"As for your person, most holy Father, he has sentiments for you which pass the limits of ordinary filial affection. He always speaks of you with consideration. He does not like to have others speak otherwise. He conceives the most favorable hopes of you. He counts upon it that, after having reconciled all the orientals to the Roman Church, you will also reëstablish the affairs of the Occident."
This discourse certainly did honor to the good sense of France. In spite of the intrigues of the learned doctors of the university, the King and the episcopacy early and clearly remarked the revolutionary and anarchistic tendency of Basel. As for the amicably regulating relation of the churches of France with the holy see to remedy certain abuses, the thing was not difficult. It would have been sufficient to send some more bishops to Florence like the Bishop of Meaux. All would have been very quickly arranged, to the satisfaction of everybody, and the example of France would have drawn the rest of the Occident. But to desire a third council was not of the same wisdom. Thus the Pope took good care not to consent to it.
In 1444 Eugenius IV created the Dauphin of France, who was afterward King Louis XI, grand gonfalonier of the Roman Church, granting him a pension of fifteen thousand florins, to be taken annually from the apostolic chamber. The Dauphin made an expedition to the gates of Basel, where he overcame a corps of Swiss and spread consternation among those who were still at the pretended council. This expedition was followed by a long truce between France and England; an event which was considered as the prelude to a good peace. In order to obtain from God this good, so necessary and so much desired, there were public fêtes at Paris, among others a solemn procession in which were carried all the holy relics of the city.
In November, 1446, King Charles VII, being at Tours, made with his council a plan of accommodation between the two parties that divided the Church. It arranged that all the censures published on one side and the other should be revoked; that Pope Eugenius should be recognized by all as before the schism; that Monsieur de Savoie, called Felix by his adherents, should renounce the popedom; that he should hold the highest rank in the Church, next to the person of the Pope, and that his partisans should be also maintained in their dignities, grades, and benefices.