displaying against a great prince the spiritual and temporal arms, only until he had solicited in vain the support and concurrence of all the catholic states rivals of France. Then the Holy See prudently humbled itself, and the cardinal Chigi, nephew of the pope, came to make to Louis all the reparation which this monarch required. In Europe no high idea existed of the veracity of Alexander: “We have a pope,” writes Renaldi, the ambassador of Florence at Rome, “we have a pope who never speaks a word of truth.”³²¹ ³²¹ Mem. of Cardinal de Retz. vol. 5. p. 177, ed. of 1718. In support of this testimony of Renaldi, in our 2d vol. will be found a secret writing in which Alexander VII. contradicts his own public declarations. This document, of eight pages, is wholly in the hand writing of this pontiff, and is dated by him 18th of February, 1664. This pontiff died in 1664, leaving his family abundantly enriched, and the Roman people loaded with nine new subsidies besides the old, which had been very scrupulously maintained. After Clement IX. had suppressed for awhile the disputes excited by the formulary, and that the cardinal Altieri had, for the space of six years, peacefully governed the church under the name of Clement X. his uncle Odescalchi, or Innocent XI. bore with him to the chair of St Peter more energy and ambition. He felt for Louis XIV. a personal enmity which he could not dissimulate, and which burst forth on two important occasions, that of the ‘regale.’ and that of the right of franchise. The ‘regale’ was a right which the kings of France had for many centuries enjoyed, and which consisted in receiving the revenues of the vacant sees, and in nominating to the benefices dependent on the bishop. Some churches having attempted to emancipate themselves from this law, Louis, by an edict of 1673, declared that the ‘regale’ applied to all the bishoprics of the kingdom. Two bishops protested against this edict; those of Pamiers and of Aleth, known by their opposition to the formulary of Alexander VII. These two prelates, refractories to the decrees of the popes, were supported by Innocent XI. in their resistance to the will and rights of their sovereign. An assembly of the clergy of France, having adhered to the king’s edict, and the pope having condemned this adhesion, the heat of their disputes led minds on to an examination into the rights and pretensions of the pope himself, and the four celebrated articles of 1682 were produced.