In vain Julius II. excommunicated Louis XII. and menaced transferring the title of the Very Christian King to the king of England who was destined to merit it so badly, Henry VIII.; in vain the fifth council of the Lateran published a monitory against the parliament of Paris, and all the abettors of the pragmatic sanction, enjoining them to appear at Rome to give an account of their conduct: Julius died without shaking Louis. This excellent prince himself died at the moment in which Leo was preparing to deceive him and the crown of France devolved on Francis I. of whom Louis had often said: ‘This great booby will spoil all.’—In fact, Francis I. in an interview with Leo at Bologna, consented to a concordat, and directed his chancellor Anthony Duprat to digest it in unison with two cardinals appointed for this purpose by the pope. The principal articles of this concordat are those which import, that for the future the chapters of the cathedral and metropolitan churches should not proceed in future to the election of bishops; that the king, within the term of six months from the date of a see becoming vacant, shall present to the pope a doctor or lieutenant of twenty-seven years of age at least, who shall be made by the pope incumbent of the vacant see; but, if the person proposed does not possess the requisite qualifications, the king shall be required to propose another within three months, reckoning from the day of the refusal; that moreover the pope, without the previous presentation of the king, shall nominate to the bishops and archbishops’ sees, which shall become vacant whilst the incumbents are in attendance at the court of Rome. It is proper to remark that, in granting the nomination to the king, the pope reserved to himself the first fruits.²⁹⁷ ²⁹⁷ On this subject observe the remark of Mezerai: "There never was seen go odd an exchange; the pope, who is a spiritual power, takes the temporal to himself, and bestows the spiritual on a temporal prince.” Francis I. went himself to the parliament to have the concordat registered, and the chancellor Duprat explained the reasons which dictated it. They refuse to register it; the king gets angry. The parliament places a protest in the hands of the bishop of Langres, that, if the registry take place, it will be by constraint, and that they will not act in consequence in less conformity with the pragmatic. It is at length registered, but in endorsing on the folds of the concordat, that it has been read and published at the express command of the king, many times reiterated.