d crafty, but with sincerity at the
bottom of his prejudiced ideas, and stubborn and blind in his fits of
temper: his death was that of an old lion at bay.

We were bound to get a good idea and understanding of this violent
struggle between the two sovereigns of France and Rome, not only because
of its dramatic interest, but because it marks an important period in the
history of the papacy and its relations with foreign governments. From
the tenth century and the accession of the Capetians the policy of the
Holy See had been enterprising, bold, full of initiative, often even
aggressive, and more often than not successful in the prosecution of its
designs. Under Innocent III. it had attained the apogee of its strength
and fortune. At that point its motion forward and upward came to a stop.
Boniface had not the wit to recognize the changes which had taken place
in European communities, and the decided progress which had been made by
laic influences and civil powers. He was a stubborn preacher of maxims
he could no longer practise. He was beaten in his enterprise; and the
papacy, even on recovering from his defeat, found itself no longer what
it had been before him. Starting from the fourteenth century we find no
second Gregory VII., or Innocent III. Without expressly abandoning their
principles, the policy of the Holy See became essentially defensive and
conservative, more occupied in the maintenance than the aggrandizement of
itself, and sometimes even more stationary and stagnant than was required
by necessity or recommended by foresight. The posture assumed and the
conduct adopted by the earliest successors of Boniface VIII. showed how
far the situation of the papacy was altered, and how deep had been the
penetration of the stab which, in this conflict between the two aspirants
to absolute power, Philip the Handsome had inflicted on his rival.

On the 22d of October, 1303, eleven days after the death of Boniface
VIII., Benedict XI., son of a simple shepherd, was elected at Rome to
succeed him. Philip the Handsome at once sent his congratulations, but
by William of Plasian, who had lately been the accuser of Boniface, and
who was charged to hand to the new pope, on the king's behalf, a very
bitter memorandum touching his predecessor. Philip at the same time
caused an address to be presented to himself in his own kingdom and in
the vulgar tongue, called a supplication from the people of France to the
King again