[48] Ibid., i. 226.
[49] "Donc, le gouvernement de l'Église n'est pas un empire despotique." Abbé Claude Fleury, Discours sur les Libertés de l'Église gallicane, 1724 (reprinted in Leber, Coll. de pièces relatives à l'hist. de France, iii. 252).
[50] "On a contesté l'authenticité de cette pièce, mais elle est aujourd'hui généralement reconnu." Isambert, Recueil gén. des anciennes lois françaises, i. 339.
[51] Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, pt. ii.; Isambert, ubi supra; Ordonnances des Roys de France de la troisième race, i. 97-98. Section 5 sufficiently expresses the feelings of the king in reference to the insatiable covetousness of the Roman court: "Item, exactiones et onera gravissima pecuniarum, per curiam Romanam ecclesiæ regni nostri impositas vel imposita, quibus regnum nostrum miserabiliter depauperatum extitit, sive etiam imponendas, aut imponenda levari, aut colligi nullatenus volumus, nisi duntaxat pro rationabili, pia et urgentissima causa, inevitabili necessitate, et de spontaneo et expresso consensu nostro et ipsius ecclesiæ regni nostri." See also Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vii. 104.
[52] Sismondi, Hist. des Français, xiii. 317, etc.
[53] The Pragmatic Sanction is long and intricate, consisting in great part of references to those portions of the canons of the Council of Basle which it confirms. The entire document may be seen in the Ordonnances des Roys de Fr. de la troisième race, xiii. 267-291, and in the Recueil gén. des anc. lois franç., ix. 3-47. Isambert thus defines the term pragmatic: "On appelle pragmatique toute constitution donnée en connaissance de cause du consentiment unanime de tous les grands, et consacrée par la volonté du prince. Le mot pragma signifie prononcée, sentence, édit; il était en usage avant Saint Louis."
[54] Abbé Claude Fleury, Libertés de l'Église Gallicane, in Leber, iii. 321.
[55] "Commemoravit (i. e., the papal legate) ea quæ per ipsum tibi nostro nomine pollicenda, vovenda et promittenda, nos, antequam regnum suscepisemus, religionis instinctus quidam deduxerat." Letter of Louis XI. to the Pope, Tours, Nov. 27, 1461.
[56] Louis XI.'s letter to the Pope, annulling the Pragmatic Sanction, is in the Ordonnances des roys de Fr. de la troisième race, xv., 193-194. Its tone could not have been more submissive had it been penned for him by the Pope himself. The Pragmatic Sanction is referred to contemptuously as "constitutio quædam in regno nostro quam Pragmaticam vocant." Louis professes to be moved by the consideration that obedience is better than all sacrifice, and that the Pragmatic Sanction is hateful to the Papal See, "utpote quæ in seditione et schismatis tempore ... nata est; et quæ, dum tibi, a quo sacræ leges oriuntur et manant, quantamlibet eripit auctoritatem, omne jus et omnem legem dissolvit." It was "as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." Nothing could surpass Louis's obsequiousness: "Sicut mandasti ... pellimus dejicimus stirpitusque abrogamus," etc. He pledges his royal word to overcome opposition: "Quod si forte obnitentur aliqui aut reclamabunt, nos in verbo regio pollicemur tuæ Beatitudini atque promittimus exsequi facere tua mandata, omni appellationis aut oppositionis obstaculo prorsus excluso," etc. Louis was never more to be distrusted than when he bound himself by the most stringent promises.
[57] See the Remonstrances of Parliament, Ordonnances, etc., xv. 195-207.