of the
French King. Francis wished to recover his position as Henry's defender.
The Pope was an Italian prince as well as sovereign of the Church, and his
secular interest was thought to be more French than Imperial.

No sooner was Sforza gone than the Cardinal Du Bellay and the Bishop of
Macon were despatched from Paris to see and talk with Paul. They found him
still too absorbed in the English question to attend to anything besides.
He was in the high exalted mood of Gregory VII., imagining that he was
about to reassert the ancient Papal prerogative, and again dispose of
kingdoms.

The Pope, wrote the French Commissioners, having heard that there was
famine and plague in England, had made up his mind to act, and was
incredibly excited. The sentence was prepared and was to issue
unexpectedly like a bolt out of the blue sky. They enclosed a copy of it,
and waited for instructions from Francis as to the line which they were to
take. To set things straight again would, they said, be almost impossible;
but they would do their best to prevent extremities, and to show the King
of England that they had endeavoured to serve him. Nothing like the
sentence which Paul had constructed had been ever seen before. Some
articles had been inserted to force Francis to choose between the Pope and
the King. They were malicious, unjust, and _terriblement enormes_.[355]

The new Hildebrand, applying to himself the words of Jeremiah, "Behold, I
have set thee over nations and kingdoms, that thou mayest root out and
destroy," had proceeded to root out Henry. He had cursed him; he cursed
his abettors. His body when he died was to lie unburied and his soul lie
in hell for ever. His subjects were ordered to renounce their allegiance,
and were to fall under interdict if they continued to obey him. No true
son of the Church was to hold intercourse or alliance with him or his
adherents, under pain of sharing his damnation; and the Princes of Europe
and the Peers and commons of England were required, on their allegiance to
the Holy See, to expel him from the throne.[356]

This was the "remedy" for which Catherine had been so long entreating, out
of affection for her misguided lord, whose soul she wished to save. The
love which she professed was a love which her lord could have dispensed
with.

The Papal Nuncio reported from Paris the attitude which France intended
to assume. He had been speaking with the Admiral Philip de Chabot about
England. T