the arbitrary impulses of the monarch.

[Sidenote: The Gallican liberties.]

The Gallican Church had for many centuries been distinguished for a
manly defence of its liberties against the encroachments of the Papal
court. Tenacious of the maintenance of doctrinal unity with the See of
Rome, the French prelates early met the growing assumption of the Popes
with determined courage. At the suggestion of the clergy, and with their
full concurrence, more than one French king adopted stringent
regulations intended to protect the kingdom from becoming the prey of
foreigners. Church and State were equally interested in the successful
prosecution of a warfare carried on, so far as the French were
concerned, in a strictly defensive manner. The Papal treasury, under
guise of _annats_, laid claim to the entire income of the bishopric or
other benefice for the first year after each new appointment. It seized
upon the revenues of vacant ecclesiastical offices, which the king
specially affected. Every bull or brief needed to secure induction into
office--and the number of these articles was almost unlimited--was
procured at a heavy expense. Further sums were exacted for pronouncing a
dispensation in favor of those appointees whom youth or some other
canonical impediment incapacitated for the acceptance and discharge of
the requisite functions.

[Sidenote: Objects of the Gallican party.]

The main objects of both crown and clergy were, consequently, to secure
the kingdom from the disastrous results of the interference of Italians
in the domestic affairs of France; to preserve the treasure of the realm
from exhaustion resulting from the levy of arbitrary imposts fixed by
irresponsible aliens, and exacted through the terrors of ecclesiastical
penalties; to prevent the right of election to lucrative livings from
falling into the hands of those who would use the privilege only as a
means of acquiring riches; and to rescue clergymen themselves from
being hurried away for trial beyond the confines of their native land,
and possibly from suffering hopeless confinement in Roman dungeons. In a
word, it was the aim of the Gallican party to prove that "the government
of the church is not a despotism."[49]

[Sidenote: Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis.]

It is a somewhat anomalous circumstance that the first decided step in
repressing the arrogant claims of the Papal See was taken by a monarch
whose singular merits have been deemed worthy of