There is, then, no room to doubt, that the most pious of the French kings was the most zealous defender of the liberties of the Gallican church; and this glorious resistance, which he made in 1268 to Clement IV. expiates the unfortunate consent that he gave to the treaty concluded between this pope and Charles of Anjou. Thirty months elapsed from the death of Clement, to the election of his successor, Gregory X. Charles of Anjou profited of this interregnum to acquire a great authority in Italy; he aspired even to govern it altogether. Gregory X. who, perceived this, endeavoured to oppose four obstacles to it: a new crusade; the reconciliation of the Eastern church; the restoration of the Western empire, and the extinction of the factions of Guelph and Ghibeline. Since the death of Conradine, the discord of these factions was almost without object: it survived from habit and personal animosities, rather than from opposition of political interests. The Guelphs more powerful from day to day, were about re-establishing the independence of the Italian cities, and perhaps reuniting under a head who was not to be a pope.—To provide against this danger, and to keep in check Charles of Anjou, Gregory X. confirmed the election of a new German emperor: this was Rodolph of Hapsburg, head of the house of Austria. This Rodolph renounced, in favour of the Roman church, the heritage of Matilda, and was nevertheless excommunicated, for having supported his sovereign rights over the Italian cities, and for having neglected to assume the cross. They at length became tired of these expeditions into Palestine, where the Christians, driven from the pettiest hamlets, scarcely preserved a single asylum. The Greek church, apparently reconciled to the second general council of Lyons, was not actually so for a long period. The most complete result of the pontificate of Gregory X. was the acquisition of the Comtat Venaissin, in which, however, the king of France, Philip the Hardy, reserved to himself the city of Avignon. Nicholas III. annulled the oath taken to the emperor by the cities of Romagna; he obliged Charles of Anjou to renounce the vicarship of the empire, and the dignity of senator of Rome; he even incited Peter of Arragon to recover the kingdom of Sicily, which belonged by right of inheritance to his wife Constance. On which we must observe, that Charles had refused to marry one of his granddaughters to a nephew of Nicholas, and that this pontiff sprung from the house of the Ursini, had conceived the idea of dividing among his nephews the crowns of Sicily, of Tuscany, and of Lombardy, These projects did not succeed.