ty did not possess sufficient union, the people did not have
enough force to profit on this occasion against the Crown. Besides, the
Pope was more unpopular than the King, and had been so for a much longer
time; the nobility, which, since the reign of St. Louis, had coalesced
to resist clerical jurisdiction, had not changed in sentiment; as to the
people, filled with the remembrance of St. Louis, they loved the King
still, better than the Pope, notwithstanding the oppressions of Philip,
and besides it was easy to foresee that the mayors, consuls, aldermen,
jurats or magistrates, who were to represent their cities in the great
assembly at Paris, dazzled with the unaccustomed _role_ to which they
were called, and desirous to please the King in their personal interest
or in that of their towns, would be under the control of the adroit
lawyers who were prepared to work on their minds and to direct the
debates. The bull, nevertheless, if its exact tenor had been known,
might well have produced in many respects a contrary effect to the
wishes of the King. The reproaches of Boniface touching the debasement
of the coinage and the royal exactions, reproaches which so irritated
Philip, might have met with other sentiments from the townsmen. The
chancellor, Peter Flotte, foresaw this; he distributed among the public,
instead of the original bull, a species of _resume_ in which he had
assembled, in a few lines, in the crudest terms, the most exorbitant
pretensions of Boniface, at the same time suppressing everything which
touched on the troubles of the nation against the King.

"Boniface, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Philip, King of
the French; fear God and observe his commandments. We want you to know
that you are subject to us temporarily as well as spiritually; that the
collation of the benefices and the prebends--revenues attached to the
canonical positions--do not belong to you in any way; that if you have
care of the vacant benefices, it is to reserve their revenue for their
successors; that if you have misapplied any of these benefices, we
declare that collation invalid and revoke it, declaring as heretics all
those who think otherwise.

"Given in the Lateran in the month of December, etc."

At the same time they caused to be circulated a pretended answer to the
pretended bull:

"Philip, by the Grace of God, King of the French, to Boniface, who gives
out that he is sovereign pontiff, little or no salutations