of these instruments (p); from them not only the expression of Pontifical and National will may be best collected, but usage, the great expounder of International Law, may be most clearly ascertained.

As the era of the Reformation, and the Treaty of Vienna (1815), have greatly affected this branch of the Law, it will be convenient to divide the consideration of this subject into three epochs :

1. The period preceding the Reformation.

2. The period intervening between it and the Treaty of Vienna.

3. The period subsequent to this Treaty.

CCCXXVI. 1. As to the period before the Reformation. The history of the intercourse of the secular Government and of the national Church of France with the Pope is perhaps that which best illustrates the International relations between independent States and Rome during this period. Into this discussion the most remarkable circumstances of these peculiar relations in the history of other nations, during the same period, may be easily interwoven; though, as to the period which has elapsed since the Reformation, they will require a separate and more specific narration.

CCCXXVII. A Pragmatic (7) is an imperial constitu

(p) Eichhorn follows Sauter in pronouncing his opinion that, inasmuch as all concordata are founded upon the principle of the weal of the Church, they are only binding so long as they attain that end, and cannot therefore be ranked either among private or international contracts.-Eichhorn, Kirchenrecht, I., B. iii. Absch. i. c. 5. pp. 578, 579.

Sauter, Fundam. Jur. Eccl. Cathol. p. 1. ss. 624–626.

(q) "Pragmatica s. Pragmaticum, rescriptum principis solemne præsertim illud quod res publicas administrandas aut negotia collegii alicujus tractanda respiciebat.”—Dirksen, Manuale Lat. Fontium Jur. Civ. Ro

manorum.

"Parmi nous l'usage a donné ce nom aux grandes ordonnances qui concernent les grandes affaires de l'Église, ou de l'État, ou, au moins, les affaires de quelques communautés."-Durande de Maillane, Dict. du Jur. can., voce PRAGMATIQUE SANCTION.

Ducange, Glosse., voce PRAGMA. Пpayua is, of course, its origin.

tion, framed, after inquiry and deliberation, upon a matter of State importance, with the consent of the chiefs and the approbation of the Sovereign of the country (r).

The Pragmatic which is of the earliest International importance, with reference to the present branch of our subject, is that of Saint Louis. It was promulgated in 1268, by that monarch of France whom the Church of Rome has especially delighted to honour. It is extremely simple, short, and pertinent, and a most valuable historical monument upon this branch of International Law.

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CCCXXVIII. "Ludovicus, Dei Gratia Francorum "Rex, ad perpetuam rei memoriam. Pro salubri et tran"quillo statu Ecclesiæ regni nostri, necnon pro divini cultus augmento, et Christi fidelium animarum salute, utque "gratiam et auxilium omnipotentis Dei (cujus solius ditioni ac protectioni regnum nostrum semper subjectum extitit, "et nunc esse volumus,) consequi valeamus, quæ sequuntur "hoc dicto consultissimo, in perpetuum valituro, statuimus "et ordinamus.

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"I. Primo ut Ecclesiarum regni nostri prælati, patroni, "et beneficiorum collatores ordinarii jus suum plenarium "habeant, et unicuique sua juridictio servetur.

"II. Item, Ecclesiæ cathedrales, et aliæ regni nostri "liberas electiones, et earum effectum integraliter habeant. "III. Item simoniæ crimen pestiferum Ecclesiam labe"factans a regno nostro penitus eliminandum volumus et "jubemus.

"IV. Item promotiones, collationes, provisiones et dispo"sitiones prælaturarum, dignitatum, et aliorum quorumque "beneficiorum et officiorum ecclesiasticorum regni nostri, "secundum dispositionem, ordinationem, et determinationem "Juris Communis, sacrorum Conciliorum Ecclesiæ Dei,

(r) The Roman Emperors published Pragmatic Rescripts in the time of St. Augustine, as did the first and second races of French monarchs.— De Pradt, i. 198.

atque institutorum antiquorum sanctorum patrum fieri "volumus et ordinamus.

"V. Item exactiones et onera gravissima pecuniarum per "curiam Romanam Ecclesiæ regni nostri imposita, quibus regnum nostrum miserabiliter depauperatum extitit, sive "etiam imponendas, vel imponenda, levari aut colligi nulla"tenus volumus, nisi duntaxat pro rationabili, pia et urgen"tissima causa, vel inevitabili necessitate, ac de spontaneo et expresso consensu nostro et ipsius Ecclesiæ regni nostri.

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VI. Item libertates, franchisias, immunitates, præroga“tivas, jura et privilegia per inclytæ recordationis Francorum reges prædecessores nostros, et successive per nos, Ecclesiis, "monasteriis, atque locis piis religiosis, nec non personis ec"clesiasticis regni nostri concessas et concessa laudamus, approbamus et confirmamus per præsentes.

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"Datum Parisiis, anno Domini 1258, mense Martio " (s).

Here, then, we have a French King and a French Church with rights and privileges which have been grievously injured and which are to be for the future protected against the invasion of the Curia Romana. These articles are the Magna Charta of the liberties of the Gallican Church. Bossuet said that in them were contained the celebrated four propositions, which will presently be mentioned.

CCCXXIX. The next national declaration of importance, on behalf of the State and Church of France, was made after the close of the great Schism of the Western Church, and after the Councils of Constance and Basle had endeavoured to apply remedies to the frightful disasters of the Ecclesiastical State. The two Estates were assembled at Bourges by Charles VII., and unanimously accepted, with certain modifications, the decrees of the Council of Basle (t). The resolutions of the French Council were made by royal ordonnance part of the law of the nation, and duly registered

(8) Lequeux, Manuale Compendium Juris Canonici, t. iv. pp. 432, 433. (t) Durande de Maillane, ubi supra.

De Pradt, i. c. ix.

in the Parliament, 13th July, 1439. Pope Eugenius protested against them in vain. Pius II. renewed the complaint after the death of Charles VII. (1461). Louis XI. yielded to his urgent solicitations, and issued Letters Patent for their abolition; but the Parliament refused to register them, and made one of those celebrated remonstrances which will always keep their place in the history of France.

Paul II. pressed Louis XI. for stronger measures. The University of Paris declared to the Legate that it would appeal to a future Council against any invasion of the Pragmatic. Louis, however (u), was bent upon making peace with the Pope, and made a treaty, in 1472, with Sextus IV., which reduced the Pragmatic, as to beneficiary matters, to the same position as the German Concordata. But the Parliament refused to register the treaty.

Louis XI. died in 1483; his successor, Charles VIII., plunged into Italian wars and politics, and was little disposed to aid the Pope. This monarch assembled the three Estates at Tours. Innocent VIII. and Alexander VI. attacked Charles in vain, and after his death (1497) they found in Louis XII. a yet more obstinate adversary. Julius II. put France under an interdict, and excommunicated the King; but Louis XII., fortified by the universal sympathy of his subjects and the alliance of the Emperor Maximilian, ordained that the Pragmatic of Bourges should be observed throughout France, and convened, in 1499, his clergy at Tours. Before this assembly he laid the dispute between himself and the Pope, and sought their advice upon certain questions (r) proposed to them. The French clergy agreed that their King had full power to protect his subjects from all oppression, that it was lawful for him to deprive the Pope of fortified places used as means of annoyance to his neighbours, to withhold obedience, so far as was necessary to his

(u) See De Pradt, i. p. 232, &c., for the motives of Louis: among them was the hope of obtaining Naples.

(a) They appear to have been eight in number,

safety, from the Pope, and during the interval of suspended obedience to conform to the ancient discipline of the Church. That what he did for himself he might also do on behalf of his allies; that the Papal excommunications issued upon temporal matters, and without legal form, were altogether null. The chief of the clergy requested permission to lay these resolutions before the Pope, and to call upon him to put an end to a scandalous war, and convene a General Council. And they besought the King, if the Pope should fail to heed their request, to join with the Emperor and those cardinals and foreign ecclesiastical dignitaries who stood aloof from Rome, to adopt the precedents of Pisa, Basle, and Constance, and convene a General Council without the Pope. Finally, they determined to meet again at Lyons, and await the reply of the Roman See, and in the meanwhile they forbad all communication with Rome, especially in the shape of pecuniary contributions. Maximilian promised the hearty concurrence of himself and his clergy at the forthcoming Council of Lyons (y).

CCCXXX. In the midst of these significant preparations Louis XII. died. In the year 1514, France had a new Sovereign, and, the fruit of his exigencies, a new Ecclesiastical Law.

Francis I. found himself in a very embarrassing position (z). Eager for Italian conquests, he had already vanquished some of his opponents, when he received at Pavia the intelligence that Leo X. (1516) had issued a peremptory citation against the Crown, the Church, the Parliament, and the universities of France, to show cause why the Pragmatic should not be abolished. Its condemnation was certain before the trial. Rash, ill-judging, ill-advised, scared by the probable consequences of an excommunication and interdict by Pope

(y) Maximilian, it should seem, like one of his predecessors, had some idea of making himself Pope, and the Papacy hereditary.-1 De Pradt, pp. 238, 239, note.

(z) Observations sur le Concordat fait entre Léon X et François Premier, par M. Michel du Peray. Paris, 1740.