided progress which had been made by lay influences and civil powers. He was a stubborn preacher of maxims he could no longer practice. He was beaten in his enterprise, and the papacy, even on recovering from its defeat, found itself no longer what it had been before him. Starting from the fourteenth century we find no second Gregory VII or Innocent III. Without expressly abandoning their principles, the policy of the Holy See became essentially defensive and conservative, more occupied in the maintenance than the engrandizement of itself, and sometimes even more stationary and stagnant than was required by necessity or recommended by foresight. The posture assumed and the conduct adopted by the earliest successors of Boniface VIII showed how far the situation of the papacy was altered, and how deep had been the penetration of the stab which, in this conflict between the two aspirants to absolute power, Philip the Handsome had inflicted on his rival. On the 22nd of October 1303, eleven days after the death of Boniface VIII, Benedict XI, son of a simple shepherd, was elected at Rome to succeed him. Philip the Handsome at once sent his congratulations, but by William of Plession, who had lately been the accuser of Boniface, and who was charged to hand to the new pope, on the king's behalf, a very bitter memorandum touching his predecessor. Philip at the same time caused an address to be presented to himself in his own kingdom and in the vulgar tongue, called a supplication from the people of France to the king against Boniface. Benedict XI exerted himself to give satisfaction to the conqueror. He declared the colonnés absolved, he released the barons and prelates of France from the excommunications pronounced against them, and he himself wrote to the king to say that he would behave towards him as the good shepherd in the parable, who leaves ninety and nine sheep to go after one that is lost. Nagaré and the direct authors of the assault at Anyani were alone accepted from the Samnesty. The pope reserved for a future occasion the announcement of their absolution when he should consider it expedient. But on the 7th of June, 1304, instead of absolving them, he launched a fresh bull of excommunication against certain wicked men who had dared to commit a hateful crime against a person of good memory, Pope Boniface. A month after this bull, Benedict XI was dead. It is related that a young woman had put before him at table a basket of fresh figs, of which he had eaten and which had poisoned him. The chroniclers of the time impute this crime to William of Nagaré, to the colonnés, and to their associates at Anyani. A single one names King Philip. Popular credulity is great in matters of poisoning, but one thing is certain, namely, that no prosecution was ordered. There is no proof of Philip's complicity, but full as he was of hatred and dissimulation he was one of those who do their best to profit by crimes which they have not ordered. It is clear that such a pope as Benedict XI would not do either for his passions or his purposes. He found one, however, from whom he flattered himself, not without reason, that he would get more complete and efficient cooperation. The cardinals, after being assembled and conclave for six months at Peruse, were unable to arrive at an agreement about a choice of pope. As a way out of their embarrassment, they entered into a secret convention to the effect that one of them, a confidant of Philip the Handsome, should make known to him that the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrand de Gaulle, was the candidate in respect of whom they could agree. He was a subject of the King of England and a late favorite of Boniface VIII, who had raised him from the Bishopric of Cominge to the Archbishopric of Bordeaux. He was regarded as an enemy of France, but Philip knew what may be done with an ambitious man, whose fortune is only half made, by offering to advance him to his highest point. He therefore appointed a meeting with the Archbishop. Harkin, said he, I have in my grasp wherewithal to make the pope if I please, and provided that thou promise to do me six things I demand of thee, I will confer upon thee that honor, and to prove to thee that I have the power, here be letters and advices I have received from Rome. After having heard and read, the Gascon, overcome with joy, as the contemporary historian Villani, threw himself at the King's feet, saying, My Lord, now that I know that thou art my best friend, and that thou wouldst render me good for evil, it is for thee to command and for me to obey, such will ever be my disposition. Philip then set before him six demands, amongst which there were only two which could have caused the Archbishop any uneasiness. The fourth purported that he should condemn the memory of Pope Boniface. The sixth, which is important and secret, I keep to myself, said Philip, to make known to thee in due time and place. The Archbishop bound himself by oath taken on the sacred host to accomplish the wishes of the King, to whom furthermore he gave his hostages his brother and his two nephews. Six weeks after this interview, on the 5th of June, 1305, Bertrand de Goth was elected pope, under the name of Clement V. It was not long before he gave the King the most certain pledge of his docility. After having held his pontifical court at Bordeaux and Poitiers, he declared that he would fix his residence in France, in the country of Venison, at Avignon, a territory which Philip the Bold had remitted to Pope Gregory X, an execution of a deed of gift from Raymond VII, the Count of Toulouse. It was renouncing, in fact, if not in law, the practical independence of the papacy, to thus place it in the midst of the dominions and under the very thumb of the King of France. I know the gaseous, said the old Italian cardinal Matthew Rosso, Dean of the Sacred College, when he heard of this resolution. It will be ere long the church comes back to Italy. And indeed it was not until sixty years afterwards, under Pope Gregory XI, that Italy regained possession of the Holy See, and historians call this long absence the Babylonish captivity. Philip lost no time in profiting by his propinquity to make the full weight of his power felt by Clement V. He claimed from him the fulfillment of the fourth promise Bertrand de Gaulle had made in order to become Pope, which was the condonation of Boniface VIII, and he revealed to him the sixth, that important and secret one which he kept to himself to make known to him in due time and place. And it was the persecution and abolition of the order of the Templars. The pontificate of Clement V at Avignon was, for him, a nine years' painful effort, at one time to elude and at another to accomplish against the grain, the heavy engagements he had incurred towards the king. He found the condemnation of Boniface VIII rather an embarrassment than a danger. He shrank on becoming Pope from condemning the Pope his predecessor, who had appointed him archbishop and cardinal. Instead of an official condemnation, he offered the king's satisfaction in various ways. It was only from head strong pride and to cloak himself in the eyes of his subjects that Philip clung to the condemnation of the memory of Boniface. And after a long period of mutual to-giversation, it was agreed in the end to let bygones be bygones. The principal promoter of the assault at Avignon, William of Nagrade, was the sole exception to the amnesty, and the Pope imposed upon him, by way of penance, merely the obligation of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which he never fulfilled. On the contrary, he remained in great favour about the person of King Philip, who made him his chancellor, and gave him, in Lang Dock, some rich lands, amongst others those of Carvisson, Moissilag, and Manduel. For Philip knew how to liberally reward and faithfully support his servants. And he knew still better how to persecute and ruin his foes. He had no reason of a public kind to consider the Templars his enemies. It is true that they had given him a merely qualified support on his appeal to the Council against Boniface VIII. But both before and after that occurrence Philip had shown them marks of the most friendly regard. He had asked to be affiliated to their order, and he had borrowed their money. During a violent outbreak of the populace at Paris in 1306, on the occasion of a fresh tax, he had sought and found refuge in the very palace of the temple, where the chapters general were held and where its treasures were kept. It is said that the side of these treasures kindled the longings of Philip, and his ardent desire to get hold of them. At the time of the formation of the order in 1119, after the first crusade, the Templars were far from being rich. Nine knights had joined together to protect the arrival and sojourning of pilgrims in Palestine, and Baldwin II, the third Christian king of Jerusalem, had given them a lodging in his own palace, to the east of Solomon's temple, whence they had assumed the name of poor, united champions of Christ in the temple. Their valor and pious devotion had soon rendered them famous in the west as well as the east, and St. Bernard had commended them to the Christian world. At the Council of Troy in 1123 Pope Honorius II had recognized their order and regulated their dress, a white mantle, on which Pope Eugenius III placed a red cross. In 1172 the rules of the order were drawn up in 72 articles, and the Templars began to exempt themselves from jurisdiction of the patriarch of Jerusalem, recognizing that of the Pope only. Their number and their importance rapidly increased. In 1130 the Emperor Lothar II gave them lands in the Duchy of Brunswick. They received other gifts in the Low Countries, in Spain, and in Portugal. After a voyage to the west, Hugh de Paillon, the chief of the nine Templars, returned to the east with three hundred knights enlisted in his order, and a hundred and fifty years after its foundation, the order of the temple, divided into fourteen or fifteen provinces, four in the east and ten or eleven in the west, numbered, it is said, eighteen or twenty thousand knights, mostly French, and nine thousand commandaries, or territorial benefits, the revenue of which is calculated at fifty-four millions of francs, about ten and a half million dollars. It was an army of monks, once poor men and hard working soldiers, but now rich and idle, and abandoned to all the temptations of richness and idleness. There was still some fine talk about Jerusalem's pilgrims and crusades. The Pope still kept these words prominent, either to distract the Western Christians from intestine quarrels, or to really promote some new Christian effort in the east. The Isle of Cyprus was still a small Christian king, and the warrior monks, who were vowed to the defensive chrysandum in the east, the Templars and the hospitalers, had still, in Palestine, Syria, Armenia, and the adjacent lands, certain battles to fight and certain services to render to the Christian cause. But these were events too petty and too transitory to give serious employment to the two great religious and military orders, whose riches and fame were far beyond the proportions of their public usefulness and their real strength. A position fraught with perils for them, it inspired the sovereign powers of the state with the spirit rather of jealousy than fear of them. In 1303 the king and the pope simultaneously summoned from Cyprus to France the grand master of the Templars, James de Molay, a Burgundian nobleman, who had entered the order when he was almost a child, had valiantly fought the infidels in the east, and fourteen years ago had been unanimously elected grand master. For several months he was well treated to all appearances by the two monarchs. Philip said he wished to discuss with him a new plan of crusade, and asked him to stand godfather to one of his children, and Molay was pallbearer at the burial of the king's sister-in-law. Meanwhile the most sinister reports, the gravest imputations, were brooded abroad against the Templars. They were accused of things distasteful, deplorable, horrible to think on, horrible to hear, of betraying Christendom for the prophet of the infidels, of secretly denying the faith, of spitting upon the cross, of abandoning themselves to idolatrous practices in the most licentious lives. In 1307 in the month of October Philip the Hensom and Clement the Fifth had met at Poitiers, and the king asked the pope to authorize an inquiry touching the Templars and the accusations made against them. James de Molay was forthwith arrested at Paris with a hundred and forty of his knights. Sixty met the same fate at Bocair. Many others all over France, and their property was put in the king's keeping for the service of the Holy Land. On the 12th of August 1308 a papal bull appointed a grand commission of inquiry charged to conduct at Paris an examination of the matter according as the law requires. The archbishops of Canterbury in England and of Mayance, Columbia, and Trove in Germany were also named commissioners, and the pope announced that he would deliver his judgment within two years at a general council held at Vienne in Dauphany, territory of the Empire. Twenty-six princes and Laic lords, the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, the counts of Flanders, Nevers, Oxaire, and the count of Taloran de Paragord, offered themselves as the Templars accusers, and gave powers of attorney to act in their names. On the 22nd of November 1309 the grandmaster Mollet was called before the commission. At first he firmly denied all that his order had been accused of. Afterwards he became confused and embarrassed, and said that he had not the ability to undertake the defense of his order, that he was but a poor, unlettered knight, that the pope had reserved to himself the decision in the case, and that for his part he only wished the pope would summon him as soon as possible before him. On the 28th of May 1310 five hundred and forty-six knights, who had declared their readiness to defend their order, appeared before the commission, and they were called upon to choose protectors to speak in their name. We ought also, then, said they, to have been tortured by proxy only. The prisoners were treated with the uttermost rigor and reduced to the most wretched plight. Out of their poor pay of twelve deniers per diem they were obliged to pay for their passage by water, to go and submit to their examination in the city, and to give money besides to the men who undid and riveted their fetters. In October 1310, at a council held at Paris, a large number of Templars were examined. Several acquitted, some subjected to special penances, and fifty-four condemned as heretics to the stake, and burned the same day in a field close to the abbey of St. Anthony, and nine others met the same fate at the hands of a council held at St. Louis the same year. They confessed under their tortures, says Boussé, but they denied at their execution. The business dragged slowly on. Different decisions were pronounced according to the place of decision. The Templars were pronounced innocent on the seventeenth of June at Ravenna, on the first of July at Mayens, and on the twenty-first of October at Salamanca, and in Aragon they made a successful resistance. The matter began to be wearied at the uncertainty of such judgements and at the sight of such horrible spectacles. And Clement V felt some shame at thus persecuting monks who, on more than one occasion, had shown devotion to the Holy See. But Philip the Handsome had attained his end. He was in possession of the Templars' riches. On the eleventh of June 1311 the Commission of Inquiry terminated its sittings, and the report of its labours concluded as follows. For further precaution we have deposited the said procedure, drawn up by notaries in authentic form in the Treasury of Notre-Dame, at Paris, to be shown to none without special letters from your Holiness. The Council General, announced in 1308 by the Pope, to decide definitively upon this great case, was actually opened at Vienne in October 1311. More than three hundred bishops assembled and nine Templars presented themselves for the defense of their order, saying that there were at Lyon or in their neighborhood fifteen hundred or two thousand of their brethren ready to support them. The Pope had the nine offenders arrested, adjourned the decision once more, and on the twenty-second of March in the following year, at a more secret consistory made up of the most docile bishops and a few cardinals, pronounced, solely on his Pontifical Authority, the abolition of the Order of the Temple, and it was subsequently proclaimed officially on the third of April 1312 in presence of the King and the Council, and not a soul protested. The Grand Master James de Molay, in confinement at Gizor, survived his order. The Pope had reserved to himself the task of trying him, but disgusted with the work he committed the trial to ecclesiastical commissioners assembled at Paris, before whom Molay was brought, together with three of the principal leaders of the Temple, survivors like himself. They had read over to them, from a scaffold erected in the Four Court of Notre-Dame, the confessions they had made but lately under torture, and it was announced to them that they were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Remorse had restored to the Grand Master all his courage. He interrupted the reading and disavowed his avowals, protesting that torture alone had made him speak so falsely, and maintaining that, of his grand order, not he wist against honor and the laws of Christ. One of his three comrades in misfortune, the commander of Normandy, made aloud a similar disavowal. The embarrassed judges sent the two Templars back to the provost of Paris, and put off their decision to the following day, but Philip the Handsome, without waiting for the morrow, and without consulting the judges, ordered the two Templars to be burned the same evening, March 11, 1314, at the hour of Vespers, in Ile de la Cité, on the side of the present plastopheine. A poet chronicler, Godfrey of Paris, who was a witness of the scene, thus describes it. The Grand Master, seeing the fire prepared, stripped himself briskly. I tell, just as I saw, he bared himself to his shirt, lightheartedly and with a good grace, without a wit of trembling, though he was dragged and shaken mightily. They took hold of him to tie him to the stake, and they were binding his hands with a cord, but he said to them, Vespers, suffer me to fold my hands awhile, and make my prayer to God, for verily it is time. I am presently to die, but wrongfully, God what. Therefore woe will come ere long to those who condemn us without a cause. God will avenge our death. It was probably owing to these last words that there arose a popular rumour, soon spread abroad, that James de Molay, at his death, had cited the Pope and the King to appear with him, the former at the end of forty days, and the latter within a year, before the judgment seat of God. Events gave a sanction to the legend, for Clemeth v. actually died on the twentieth of April, 1314, and Philip the Handsome on the twenty-ninth of November, 1314. The Pope, undoubtedly uneasy at the servile acquiescence he had shown towards the King, and the King expressing some sorrow for his greed and for the imposts, maltolti, malatolta, or blackmail, with which he had burdened friendship in France, part sixteen. Inexcessive and arbitrary imposts, indeed, consisted the chief grievance for which France in the fourteenth century had to complain of Philip the Handsome, and probably it was the only wrong for which he had braided himself. Being badly wounded, outhunting, by a wild boar, and perceiving himself to be in bad case, he gave orders for his removal to Fontainebleau, and there, says Godfrey of Paris, the poet chronicler just quoted in reference to the execution of the Templars. He said and commanded that his children, his brothers, and his other friends should be sent for. They were no long time in coming. They entered Fontainebleau into the chamber in which the King was, and where there was very little light. So soon as they were there they asked him how he was, and he answered, ill in body and in soul, if our Lady the Virgin saved me not by her prayers I see that death will seize me here. I have put on so many tally-edges, and laid hands on so many riches, that I shall never be absolved. Sirs, I know I am in such a state that I shall die, methinks to-night, for I suffer grievous hurt from the curses which pursue me. There will be no fine tales to be told of me." Philip's anxiety about his memory was not without foundation. His greed is the vice which has clung to his name. Not only did he load his subjects with pole taxes and other taxes unauthorized by law, and the traditions of the feudal system, not only was he unjust and cruel towards the Templars in order to appropriate their riches, but he committed, over and over again, that kind of spoilation which imports most trouble into the general life of a people. He debased the coinage so often and to such an extent that he was everywhere called the base coiner. This was a financial process of which none of his predecessors, neither St. Louis nor Philip Augustus had set him an example, though they had quite as many costly wars and expeditions to keep up as he had. Some chroniclers of the fourteenth century say that Philip the Handsome was particularly munificent and lavish towards his family and his servants, but it is difficult to meet with any precise proof of this allegation, and we must impute the financial difficulties of Philip the Handsome to his natural greed and to the secret expenses entailed upon him by his policy of dissimulation and hatred rather than to his lavish generosity. As he was no stranger to the spirit of order in his own affairs, he tried, towards the end of his reign, to obtain an exact account of his finances. His chief advisor, N. Garon de Mérigny, became his superintendent general, and on the nineteenth of January 1311, at the close of a grand council held at Poissy, Philip passed an ordinance which established, under the headings of expenses and receipts, two distinct tables and treasuries, one for ordinary expenses, the civil list, and the payment of the great bodies of the State, incomes, pensions, and etc., and the other for extraordinary expenses. The ordinary expenses were estimated at one hundred and seventy-five thousand, five hundred levers of tour, that is, according to M. Boutaric, who published the ordinance fifteen million nine hundred thousand francs, about three million eighty-four thousand dollars. Numerous articles regulated the execution of the measure, and the royal treasurers took an oath not to reveal, within two years, the State of their receipts, saved to N. Garon de Mérigny, or by order of the King himself. This first budget of the French monarchy dropped out of sight after the death of Philip the handsome, in the reaction which took place against his government. God forgive him his sins, says God, free of Paris, for in the time of his reign great loss came to France, and there was small regret for him. The general history of France has been more indulgent towards Philip the handsome than his contemporaries were. It has expressed its acknowledgements to him for the progress made, under his sway, by the particular and permanent characteristics of civilization in France. The kingly domain received in the Pyrenees, in Aquitaine, in French Comte, and in Flanders territorial increments which extended national unity. The legislative power of the king penetrated into and secured footing in the lands of his vassals. The scattered semi-sovereigns of feudal society bowed down before the incontestable preeminence of the kingship, which gained the victory in its struggle against the papacy. Far be it from us to attach no importance to the intervention of the deputies of the communes in the state's general of 1302, on the occasion of that struggle. It was certainly homage paid to the nascent existence of the third estate. But it is purile to consider that homage as a real step towards public liberties and constitutional government. The burgers of 1302 did not dream of such a thing. Philip, knowing that their feelings were, in this instance, in accordance with his own, summoned them in order to use their cooperation as a useful appendage for himself, and absolute kingship gained more strength by the cooperation than the third estate acquired influence. The general constitution of the judiciary power, as delegated from the kingship, the creation of several classes of magistrates devoted to this great social function, and especially the strong organization and the permanence of the Parliament of Paris, were far more important progressions in the development of civil order and society in France. But it was to the advantage of absolute power that all these facts were turned, and the perverted ability of Philip the handsome consisted in working them for that single end. He was a profound egotist. He mingled with his imperiousness the leaven of craft and patience, but he was quite a stranger to the two principles which constitute the morality of governments, respect for rights and patriotic sympathy with public sentiment. He concerned himself about nothing but his own position, his own passions, his own wishes, or his own fancies. And this is the radical vice of absolute power. Philip the handsome is one of the kings of France who have most contributed to stamp upon the kingship in France this lamentable characteristic, from which France has suffered so much, even in the midst of her glories, and which in our time was so grievously atoned for by the kingship itself, when it no longer deserved the reproach. Philip the handsome left three sons, Louis X, called La Houtain, the quarrelor, Philip V, called the long, and Charles IV, called the handsome, who between them occupied the throne only thirteen years and ten months. None of them distinguished himself by his personal merits, and the events of the three reigns hold scarcely a higher place in history than the actions of the three kings do. Shortly before the death of Philip the handsome, his greedy despotism had already excited amongst the people such lively discontent that several leagues were formed in Champagne, Burgundy, Artois, and Bovesis to resist him, and the members of these leagues, nobles and commoners say the accounts, engaged to give one another mutual support in their resistance at their own cost and charges. After the death of Philip the handsome, the opposition made head more extensively and effectually, and it produced two results. Ten ordinances of Louis the quarrelor for redressing the grievances of the feudal aristocracy for one, and for the other, the trial and condemnation of Angarand and Marigny, co-ajutor and rector of the kingdom under Philip the handsome. Marigny, at the death of the king his master, had against him rightly or wrongly popular clamor and feudal hostility, especially that of Charles of Velois, Philip the handsome's brother, who acted as leader of the barons. What has become of all those subsidies and all those sums produced by so much tampering with the coinage, asked the new king one day in council? Sir, said Prince Charles, it was Marigny who had the administration of everything, and it is for him to render an account. I'm quite ready, said Marigny. This moment, then, said the prince, most willingly, my lord, I gave a great portion to you. You lie, cried Charles. Nay, you, by God, replied Marigny. The prince drew his sword, and Marigny was on the point of doing the same. The quarrel was, however, stifled for the moment, but shortly afterwards Marigny was accused, condemned by a commission assembled at Vincennes, and hanged on the gibbet of Mont-Facon, which he himself, it is said, had set up. He walked to execution with head erect, saying to the crowd, Good folks, pray for me. Some months afterwards, the young king, who had endorsed the sentence reluctantly, since he did not well know, between his father's brother and minister, which of the two was guilty, left by will a handsome legacy to Marigny's widow, in consideration of the great misfortune which had befallen her and hers. And Charles of Alois himself, falling into a decline, considered himself stricken by the hand of God, as a punishment for the trial of Ngaran de Marigny. Had liberal alms distributed to the poor with this injunction. Pray God for Ngaran de Marigny, and for the count of Alois. None can tell, after this lapse of time, whether this remorse proceeded from weakness of mind or sincerity of heart, and which of the two personages was really guilty. But ages afterward, such is the effect of blind, popular clamour, and unrighteous judicial proceedings, that the condemned lives in history as a victim, and all but a guileless being. Whilst the feudal aristocracy was thus avenging itself of kingly tyranny, the spirit of Christianity was noiselessly pursuing its work, the general enfranchisement of men. Louis the quarreler had to keep up the war with Flanders, which was continually being renewed, and in order to find, without hateful exactions, the necessary funds, he was advised to offer freedom to the serfs of his domain. Accordingly he issued, on the 3rd of July, 1315, an edict to the following effect. As according to natural right, every one should be born free, and whereas by certain customs which, from long age, have been introduced into and preserved to this day in our kingdom, many persons amongst our common people have fallen into the bonds of slavery, which much displeaseth us. We, considering that our kingdom is called and named the kingdom of the free, Franks, and willing that the matters should in verity accord with the name, have by our grand counsel decreed and due decree that generally throughout our whole kingdom such serfdoms will be redeemed to freedom on fair and suitable conditions, and we will likewise that all other lords who have bodymen or serfs do take an example by us to bring them to freedom. Great credit has very properly been given to Louis the quarreler for this edict, but it has not been sufficiently noticed that Philip the handsome had himself set his sons the example, for on confirming the enfranchisement granted by his brother Charles to the serfs in the county of Valois, he had based his decree on the following grounds, seeing that every human being, which is made in the image of our Lord, should generally be free by natural right. The history of Christian communities is full of these happy inconsistencies. When a moral and just principle is implanted in the soul, absolute power itself does not completely escape from its healthy influence, and the good makes its way athwart the evil, just as a source of fresh and pure water ceases not to flow and spread over a land wasted by the crimes or follies of men. It is desirable to give an idea and an example of the conduct which was already beginning to be adopted, and of the authority which was already beginning to be exercised in France, amidst the futile reaction that set in against Philip the handsome, and amidst the feeble government of his sons, by that majestacy of such recent and petty origin, which was called upon to defend in the king's name, order and justice against the countless anarchical tyrannies scattered over the national territory. During the early years of the fifteenth century, a lord of Gascony, Jordan de Lille, of most noble origin, but most ignoble deeds, says a contemporary chronicler, abandoned himself to all manner of irregularities and crimes. Confident in his strength and his connections, for Pope John the 22nd had given his niece to him in marriage, he committed homicides, entertained evildoers and murderers, countenanced robbers, and rose against the king. He killed with the man's own trench and one of the king's servants, who was wearing the royal livery according to the custom of the royal servants. When his misdeeds were known, he was summoned for trial to Paris, and he went there surrounded by a stately retinue of counts, nobles, and barons of aquitaine. He was confined at first in the prison of Châtelet, and when a hearing had been accorded to his reply and to what he alleged in his defense against the crimes of which he was accused, he was finally pronounced worthy of death by the doctors of the Parliament, and on Trinity Eve he was dragged at the tail of horses and hanged, as he deserved, on the public gallows at Paris. It was assuredly a difficult and a dangerous task for the obscure members of this Parliament, scarcely organized as it was, and quite lately established for a permanence in Paris, to put down such disorders in such men. In the course of its long career, the French Magistasy has committed many faults. It has more than once either aspired to overstep its proper limits, or fail to fulfill all its duties. But history would be ungrateful and untruthful not to bring into the light the virtues this body has displayed from its humble cradle, and the services it has rendered to France, to her security at home, to her moral dignity, to her intellectual glory, and to the progress of her civilization with all its brilliancy and productiveness, though it is still so imperfect and so thwarted. Another fact which has held an important place in the history of France, and exercised a great influence over her destinies, likewise dates from this period, and that is the exclusion of women from the secession to the throne, by virtue of an article ill-understood of the Salic Law. The ancient law of the Sallian Franks, drawn up, probably in the seventh century, had no statute at all touching this grave question. The article relied upon was merely a regulation of civil law prescribing that no portion of really Salic land, that is to say, in the full territorial ownership of the head of the family, should pass into the possession of women, but it should belong all together to the virile sex. From the time of Hugh Capay, Ayre's male had never been wanting to the crown, and the succession in the male line had been a fact uninterrupted indeed, but not due to prescription or law. Louis the quarrelor at his death, on the fifth of June, 1316, left only a daughter, but his second wife, Queen Clemens, was pregnant. As soon as Philip the Long, then Count of Poitiers, heard of his brother's death, he hurried to Paris, assembled a certain number of barons, and got them to decide that he, if the queen should be delivered of a son, should be regent of the kingdom, for eighteen years, but that if she should bear a daughter he should immediately take possession of the crown. On the fifteenth of November, 1316, the queen gave birth to a son, who was named John, and who figures as John I in the series of French kings, but the child died at the end of five days, and on the sixth of January, 1317, Philip the Long was crowned king at Rem. He forthwith summoned, there is no knowing exactly where and in what numbers, the clergy, barons, and third estate, who declared on the second of February that the laws and customs involuntarily observed among the Franks excluded daughters from the crown. There was no doubt about the fact, but the law was not established, nor even in conformity with the entire futile system or with general opinion. And thus the kingdom went, says Froycart, as Seymouth to many folks, out of the right line. But the measure was evidently wise and salutary for France, as well as for the kingship. And it was renewed after Philip the Long died on the third of January, 1322, and left daughters only in favour of his brother Charles the Handsome, who died in his turn on the first of January, 1328, and likewise left daughters only. The question as to the secession of the throne then lay between the male line represented by Philip, Count of Aloys, grandson of Philip the Bold through Charles of Aloys, his father, and the female line represented by Edward the Third, King of England, grandson through his mother Isabelle, sister of the late King of Charles the Handsome, of Philip the Handsome. A war of more than a century's duration between France and England was the result of this lamentable rivalry, which all but put the kingdom of France under an English king. But France was saved by the stubborn resistance of the national spirit and by Joan of Arc, inspired by God. One hundred and twenty-eight years after the triumph of the national cause, and four years after the accession of Henry IV, which was still disputed by the League, a decree of the Parliament of Paris, dated the 28th of June, 1593, maintained against the pretensions of Spain, the authority of the Salic Law. And on the first of October, 1789, a decree of the National Assembly, in conformity with the formal and unanimous wish of the memorials drawn up by the State's General, gave a fresh sanction to that principle, which confining the heredity of the crown to the male line had been salvation to the unity and nationality of the monarchy in France. End of Chapter 18