Christendom, in disgust, now called for a General Council. France disowned Benedict and, when he excommunicated the King, tore his Bull in halves and ordered his arrest. He fled to Perpignan and Gregory to Venice, and the cardinals began to negotiate with the princes for the holding of the Council of Pisa. Cardinal Cossa, who had disdainfully taken down the arms of Gregory XII. at Bologna, and who was in league with Florence against Naples, took the lead in the new movement. When Gregory excommunicated him, he burned the Bull in the market-place. When Ladislaus of Naples advanced against Pisa, he united his troops to those of Florence and scattered the southerners. When Benedict's representatives asked for a safe-conduct through Italy, he said: "If you come to Bologna, with or without a safe-conduct, I'll burn you." So the Council met at Pisa, deposed Benedict and Gregory, and, in effect, set up a third Pope, Alexander V. The situation being without precedent, there was no canonical basis for such a Council, and no executive to enforce the Council's decisions. Benedict and Gregory--the one under the protection of Spain and the other with the support of Naples, Rimini, and part of Germany--continued to fulminate against each other, and a third discharge of anathemas only distracted Christendom the more. Cardinal Cossa set out once more at the head of his troops, and, with the aid of Louis of Anjou and the Florentines, swept the Neapolitan troops southward and opened Rome for Alexander. But that feeble and aged Anti-Pope never reached the Lateran. He died at Bologna on May 4, 1410, and Louis of Anjou (representing the French influence) and the Florentines urged on the cardinals the election of Cossa himself. At midnight on May 17th, the expectant crowd at Bologna was informed that the cardinals had come to an agreement, and an hour later Baldassare Cossa, or John XXIII., stepped forth in the scarlet mitre and spotless robes of a Vicar of Christ. There are chroniclers who say that he had bribed the electors, and chroniclers who say that he had bullied them. The first charge is not unlikely, as bribery was now becoming common enough on the eve of or during a Conclave, but we cannot check these rumours. Dietrich von Nieheim admits that Cossa nominated another cardinal for the tiara, and the Council of Constance did not impeach the regularity of his election. He was chosen because of his vigour and military ability. Such was the condition of the Papacy that none seemed to care that he was "a complete failure and worthless in spiritual matters."