a compromise was arranged: whereby it was settled that royal officials should give every assistance to the inquisitors, when called upon to do so; but on the other hand these officials were to visit the inquisitorial prisons, and to prevent abuses, and independent action on the part of inquisitors without the co-operation of the bishops was to cease. It was not long before complaints against the Inquisition were renewed—the most important charge being that good Catholics were forced into pleading guilty to heresy by the use of torture and imprisonment.[334] This time an appeal was made to the Pope, Clement V, who sent two cardinals to investigate at Carcassonne and Bordeaux.[335] They seem to have discovered many abuses in the management of the prisons and to have become satisfied of the genuineness of some at any rate of the allegations against the tribunal; and Clement made a praiseworthy attempt at reform. In 1312 the Council of Vienne[336] issued a number of canons to this end, known as Clementines, which required that in the infliction of torture the inquisitors must have the concurrence of the bishop, also in the supervision of prisons. Excommunication was threatened against any who should abuse his power in order to satisfy personal animus or greed. The restrictions imposed on inquisitorial action by the Clementines were most bitterly resented by the great inquisitor Bernard Gui.[337] With the death of Clement such vexation disappeared. The Clementines were indeed republished by John XXII, but it was at once clear that he had no desire to interfere with the Inquisition. The feeling of freedom enjoyed by the Inquisition in Languedoc is evidenced by its triumph over its former enemy, Délicieux. During the days of Pope Clement he had been suffered to live in peace; now he was charged with having impeded justice and with having compassed the death of Benedict XI by poison. Overcome by repeated tortures, he threw himself upon the mercy of the court; found guilty on the first charge, he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. This event in 1319 marked the victory of the Inquisition in Languedoc. Now without fear of opposition it could prosecute its labours in persecution, systematized, unremitting, relentless. Heresy was extirpated, the finishing touch to the Albigensian Crusades supplied, and the distinctive features of south-eastern France, as far as possible, blotted out. The irony of the situation is that in accelerating this process the Inquisition was unconsciously assisting the aggrandizement of the royal power of France, with whose centralizing policy the existence of so powerful an independent tribunal was eventually found to be incompatible.