ressed to the Parliament of Paris, and the
bearer, La Tremouille, informed that body, as it listened to the
message, that Francis had repeated to him more than ten times within a
quarter of an hour, "that he would not for half his kingdom fail of his
word to the Pope, and that if parliament rebelled, he would find means
to make it repent of its obstinacy." Under these circumstances, further
resistance from a body so completely dependent on the sovereign was not
to be thought of. Yet, even when compelled to yield, parliament, at the
suggestion of the _gens du roi_, coupled the registry of the concordat
with a declaration that it was made at the express command of the king
several times reiterated, that parliament disapproved of the revocation
of the Pragmatic Sanction; and that, in the adjudication of causes, it
would continue to follow the ordinance of Charles the Seventh, while
appealing to the Pope under better advisement, and to a future council
of the church. Thus the concordat, projected at Bologna in 1515, and
signed at Rome on the sixteenth of August, 1516, was registered by the
Parliament of Paris _de expressissimo mandato regis_, on the
twenty-second of March, 1518.[65]

[Sidenote: The university remonstrates.]

Even now Francis had not quite silenced all opposition. The rector of
the University of Paris, not content with entering a formal
remonstrance,[66] took a bolder step. Making use of a prerogative long
since conceded to the university, of exercising a censure over the
press, he posted a notice to all printers and publishers forbidding the
reproduction of the concordat on pain of loss of their privileges. The
dean and canons of the cathedral church of Paris also handed in a
protest. The preachers of several churches rivalled the rector in
audacity, by publicly inveighing against the dangers of the
ecclesiastical innovations introduced by the king. It is not surprising
that a prince impatient even of wholesome rebuke was enraged at this
monkish tirade. Parliament was ordered to bring the culprits to justice;
but, strange to say, none could be discovered--a circumstance certainly
attributable rather to the supineness of the judges than to any lack of
witnesses. To the university Francis wrote in a haughty vein,
threatening the severe punishment of any of its doctors that dared
preach against the government; while, by an edict from Amboise, he
forbade the rector and his associates from assembling for the di