inted a meeting with the
archbishop. "Hearken," said he: "I have in my grasp wherewithal to make
thee pope if I please; and provided that thou promise me to do six things
I demand of thee, I will confer upon thee that honor; and to prove to
thee that I have the power, here be letters and advices I have received
from Rome." After having heard and read, "the Gascon, overcome with
joy," says the contemporary historian Villani, "threw himself at the
king's feet, saying, 'My lord, now know I that thou art my best friend,
and that thou wouldest render me good for evil. It is for thee to
command and for me to obey: such will ever be my disposition.'" Philip
then set before him his six demands, amongst which there were only two
which could have caused the archbishop any uneasiness. The fourth
purported that he should condemn the memory of Pope Boniface. "The
sixth, which is important and secret, I keep to myself," said Philip, "to
make known to thee in due time and place." The archbishop bound himself
by oath taken on the sacred host to accomplish the wishes of the king, to
whom, furthermore, he gave as hostages his brother and his two nephews.
Six weeks after this interview, on the 5th of June, 1305, Bertrand de
Goth was elected pope, under the name of Clement V.

It was not long before he gave the king the most certain pledge of his
docility. After having held his pontifical court at Bordeaux and
Poitiers he declared that he would fix his residence in France, in the
county of Venaissin, at Avignon, a territory which Philip the Bold had
remitted to Pope Gregory X. in execution of a deed of gift from Raymond
VII., Count of Toulouse. It was renouncing, in fact, if not in law, the
practical independence of the papacy to thus place it in the midst of the
dominions and under the very thumb of the King of France. "I know the
Gaseous," said the old Italian Cardinal Matthew Rosso, dean of the Sacred
College, when he heard of this resolution; "it will be long ere the
Church comes back to Italy." And, indeed, it was not until sixty years
afterwards, under Pope Gregory XI., that Italy regained possession of the
Holy See; and historians called this long absence the Babylonish
captivity. Philip lost no time in profiting by his propinquity to make
the full weight of his power felt by Clement V. He claimed from him the
fulfilment of the fourth promise Bertrand de Goth had made in order to
become pope, which was the condemnation o