nedetto Gaetani said to that prince, "Thy pope
(Celestine V.) was willing and able to serve thee, only he knew not how;
as for me, if thou make me pope, I shall be willing and able and know how
to be useful to thee." The long quarrel between the popes and the
Emperors of Germany, who, as Kings of the Romans, aspired to invade or
dominate Italy, had made the Kings of France natural allies of the
papacy, and there had been a saying ever since, arising from a popular
instinct, which had already found its way into poetry,--

"'Tis a goodly match as match can be,
To marry the Church and the fleurs-de-lis:
Should either mate a-straying go,
Then each--too late--will own 'twas so."

Boniface VIII. did not seem fated to withdraw from this policy; he was
old (sixty-six); his party-engagements were of long standing; his
personal fortune was made; three years before his election he possessed
twelve ecclesiastical benefices, of which seven were in France; by his
accession to the Holy See his ambition was satisfied; and as legate in
France in 1290 he had made the acquaintance there of the young king,
Philip the Handsome, and had conceived a liking for him. King Philip
must have considered that he had ground for seeing in him a faithful and
useful ally.

Neither of the two sovereigns took into account the changes that had
come, during two centuries past, over the character of their power, and
of the influence which these changes must exercise upon their posture and
their relations one towards the other. Louis the Fat in the first
instance, and then in a special manner Philip Augustus and St. Louis,
each with very different sentiments and by very different processes, had
disentangled the kingship in France from the feudal system, and had
acquired for it a sovereignty of its own, beyond and above the rights of
the suzerain over his vassals. The popes, for their part, Gregory VII.
and Innocent III. amongst others, had raised the papacy to a region of
intellectual and moral supremacy whence it looked down upon all the
terrestrial powers. Gregory VII., the most disinterested of all
ambitious men in high places, had dedicated his stormy life to
establishing the dominion of the Church over the world, kings as well as
people, and also to reforming internally the Church herself, her morals
and her discipline. "I have loved justice and hated iniquity; and that
is why I am dyin