‘Benedict, bishop and servant to the servants of God, to his very dear son in JESUS CHRIST, Charles king of France, sends health and apostolical benediction. ‘Would to God, very dear son, that thou knewest the love and affection we bear to thy noble and potent person, and didst understand the purity of our mind, thou wouldest then be sensible of the great joy we feel in thy prosperity, and of our grief at any tribulations that befal thee. If of this thou hadst knowledge, thou wouldest not listen to those detractors, who by false tales endeavour to set thy heart against us, but love us, as a son should love a father, and then the disturbances in thy kingdom, raised up by thy persecutions against our holy church, would cease. ‘Thou knowest well, glorious prince, and hast also heard from public report, how constantly and diligently we have laboured to restore union to the church; and the advances we have made, in order to obtain peace, toward those who have foolishly encouraged the unfortunate schism, by claiming the right of enjoying the holy see, and more particularly toward Angelo Corrario, who calls himself Gregory, and is at present the adversary to the church. He, however, refuses to perform the promises he had made in various places to resign his pretensions, and prolongs the division in the holy church under frivolous and false pretences. It is, however, notorious, and cannot be denied, that it has not been owing to any fault in us that peace has not been given to the church, and all cause for schism annihilated. ‘Notwithstanding this, there are some, we hear, who are very busy in their endeavours to defame us to thee, and to lessen, in as much as they can, the purity of our good fame. Others, we learn, are weakening thy devotion, and that of the princes of thy blood, by unjustly blaming us, and charging us most falsely with want of diligence in re-establishing the union of the holy church. ‘In truth, such persons should be answered by stating the real facts, which would destroy their fictions and falsehoods; and we believe that they have been the cause why we have not received any thing in our treasury from thy kingdom for the space of two years, an edict having been issued from thy court, which has deprived us of our rights, and we are no longer obeyed in thy realm. We look, however, for consolation and assistance from thee; for thy predecessors, in times past, have laboured to destroy the schisms and errors in the church, and to preserve peace and union. But some in thy kingdom have lately rebelled against the holy see, by appealing from us, against the constitutions of the canon,—and they have been permitted to spread abroad divers errors, contrary to the purity of true religion.