Jacques d'Euse, of Cahors, is said by unfriendly writers of the time to have been the son of a cobbler (or, according to others, a tailor). As he had relatives in good positions, and received a good schooling, this is probably a legend. But his early life is obscure. He studied under the Dominicans of Cahors, and then attended the lectures at Montpellier and at Paris. The story of Ferretti di Vicenza, that he went with a trading uncle to Naples and became tutor to the sons of Charles II., does not harmonize with these facts, and we must therefore reject the further charge that he obtained his bishopric by forging a letter in the name of Charles. He seems rather to have taught civil law for a long period at Cahors, and then at Toulouse, where he earned the friendship of the Bishop, St. Louis, and was thus brought to the notice and favour of the Bishop's father, the King of Naples. Charles secured the bishopric of Fréjus for him in 1300, and made him his Chancellor in 1307. When Charles died, his son Robert continued the patronage and got for him the bishopric of Avignon. Clement V. found him a useful man and pliant lawyer. It was he who did the most accommodating research for Clement in the suppression of the Templars, and he was rewarded with a red hat in 1312. He was a sober man, liking good solid fare and regular ways, and kept his energy and ambition in his eighth decade of life. Robert of Naples pressed his candidature for the Papacy when Clement died, and the Gascons adopted him. He won the vote of Cardinal Orsini--this statement of his critics is confirmed by later events--by professing a most determined intention to transfer the Papacy to Rome. The anecdotists say that he swore never to mount a horse until he was established at the Lateran; and, after a gorgeous coronation-ceremony at Lyons on September 5th, he at once proceeded _by boat_ to Avignon. The Italian cardinals left him in disgust, and he promptly promoted ten new cardinals, of whom nine were French (and three, including his nephew, from Cahors). Of his later seventeen cardinals, thirteen were French, three Italian, and one Spanish. The Papacy was fixed at Avignon.