n of the _annats_ is stigmatized as simony. Priests
living in concubinage are to be punished by the forfeiture of one-fourth
of their annual stipend. Finally the principle is sanctioned that no
interdict can be made to include in its operation the innocent with the
guilty.[53]

So thorough a vindication of the rights of the Gallican Church had never
before been undertaken. The axe was laid at the root of formidable
abuses; freedom of election was restored; the kingdom was relieved of a
crushing burden of tribute; foreigners were precluded from interfering
with the systematic administration of the laws. The clergy, both regular
and secular, received the greatest benefits, for, while they could no
longer be plundered of so large a part of their incomes, their persons
were protected from arbitrary arrest and hopeless exile beyond the Alps.

The council had not adjourned when the tidings of the transactions at
Bourges reached the city of Basle. The members were overjoyed, and
testified their approval in a grateful letter to the Archbishop of
Lyons. But their exultation was more than equalled by the disgust of
Pope Eugenius the Third. Indeed, the pontificates of this pope and his
immediate successors were filled with fruitless attempts to effect the
repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction. A threat was made to place France
under an interdict; but this was of no avail, being answered by the
counter-threat of the king's representative, who proposed to make a
practical application of the instrument, by appealing from his Holiness
to a future general council. So the Pope, having a vivid recollection of
the perils attending a contest with the French crown, wisely avoided the
hazardous venture.[54]

[Sidenote: Louis XI. consents to its abrogation.]

In Louis the Eleventh the papal court seemed to have found a more
promising prince to deal with. Animated by hatred of his father, and
disposed to oppose whatever had met his father's approval, Louis had,
while yet dauphin, given the Pope's agents flattering assurances of his
good intentions.[55] On ascending the throne, he permitted his father's
memory to be treated with disrespect, by suffering a nuncio to pronounce
absolution over the corpse for the heinous sin of originating the
Pragmatic Sanction. Later, on receiving the assurance of the Pope's
support for the house of Anjou in Naples, he consented to repeal the
hateful ordinance. A royal declaration for this purpose was published in