Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/526

Rh Urban VIII. Innocent X. Rela tions with France during reign of Louis XIV. 506 it in the Old World. The cordial co-operation of the curia with the society of Jesus was suspended, however, during the pontificate of URBAN VIII. (1623-44). A man of resolute and imperious nature, his conception of his own prerogatives is indicated by his memorable retort, when, on one occasion, he was confronted with a quota tion from the pontifical constitutions, that the dictum of a living pope was worth more than those of a hundred dead ones. He claimed, indeed, the promptest deference for his decisions ; while the college of cardinals, which he but rarely assembled in consistory, was treated by him with little respect. A Florentine by birth, he had witnessed in his earlier years the bitter struggle between the popedom and Spain ; and it had become the cherished design of his life to render the States powerful and independent, and himself, as pontiff, the representative of a formidable political confederation. To this end he deemed it essen tial to prevent the duchy of Mantua from falling into the hands of a ruler who represented an influence antagonistic to, or independent of, Spain ; and in pursuit of this policy he sought the aid of Richelieu. It was the time when the great cardinal was maturing his designs against the house of Hapsburg ; and, somewhat singularly, the pope dom was thus brought into political alliance with the statesman who was aiming at the overthrow of the very power to which Roman Catholicism had been most indebted for its restoration. In the policy of Richelieu and that of Urban there was indeed a similar inconsist ency. The former, while he persecuted the Huguenots at home, allied himself with Protestant powers like England, the United Provinces, and the northern German principali ties ; the latter, while he had recourse to the most rigorous measures for the suppression of Protestantism in Germany, allied himself with the power on which that Protestant ism mainly relied for support. It is scarcely too much to affirm to say that Protestantism, in the first half of the 17th century, owed its very existence on the Continent to the political exigencies of the popedom. During Urban s pontificate, in the year 1634, the duchy of Urbino was incorporated, like Ferrara, into the papal dominions, which now extended from the Tiber to the Po, uninterrupted save by the little republic of San Marino. The policy of INNOCENT X. (1644-55) was a complete reversal of that of his predecessor, whose family he perse cuted with implacable animosity. So injurious indeed were the effects of the contentions produced by these family feuds on the peace and prosperity of the city that ALEX ANDER VII. (1655-67) on his election took an oath before the crucifix that he would never receive his kindred in Rome. Not less serious were the dissensions produced by the strife of political parties. We find an English visitor to Rome, during Innocent s pontificate, deeming it prudent to place himself under the protection of two cardinals the one representing the French, the other the Spanish faction. In Innocent s eyes the treaty of Westphalia assumed the aspect of a twofold disaster : in the humiliation which it inflicted on the house of Hapsburg ; and in the distinctness with which it proclaimed the superiority of the state over the church, by the declaration that all ordinances of the canon or civil law which might be found to be at variance with the provisions of the treaty should be considered null and void. Innocent even went so far as to denounce the treaty and to threaten those who assented to its provisions with excommunication a menace treated with contemptu ous indifference even by the Catholic powers. Throughout the reign of Louis XIV., indeed, there existed a perfect understanding between that monarch and the Jesuits; and with their support he could set the pope himself at defiance with impunity. Louis asserted more unreservedly than any of his predecessors the royal privileges known j as the droit de regale. By this ancient right the crown claimed, whenever a bishopric was vacant, both the revenues and the distribution of patronage attached to the see as long as the vacancy continued. But in the southern provinces of Guienne, Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphine this right had hitherto never been enforced. In an edict issued in 1673, however, Louis declared that the droit de regale would in future be enforced throughout the whole extent of the royal dominions. It was in vain that Innocent protested and threatened to excommunicate those who espoused the royal claims. Louis, who was supported by the great mass of the French clergy, remained firm ; and nine years later a further blow was aimed at papal predominance by the promulgation of the famous Dedaratio Cleri Gallicani. In this notable manifesto, which was drawn up at St Germains in 1682 and revised by Bossuet, a formal denial was given to the theory that the pope had any power over the temporalities of kings ; the superiority of a general council over the pope was once again affirmed ; the administration of the affairs of the church by the pontiff, it was declared, ought in all cases to be subject to the canon law, and the papal authority to be exercised exclusively in connexion with questions of dogma, but even in such matters the de cisions of the pontiff were not infallible and were subject to revision. INNOCENT XI. (1676-80), who had in the lnno&amp;lt; meantime succeeded to the papal chair, declared these XI. resolutions to be null and void, and severely censured the French bishops who had assented to them. His repu tation for integrity and a genuine desire to reform the church gave additional force to his protest. Among other measures for restoring order in Rome he had deprived the French ambassador of the much-abused right of asylum which, by long tradition, attached to the embassy and its extensive precincts, and afforded shelter to many of the most desperate characters in the city. The ambassador refused to yield up the privilege, and Innocent thereupon excommunicated him. Louis now seized upon Avignon, took the papal nuncio prisoner, and convened a general council. It was even believed that he had at one time con ceived the design of creating the archbishop of Paris, who seconded and approved his policy, patriarch of France, and thus severing the last ties that bound the Gallican Church to the popedom. The courage and resolution which Inno cent exhibited under these trying circumstances were by no means inspired solely by the conviction of the justice of his cause. Perhaps at no period are the interests and sym pathies of religious parties to be found presenting a more complicated study. All Europe at this time was watching with alarm the rapid aggrandizement of the French mon archy ; and Innocent, in his desire to see some check placed on that aggrandizement, was even far from wishing that the Huguenots should be expelled from France. W^ith William of Orange he openly avowed his sympathy, and it was from secret papers in the cabinet of his minister of state that Louis, through the agency of a spy, first learned the prince s designs upon England. While the Jesuits, again, were co-operating with Louis in his assertion of the Gallican liberties, the Protestant powers were giving in direct support to the maintenance of the papal pretensions. From the Jesuits Louis also received valuable aid in the question of the Spanish succession ; and it is to their machinations that contemporary writers ascribe the fact that the Bourbon, Philip of Anjou, was named by Charles II. as the heir to the Spanish monarchy. The virtues-and milder wisdom of INNOCENT XII. (1691- 1700) won from Louis what the unconciliatory attitude of his two predecessors, Innocent XI. and ALEXANDER VIII. (1689-91) had not been able to obtain. In 1693 Louis himself notified to the pontiff that the &quot; Declaration&quot; would