college unanimously awarded a prize of six hundred livres to a
poor young _boursier_ of the college of Arras, named Louis Francois
Maximilian Marie Robespierre, for twelve years of exemplary conduct
and of success in examinations and competitions.

Before we close this chapter a word of acknowledgment is due to the
mediaeval church in Paris for her careful fostering of elementary
education. By the Taille of 1292 already referred to, we learn that
schools for children of both sexes were distributed nearly over the
whole of the city radiating from the mother church of Notre Dame. At
the beginning of the fifteenth century twenty-one parishes had one or
two of these schools; in 1449 a thousand schoolboys took part in a
procession to Notre Dame to render thanks for the recovery of
Normandy. The Church inspected the sanitary condition of the schools
and exacted a standard of proficiency for the qualification of masters
and mistresses.

CHAPTER VII

_Conflict with Boniface VIII.--The States-General--The
Destruction of the Knights-Templars--The Parlement_

In 1302 the eyes of Europe were again drawn to Paris where the Fourth
Philip, surnamed the Fair, a prince who, in Dante's grim metaphor,
scourged the shameless harlot of Rome from head to foot, and dragged
her to do his will in France, was grappling with the great pontiff,
Boniface VIII.--the most resolute upholder of the papacy in her claim
to universal secular supremacy--and essaying a task which had baffled
the mighty emperors themselves.

The king knowing he had embarked on a struggle in which the greatest
potentates had been worsted, determined to appeal to the patriotism of
all classes of his subjects and fortify himself on the broad basis of
such popular opinion as then existed. For the first time the
States-General were summoned, after the burning of the papal bull in
Paris on the memorable Sunday of 11th February 1302. Their meeting
marks an epoch in French history, and for the first time members of
the _Tiers Etat_ (the third estate, or commons), sat beside the
privileged orders of clergy and nobles, and were recognised as one of
the legitimate orders of the realm. The assembly was convoked to meet
in Notre Dame on the 10th of April. The question was the old one
which had rent Christendom asunder for centuries: Was the pope at Rome
to be supreme over the princes and peoples of the earth in secular as
well as in spiritual matters? The utmost enthusiasm