When the papal court finally left Avignon and was reëstablished in Rome in 1377, the keys of St. Angelo were formally handed to the pope, then Gregory XI. He died within the year and the conclave for the next election met at the castle. The choice fell upon Cardinal Prignani, a Neapolitan, who became Urban VI. The people wanted a Roman and at first opposed him. The conclave, however, persisted in naming Urban VI, whom the people finally accepted, and who was formally installed at the Vatican. Whereupon the French cardinals in opposition elected an anti-pope and put a Frenchman with a French garrison in charge of St. Angelo. There was now a fierce conflict between the papal and anti-papal party. The French at St. Angelo were reinforced and withstood a sharp siege, holding out for a whole year against an attack, supported by artillery,--the first time that guns were used against the fortress. But it fell at last under the pressure of famine. It was in a sorry plight; immense damage had been done during the siege; some parts had been utterly demolished and all its marbles destroyed. The Roman people, furious at the long resistance it had offered, now wished to raze it to the ground, determined that it should be no longer a refuge for their enemies. Already its earlier decorations had disappeared and the outer casing of marble was torn off, but the solid interior of massive peperino resisted all attempts at destruction. A contemporary writer describes it as impossible to demolish. Ten years later another pope, Boniface IX, more a soldier than a priest, fully convinced of its value, set himself to repair and fortify it anew. An edict was issued forbidding the removal of stone and building material from “Hadrian’s Mole,” and Boniface, backed up by the fortress, secured order and obedience in the city for some years.