The bull of deposition was to be promulgated on 8th September. On 7th September, while the aged pope was peacefully resting at his native city of Anagni, Guillaume de Nogaret, bearing the royal banner of France, Sciarra Colonna and other disaffected Italian nobles, with three hundred horsemen, flung themselves into Anagni, crying--"Death to Pope Boniface." The papal palace was unguarded; at the first alarm the cardinals fled and hid themselves, and all but a few faithful servants forsook their master. The defenceless pope believed that his hour was come, but, writes Villani, "Great-souled and valiant as he was, he said, 'Since like Jesus Christ I must be taken by treachery and suffer death, at least I will die like a pope.' He commanded his servants to robe him in the mantle of Peter, to place the crown of Constantine on his head and the keys and crozier in his hands." He ascended the papal throne and calmly waited. Guillaume, Sciarra and the other leaders burst into the apartment, sword in hand, uttering the foulest of insults; but awed and cowed by the indomitable old pontiff, who stood erect in appalling majesty, their weapons dropped and none durst lay a hand upon him. They set a guard outside the room and proceeded to loot the palace. For three days the grand old pontiff--he was eighty-six years of age--remained a prisoner, until the people of Anagni rallied and rescued him, and he returned to Rome. In a month the humiliated Boniface died of a broken heart, and before two years were passed his successor in Peter's chair, Pope Clement V., revoked all his bulls and censures, expunged them from the papal register, solemnly condemned his memory and restored the Colonna family to all their honours. Dante, who hated Boniface as cordially as Philip did, and cast him into hell, was yet revolted at the cruelty of the "new Pilate, who had carried the fleur-de-lys into Anagni, who made Christ captive, mocked Him a second time, renewed the gall and vinegar, and slew Him between two living thieves." But the "new Pilate was not yet sated." The business at Anagni had only been effected _spendendo molta moneta_; the disastrous battle of Courtrai and the inglorious Flemish wars had exhausted the royal treasury; the debasement of the coinage had availed nought, and Philip turned his lustful eyes on a once powerful lay order, whose wealth and pride were the talk of Christendom. [Illustration: ILE DE LA CITÉ.]