Eight days after the bestowal of the commission upon Conrad, namely on June 20, 1227, Gregory entrusted another inquisitorial commission to a Dominican. This, however, is not the significant date. The decisive event is the addressing of two bulls to France in April 1233, the first to the bishops, the second to the Preaching Friars. The first explains that owing to ‘the whirlwind of cares’ and ‘the presence of overwhelming anxieties,’ under which the bishops labour, the Pope has thought it well to divide their burdens and has decided to send the Preaching Friars against the heretics of France. The bishops are earnestly exhorted to treat the Brothers kindly and lend them all assistance in the fulfilment of their office. The second, and by far the more important bull, addressed to the Friars, empowers them ‘to deprive clerks of their benefices for ever, and to proceed against them and all others without appeal, calling in the aid of the secular arm if necessary, and coercing opposition, if needful, with the censures of the Church, without appeal.’[302] Some have detected in these bulls an apologetic tone indicating uncertainty on Gregory’s part as to whether the bishops would acquiesce in this invasion of their powers, and it is also no doubt true that ‘the character of his instructions proves that he had no conception of what the invasion was to lead to.’[303] On the other hand, there is here the clear evidence of a matured conception, based upon the experience of the multiplication of special commissions to individual legates, of a permanent delegation.[304] By 1235 this system had penetrated not only through France, Toulouse and Burgundy, but also Lombardy, Sicily, Aragon, Brabant, Germany.[305]