popes of the seventeenth century, far inferior to those of the sixteenth, to Julius II. to Leo X. and to Sixtus V. have suffered even the hope to be lost of ever re-establishing in Europe the pontifical authority. Among the numerous writings published in the course of this century on the liberties of the Gallican church, that of Peter Pithou in 1504 is particularly distinguished. Comprised in eighty-three articles, it has the form and has almost obtained the authority of a code; for, we find it not only quoted in pleadings but in the laws themselves.³¹¹ The pragmatic of St Louis in the thirteenth century, the Vergers Dream in the fourteenth, the pragmatic of Charles VII. in the fifteenth, Pithou’s treatise in the sixteenth, and the Four Articles in 1682, present, among the French, an unbroken tradition of the soundest doctrine on the limits of the pontifical office. ³¹¹ The 50th article of Pithou is cited in the edition of 1719. CHAPTER X. ATTEMPTS OF THE POPES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY NO pope since the year 1600 united to an energetic ambition talents worthy of seconding it. Henceforward the Holy See becomes but a power of the second order, which, scarcely capable of bold aggressions, defends itself by intrigue, and no longer attacks but by secret machinations. The reforms which separated from the Romish Church one part of Christendom, serve to deliver the remainder from the pontifical tyranny. Everywhere the civil power became confirmed; disturbances even tended either to organize and especially to enfranchise it. The annals of the popes become more and more detached from the general history of Europe, and thus lose all their splendour and a great part of their interest. We shall therefore only have to collect into this chapter a very limited number of facts, after we shall have considered in a general point of view the influence of the Roman court in the seventeenth century over the principal courts of Europe.