should be referred to a "General
Council" to be summoned by the king. A second meeting of the
States-General was held. William de Plaisian, the Lord of Vezenoble,
appeared with charges against the pope. [Sidenote: Accusations against
the pope.] Out of a long list, many of which could not possibly be true,
some may be mentioned: that Boniface neither believed in the immortality
nor incorruptibility of the soul, nor in a life to come, nor in the real
presence in the Eucharist; that he did not observe the fasts of the
Church--not even Lent; that he spoke of the cardinals, monks, and friars
as hypocrites; that the Holy Land had been lost through his fault; that
the subsidies for its relief had been embezzled by him; that his holy
predecessor, Celestine, through his inhumanity had been brought to
death; that he had said that fornication and other obscene practices are
no sin; that he was a Sodomite, and had caused clerks to be murdered in
his presence; that he had enriched himself by simony; that his nephew's
wife had borne him two illegitimate sons. These, with other still more
revolting charges, were sworn to upon the Holy Gospels. The king
appealed to "a general council and to a legitimate pope."

The quarrel had now become a mortal one. There was but one course for
Boniface to take, and he did take it. He excommunicated the king. He
deprived him of his throne, and anathematized his posterity to the
fourth generation. The bull was to be suspended in the porch of the
Cathedral of Anagni on September 8; but William de Nogaret and one of
the Colonnas had already passed into Italy. They hired a troop of
banditti, and on September 7 attacked the pontiff in his palace at
Anagni. The doors of a church which protected him were strong, but they
yielded to fire. The brave old man, in his pontifical robes, with his
crucifix in one hand and the keys of St. Peter in the other, sat down on
his throne and confronted his assailants. His cardinals had fled through
a sewer. [Sidenote: His seizure by De Nogaret, and his death.] So little
reverence was there for God's vicar upon earth, that Sciarra Colonna
raised his hand to kill him on the spot; but the blow was arrested by De
Nogaret, who, with a bitter taunt, told him that here, in his own city,
he owed his life to the mercy of a servant of the King of France--a
servant whose father had been burnt by the Inquisition. The pontiff was
spared only to be placed on a miserable horse, with his