sts of his kingdom,
to obey the diocesan bishops and the inquisitors deputed by the Holy See
in handing over to them, whenever they should be requested, all heretics
and their creed-fellows, favorers, and harborers, and to see to the
immediate execution of sentences passed by the judges of the Church,
notwithstanding any appeal and any complaint on the part of heretics and
their favorers."

Thus the two absolute sovereigns changed their policy and made temporary
sacrifice of their mutual pretensions, according as it suited them to
fight or to agree. But there arose a question in respect of which this
continual alternation of pretensions and compromises, of quarrels and
accommodations, was no longer possible; in order to keep up their
position in the eyes of one another, they were obliged to come to a
deadly clash; and in this struggle, perilous for both, Boniface VIII.
was the aggressor, and with Philip the Handsome remained the victory.

On the 2d of February, 1300, Boniface VIII., who had much at heart the
lustre and popularity of the Holy See, published a bull which granted
indulgences to the pilgrims who should that year, and every centenary to
come, visit the church of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome.
At this first celebration of the centenarian Christian jubilee the
concourse was immense; the most moderate historians say that there were
never fewer than a hundred thousand pilgrims at Rome; others put the
numbers as high as two hundred thousand, and contemporary poetry as well
as history has celebrated this pious assemblage of Christians of every
nation, language, and age around the tomb of their fathers in the faith.
"The old man with white hair goeth far away," says Petrarch (Sonnet
xiv.), "from the sweet haunts where his life hath been passed, and from
his little family astonished to find their dear father missing. As for
him, in the last days of his age, broken down by weight of years and
a-weary of the road, he draggeth along as best he may by force of willing
spirit his old and tottering limbs, and cometh to Rome to fulfil his
desire of seeing the image of Him whom he hopeth to see ere long up
yonder in the heavens." The success of the measure and the solemn homage
of Christendom filled with joy and proud confidence the heart of the
septuagenarian pontiff. He had three years before decreed to Louis IX.,
the most Christian of the Kings of France, the honors of canonization and
the title of Sai