e Church was
constituted monarchical by Jesus Christ himself; but we ask you to be
_our prince_ by functions of zeal and by considerateness. We pray you to
manage wisely the boat of St. Peter, in the midst of the tempests by
which it is buffeted. The princes of the Church, most holy Father, ought
not to resemble those of the nations. The latter have frequently no
other rule of government than their own will; on the contrary, the
princes of the Church ought to temper the use of their authority; and it
is for that that the holy fathers have established laws and canons.
Now, here is the source of the ills which afflict the Church. There are
two extremes: one consists in exercising ecclesiastical authority as the
princes of the nations exercise theirs, without rule and without
measure; the other is the enterprise of those who, in order to correct
its abuses, have desired to annihilate authority, who have denied that
supreme power rests in the Church, who have given this power to the
multitude, who have changed the entire ecclesiastical order in
destroying the monarchy which God placed there, to substitute for it
democracy or aristocracy, who have arrived, not only with respect to the
leader but also with respect to doctrine, at the point of causing an
execrable schism among the faithful.

"These considerations, most holy Father, have touched the most Christian
King; and to mitigate these two extremes, he has resolved to solicit the
convocation of a general council. That of Basel pushed the second
extreme too far when it undertook to suppress the truth as to the
supreme power in one alone. That of Florence, which you are now holding,
has well elucidated this truth, as may be seen in the decree concerning
the Greeks; but it has determined upon nothing to temper the use of this
power. This has caused many to believe it too near to the first
extremity. A third will be able, therefore, to take the just mean and
restore everything to order.

"I shall be told, no doubt, that there is no more need of general
councils; that there have been enough of them up to this time; that the
Roman Church suffices to terminate all controversies; that a prince does
not willingly intrust his rights to the multitude; that we would be
again exposed, by the convocation of another council, to the movements
which agitated the assembly at Basel; but, in order to answer that, it
is sufficient to cast our eyes upon the present state of the Church.
There