The popes, nevertheless, had all of them protested since the days of
Charles VII. against the Pragmatic Sanction as an attack upon their
rights, and had demanded its abolition. In 1461, Louis XI., as has
already been shown, had yielded for a moment to the demand of Pope Pius
II., whose countenance he desired to gain, and had abrogated the
Pragmatic; but, not having obtained what he wanted thereby, and having
met with strong opposition in the Parliament of Paris to his concession,
he had let it drop without formally retracting it, and, instead of
engaging in a conflict with Parliament upon the point, he thought it no
bad plan for the magistracy to uphold in principle and enforce in fact
the regulations of the Pragmatic Sanction. This important edict, then,
was still vigorous in 1515, when Francis I., after his victory at
Melegnano and his reconciliation with the pope, left Chancellor Duprat
at Bologna to pursue the negotiation reopened on that subject. The
compensation, of which Leo X., on redemanding the abolition of the
Pragmatic Sanction, had given a peep to Francis I., could not fail to
have charms for a prince so little scrupulous, and for his still less
scrupulous chancellor. The pope proposed that the Pragmatic, once for
all abolished, should be replaced by a Concordat between the two
sovereigns, and that this Concordat, whilst putting a stop to the
election of the clergy by the faithful, should transfer to the king the
right of nomination to bishoprics and other great ecclesiastical offices
and benefices, reserving to the pope the right of presentation of
prelates nominated by the king. This, considering the condition of
society and government in the sixteenth century, in the absence of
political and religious liberty, was to take away from the church her own
existence, and divide her between two masters, without giving her, as
regarded either of them, any other guarantee of independence than the
mere chance of their dissensions and quarrels.