It is just to say that the authenticity of the missive of Boniface, is disputed, though Hallam considers it genuine. It set forth nothing more than the pope had already avowed. At all events it put the case clearly before the assembly. A committee of the Third Estate, after much pondering, came and knelt before the throne in the middle of the church, and rendered the following verdict in which you will observe they had caught the tone of their master:--“It is an abomination that Boniface like the blackguard that he is should interpret so ill the words of Scripture: what thou shall bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven; as if it meant that if he put a man in prison in this world, God would put him in prison in the next.” Philip had this profound state paper turned into latin, and sent to the pope; and this document as well as Philip’s missive, is still in the archives of the Vatican. The clergy alone hesitated to stand by the king. They asked time to deliberate. Philip would allow them not an hour. You are Frenchmen, cried he; from whom do you hold your benefices, from me your king, or from the Neapolitan Benedetto. They answered: from the king. They then begged leave to send a deputation to Rome to explain matters; and Philip refused. As for the excommunication and interdict, the king ordered them burnt by the common hangman; and woe to the priest who dared shut his church, or tie up his bell-rope, or stop marrying or confessing or saying mass! The days of Philip-the-handsome were not the days of Philip-the-august. This triumph at home might well have satisfied Philip; but he still followed up Boniface in his own domain with pitiless energy. He accused him not only of having defrauded Celestin of his throne, but of having poisoned him, and what was still worse, of heresy; and he sent orders to his agent in Italy, William of Nogaret, to seize his sacred person. Nogaret in conjunction with Sciarra Colonna the chief of the Ghibbeline faction, gathered together a few soldiers and surprised Boniface at his residence at Agnani. The pontiff supposed they intended to kill him. He put the dalmatica on his shoulders and the crown on his head, and sat like Papirius awaiting the blow. Colonna cried out to him to abdicate, as he had driven Celestin to abdicate. Betrayed like Jesus Christ, replied the old man, I will die his vicar![3] But it was not their purpose to put him to death: no such merciful end was to be his. They held him three days a prisoner, treating him with a mockery of respect; and then the populace of Agnani, perceiving that the Ghibbelines were but a handful, rose and delivered him from his captors. But the unexampled outrage had overthrown his reason, and he died a maniac. The terrible Philip had hounded his enemy into his grave; but even there he did not leave him in peace, as we shall see.