nt. Being chosen as mediator, in 1298, by the Kings of
France and England in a war which pressed heavily on both, the decree of
arbitration which he pronounced, favorable rather to Philip than to
Edward I., had been accepted by both of them; and the pope, on laying his
injunctions upon them with some severity of language, had exhibited
authority in a manner salutary for both kingdoms. Everything seemed at
that time to smile on Boniface, and to invite him to believe himself the
real sovereign of Christendom.

An opportunity for a splendid confirmation of his universal supremacy in
the Christian world came to tempt him. A quarrel had arisen between
Philip and the Archbishop of Narbonne on the subject of certain dues
claimed by both in that great diocese. Boniface was loud in his advocacy
of the archbishop against the officers of the king: "If, my son, thou
tolerate such enterprises against the Churches of thy kingdom," he wrote
to Philip (on the 18th of July, 1300), "thou mayest thereafter have
reasonable fear lest God, the author of judgments and the King of kings,
exact vengeance for it; and assuredly His vicar will not, in the long
run, keep silence. Though he wait a while patiently, in order not to
close the door to compassion, there will be full need at last that he
rouse himself for the punishment of the wicked and the glory of the
good." Nor did Boniface content himself with writing: he sent to Paris,
to support his words, Bernard de Saisset, whom he, on his own authority,
had just appointed Bishop of Pamiers. The choice of bishops was not yet,
at that time, subject to any fixed and generally recognized rule: most
often it was the chapter of the diocese that elected its bishop, with a
subsequent application for the approbation of the king and the pope;
sometimes the king and also the pope made such appointments directly and
independently. Boniface VIII. had quite recently created a new bishopric
at Pamiers in order to immediately appoint to it Bernard de Saisset,
hitherto simple Abbot of St. Antonine in that city. Bernard, who was
devoted to his patron, was, further, a passionate Languedocian and a foe
to the dominion of the French kings of the North over Southern France;
and he gave himself out as a personal descendant of the last Counts of
Toulouse. On arriving in Paris as the pope's legate, he made use there
of violent and inconsiderate language; he even affirmed, it was said,
that St. Louis had predict