1461, contrary to the advice of the king's council.[56] It met with
universal reprobation. The Parliament of Toulouse would register the
document only with an accompanying note stating that this had been done
"by the most express command of the king." The Parliament of Paris
absolutely declined to admit it in its records, and sent a deputation to
Louis to set forth the pernicious results that were to be expected from
the overthrow of his father's wise regulations.[57] The University made
bold to appeal to a general council of the Church.

[Sidenote: But subsequently re-enacts it.]

Meanwhile it happened that Louis made the unwelcome discovery that his
Italian friends had deceived him, and that the prospect was very remote
of obtaining the advantages by which he had been allured. It was not
very difficult, therefore, to persuade him to renounce his project. Not
content with this, three years after his formal revocation of the entire
Pragmatic Sanction, he even re-enacted some of the clauses of the
document respecting "expectatives" and "provisions."

[Sidenote: Parliament protests against the repeal.]

But a few years later, in 1467, Louis again conceived it to be for his
interest to abrogate the Pragmatic Sanction. At the suggestion of
Cardinal Balue, the recent enactment against "expectatives" was
repealed. The Parliament of Paris, however, refused to record the
letters patent. Among other powerful arguments adduced was the fact that
a recent investigation had proved that, in the three years of the
pontificate of Pius the Second during which the Pragmatic Sanction had
been virtually set aside (1461-1464), Rome drew from the kingdom not
less than 240,000 crowns in payment of bulls for archbishoprics,
bishoprics, and abbeys falling vacant within this term; 100,000 for
priories and deaneries; and the enormous sum of 2,500,000 crowns for
"expectatives" and "dispensations."[58] This startling financial exhibit
was accompanied by statements of the indirect injury received by the
community from the great number of candidates thrown on the tender
mercies of relations and friends, whom they thus beggared while awaiting
a long deferred preferment.[59] Even when successful, "they received
only lead for gold." Frequently, when they were about to clutch the
coveted prize, a rival stepped in armed with documents annulling those
previously given. Cases had, indeed, been known in which ten or twelve
contestants presented themselve