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advocate-general did, in the chancellor's presence, represent the inconvenience of receiving the Concordat, by which the liberties of the Gallican church were lessened; and said, that by the paying of annats, much money would be carried out of the kingdom; so he desired they would appoint a committee to examine it. Four were named, who, after they had sat about it ten days, desired more might be added to them so the president of the Enquets, or Inquisitions, and four more, were joined to them. A week after that, the advocate-general moved the court to proceed still to judge according to the Pragmatic, and not to receive the revocation of it, against which he put in an appeal. Four days after this, the Bastard of Savoy, the king's natural uncle, came into the court with orders from the king, requiring them to proceed immediately to the publishing the Concordats: appointing him to hear all their debates, that he might report all to the king. He told them how much the king was offended with their delays; they, on the other hand, complained of his being present to hear them deliver their opinions. They sent some of their number to lay this before the king; it looked like a design to frighten them, when one, not of their body, was to hear all that passed among them. The king said there were some worthy men among them; but others, like fools, complained of him, and of the expense of his court he was a king, and had as much authority as his predecessors. They had flattered Lewis the Twelfth, and called him the father of justice: he would also have justice done with all vigour. In Lewis's time some were banished the kingdom because they did not obey him; so, if they did not obey him, he would send some of them to Bourdeaux, and others to Thoulouse, and put good men in their places; and told them he would have his uncle present during their deliberations: so they were forced to submit to it.

On the 13th of June (1517), they began to deliver their opinions, and that lasted till the 24th of July; and then they concluded that the court could not, and ought not, to register the Concordats: but that they would still observe the Pragmatic Sanction; and that the university of Paris, and all others that desired to be heard, ought to be heard. Therefore, they said, they must appeal from the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction; and if the king would insist to have the Concordat observed, a great assembly ought to be summoned, such as Charles the Seventh had called to settle the Pragmatic. They also charged the Savoyard to make a true report to the king of their proceedings.

Upon this the king wrote to them, to send some of their body to give him an account of the grounds they went on:

two were sent, but it was long before they were admitted to his presence; the king saying he would delay their dispatch as they had delayed his business. When they were admitted, they were ordered to put what they had to offer in writing: this they did, but desired to be likewise heard; but being asked if they had any thing to offer that was not in their paper, they said they had not, but desired the king would hear their paper read to him; the king refused it. They were a body of one hundred persons, and had been preparing their paper above seven months; but the chancellor would answer it in less time; and the king would not suffer them to have a verbal process against what he had done. He told them there was but one king in France: he had done the best he could to bring all to a quiet state, and would not suffer that which he had done in Italy to be undone in France; nor would he suffer them to assume an authority like that of the senate of Venice. It was their business to do justice, but not to put the kingdom in a flame, as they had attempted to do in his predecessor's time: he concluded he would have them approve the Concordats; and if they gave him more trouble, he would make them ambulatory, and to follow his court; nor would he suffer any more ecclesiastics to be of their body. They were not entirely his subjects, since he had no authority to cut off their heads: they ought to say their breviary, and not to meddle in his affairs.

They answered him, that these things were contrary to the constitution of their court. He said he was sorry his ancestors had so constituted it; but he was king as well as they were; and he would settle them on another foot; so he bid them be gone early the next morning: they begged a short delay, for the ways were bad; but the great-master told them from the king, that if they were not gone by such an hour, he would put them in prison, and keep them in it six months, and then he would see who would move to set them at liberty; so they went to Paris. The duke of Tremoville was sent after them to the parliament, to let them know that the king would have the Concordats to be immediately published, without any further deliberation: they must obey the king, as became subjects; he told them, the king had repeated that ten times to him in the space of a quarter of an hour, and concluded, that if they delayed any longer to obey the king, the king would make all the court feel the effects of his displeasure.

The court called for the king's learned counsel, but they said they had received positive orders from the king, by Tremoville, to consent to the Concordats; otherwise the king would treat them so, that they should feel it sensibly:

the advocate-general said, he was sorry for the methods the king took; but he wished they would consider what might follow, if they continued to deny what was so earnestly pressed on them: the publishing of this could be of no force, since the church, that was so much concerned in it, was neither called for, nor heard; the thing might be afterwards set right, for Lewis the Eleventh saw his error, and changed his mind. He offered two things to soften that which was required of them: one was, to insert in the register that it was done in obedience to the king's commands often repeated: the other was, that they should declare that they did not approve the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction, but were then only to publish the Concordats; and that they might resolve in all their judiciary proceedings to have no regard to that; and in particular to that clause, that all bulls were void if the true value of the benefice was not expressed in them. On the 18th of March (1518), they came to this resolution, that their decree of the 24th of July, for observing the Pragmatic, was by them fully confirmed; but, in obedience to the king's commands, they published the Concordats, adding a protestation, that the court did not approve it, but intended in all their sentences to judge according to the Pragmatic Sanction.

The court made these protestations in the hands of the bishop of Langres, a duke and peer of France, setting forth that their liberty was taken from them; that the publication of the Concordats was not done by their order, but against their mind, by the king's express order; and that they did not intend to approve it, nor to be governed by it in their judgments, but to observe the Pragmatic Sanction. They ordered likewise an appeal to be made from the pope, to the pope better advised, and to the next general council: upon all which the bishop of Langres made an authentic instrument; so it was resolved to proceed to publication on the 22d of March: but on the 21st the rector of the university of Paris, accompanied by some of that body, and by some advocates, appeared, desiring to be heard before they should proceed to such publication. The court received his petition, and promised to consider it; but said, if they made the publication, it should not prejudice any of their rights, for they were resolved to judge as formerly notwithstanding that; yet they required him not to publish this. The dean of Nostredame came on the 22d to the court, and said they heard they were going to publish the Concordats, which both implied their condemning the councils of Constance and Basil, and tended to the destruction of the liberties of the Gallican church, which the popes had always envied them. VOL. III, PART 1.

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He desired they would not proceed to it till the whole Gallican church was consulted in the matter; and protested, that what they were about to do should not be to the prejudice of the church. After this was received, they proceeded to the publication, as they had promised, adding these words to it; "read, published, and registered, by the order and command of the king often repeated to us, in the presence of the lord Tremoville, his first chamberlain, specially sent to have it done." And on the 24th of March they renewed their protestation, that they did not approve of it; that they insisted in their former appeals, and were resolved to proceed in all their judgments without regard to it.

On the 27th of March the rear of the university ordered a mandate to be affixed, prohibiting their printers to print the Concordats: he likewise appealed from the pope to a general council, lawfully assembled, sitting in a safe place, and in full freedom. This was printed and affixed; and great reflections were made by some preachers in their sermons, both on the king and on the chancellor. The king, being inforined of this, wrote to the first president, complaining both of the rector, and of the preachers: he ordered them to take informations of all those matters, and to get the Concordats to be printed as soon as was possible, and to punish the authors of sedition. But the court said, they knew nothing tending that way; for their business took them up so entirely, that they could not attend on sermons. The king complained likewise severely of the appeal they had made he was monarch, and had no superior to whom an appeal could lie he also sent an order to inhibit all meetings in the university.

In the Concordat it was provided, that if it was not published within six months in France, it should be null and void but the delays that had been made put the king on getting that term prolonged a year longer. The three chief exceptions that the parliament had to the Concordats were, first, the declaring bulls void, if the true value of the benefices was not set forth in them; which might put the obtainers of them to great charge and many suits. The second was, the carrying the greater causes to be judged at Rome. The third was concerning elections. The first of these was given up, and was no further urged by the court of Rome; but it was not settled what those greater causes were. By the Pragmatic, they were restrained to bishoprics and monasteries; but the Concordats held the matter in general words: so the number of these causes was indefinite, and on all occasions it would increase as the canonists pleased. They condemned that device of the court of Rome

of granting provisions for all that was held by any who died in the court, considering the great extent to which that had been carried. They also found, that by the Concordats all nunneries were left to the pope's provision; and likewise all inferior dignities, such as deaneries and provostships. All churches that had special privileges were exempted from the king's nomination; and at Rome exceptions might be unjustly made to the persons named by the king: but, above all, they stood on this, that the right of electing was founded on the law of God, and on natural right: that this was established by the authority of general councils, by the civil law, and by many royal edicts, during all the three races of their kings this right was now taken away, without hearing the parties concerned to set it forth. If there had crept in abuses in elections, these might be corrected; but they thought the king usurped that which did not belong to him, on this pretence, that the pope granted it to him, which was contrary both to the doctrine and practice of the Gallican church. They found many lesser exceptions, in point of form, to the method of abrogating the Pragmatic Sanction: one was, that the council of the Lateran did forbid all persons that held lands of the church to observe or maintain that sanction, under the pain of forfeiting those lands; which was a plain invasion of the king's prerogatives, who is supreme lord of all those lands within his dominions. The pope also took upon him to annul that sanction, that then subsisted by the royal authority: this might be made a precedent, in time to come, for annulling any of their laws. They likewise thought the taking away the Pragmatic Sanction, which was made upon the authority of the councils of Constance and Basil, and had declared the subjection of the pope to the council, did set aside that doctrine, and set up the pope's authority above the council; though the Pragmatic was made while the pope was reconciled to the council and the breach upon which Eugenius was deposed happened not till almost a year after that; it being published in July, 1438, and his deposition was not till June, 1439; besides that, ten years after that, Pope Nicolaus the Fifth confirmed all the decrees made at Basil. They likewise put the king in mind of the oath he took at his coronation, to maintain all the rights and liberties of the Gallican church. So they moved the king, either to prevail with the pope to call a general council, or that he would call a national one in France, to judge of the whole matter: and as for the threatenings given out, that the pope would depose the king, and give away his kingdom, if he did not submit to him, they

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