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Clement VIII
1592-1605

Ippolyto Aldobrandini born 1535

Clement VIII, of a very illustrious Florentine family, was born on the 24th of February, 1535, in the city of Fano, where his father, Sylvester Aldobrandini, was pontifical governor, having been driven from Florence, where he had been secretary of state, by the enmity of Duke Alexander de' Medici. Ippolito studied jurisprudence and took the degree of doctor. At an early age he excelled in Greek and Latin poetry. At Rome he became consistorial auditor. Sixtus V –and it was a striking mark of confidence– made him datary on the 17th of May, 1585. On the 18th of December of the same year, the pope created Ippolito cardinal, and sent him as legate to Poland to solicit the liberation of Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, who was held prisoner by the Poles. The Holy See never ceases to take an interest in the sufferings of the unfortunate. The nuncio succeeded in his mission, and restored peace between Austria and Sigismund, who had succeeded Stephen Bathori.

After the funeral of Innocent IX, fifty-two electors entered into conclave on the 10th of January, 1592. In this conclave several parties arose: on the one side, the Montaltists, headed by Cardinal Montalto, nephew of Pope Sixtus V; and on the other side, the Spanish party. The latter showed a preference for Cardinal Santorio, who, on the 11th, was on the point of being elected by adoration. Thirty-five of the electors had given their votes; but cardinals Altemps, Gesualdi, and Colonna put a stop to the tumult which for several hours prevailed in the chapel. They constrained those who were clamoring for the adoration to consent to the ballot. Here Santorio, a fanatical partisan of the Spanish faction, had no more than thirty votes–five too few. But Providence had decreed the tiara to Aldobrandini. A single cardinal was here seen to exercise a sort of power of exclusion. Cancellieri thus relates the fact: "The cardinals were divided into two parties. Ascanius Colonna, desiring the elevation of Santorio, cardinal of San Severino, wished the electors to proceed by way adoration. The excitement of the two parties was so intense that the Spanish party shut themselves up in the hall of scrutiny, while the other party retired to the Pauline chapel, and everything seemed to menace scenes of violence. The tumult was such that the senior cardinals could not count the votes, which at that instant were sufficient–thirty-five. Ascanius received a slip of paper from his relative, Mark Antony Colonna. Ascanius read it, and exclaimed: 'Ascanius will not have San Severino for pope, because he is not the choice of God.' And he rushed from the chapel, in spite of the efforts of the other cardinals to detain him. The effect of this renunciation was so rapid that Santorio (San Severino) was at once excluded by a very great number of votes. Other candidates were proposed, but rejected. A cardinal suddenly named Aldobrandini. He was accepted with acclamation, and elected at noon, on the 19th of January, 1592.

"The electors had been impelled towards that choice, not only by the esteem in which they held Cardinal Aldobrandini, but also from his being only fifty-six years old; for all the cardinals observed that they had had to deplore the death three pontiffs whose united reigns had occupied only sixteen months."

Before accepting the dignity, which he had not contemplated, Aldobrandini demanded permission to approach the altar. Yielding to an impulse of sublime humility, he said, with an emotion that excited universal enthusiasm: "0 my God! let my tongue dry up, that I may not consent to this election, unless it be for the good of thy Church, which I love from the very bottom of my heart, and of Christendom, whose glory and prosperity I desire." This admirable manifestation of modesty greatly impressed the cardinals. They sent for the pontifical vestments. They almost forcibly seized the cardinal and attired him. He kept silence, but, when he saw them remove his red cassock, which he was never to see again, he exclaimed: "Give us back our beads and the office of the Blessed Virgin, which are the witnesses of our devotion." Aldobrandini could no longer withhold his consent, as he had used the papal first person plural: "Give us back our beads"; and he declared that he would take the name of Clement VIII. The name had once been given him by Saint Philip Neri, who predicted that he would one day become pope. On the 2nd of February the pope was ordained bishop by Cardinal Alphonsus Gesualdi, dean of the Sacred College, and then crowned by Cardinal Sforza, first deacon; and on the 12th of April he solemnly took possession of Saint John Lateran. Clement made the distribution (presbyterium) of the pieces of gold and silver, that not been made for some time previously.

When the pope had regulated some urgently important matters, he established a congregation under the title of The Visitation. It was to examine, in detail, all the churches, monasteries, colleges, hospitals, and brotherhoods of Rome. The first visit was made to Saint John Lateran, so that the example should strike all the administrators and warn them to bring under better regulation the affairs intrusted to them. On all sides divine worship was restored, and a strict decorum was re-established; abuses were corrected; the eye of the master was everywhere, and every subaltern knew it. The guardian was ever there, watchful, and determined to maintain order. Every one could make his complaint. There are many other countries where such visitations would be permanently useful. It is not easy to say how much could be profitably borrowed from Rome in the wholesome customs.

The constitution Graves et Diuturnas, of the 25th of November, 1592, instituted the exposition named of the Forty Hours in all the churches of Rome, so that the Holy Sacrament should be exposed day and night on every day in the year.

This pious institution, which Paul V renewed, by granting a great number of indulgences, on the 10th of May, 1606, was adopted in many cities, not only in Italy, but in many other nations. Moreover, it had been already known in many churches of the first order.

Two sons of the Elector of Bavaria at this time visited Rome, to offer, in the name of their father, their veneration to Pope Clement. The pontiff received them with tender affection, and in a consistory seated them next to the cardinals.

At this time died Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, one of the most famous captains of his time, who had commanded armies against Henry IV, King of France. Clement bewailed Farnese, and ordered magnificent funeral ceremonies for him in the Vatican Basilica.

The pontiff was also much afflicted by the death of Alphonsus Gonzaga, lord of Castelgiufredo, which was under pontifical protection.

The fatal custom of dueling, somewhat abated since the Council of Trent, again required the attention of the pope. Clement forbade those combats, under the severest penalties, by his constitution thirty, of the 17th of August, 1592, requiring duelists and seconds to be prosecuted. He also threatened to lay under interdict any places which by their law authorized or even tolerated dueling. He exhorted princes to enforce the execution of the measures prescribed by that bull, and severely to punish delinquents. Many sovereigns promised to put in practice, as far as they had power, those wise instructions; for at that time, in the habits of the people and in some remnants of the feudal law, there were obstacles that only religion could overcome.

About the year 1586 Sixtus V had erected into a religious order the Hospitallers, known as the Fate bene Fratelli. Clement, in 1592, restored the order to the position it held the under the reign of Pius V, so that it no longer was a religious order.

Clement's brief for the suppression was accepted in Italy, but not in Spain, where Philip II refused to give it the royal exequatur. The same occurred in Russia, in 1763, at the suppression of the Jesuits by the brief of Clement XIV. But this state of things did not last. Paul V, by two briefs, in 1611 and 1617, restored them to the dignity of a religious order, and inferred that the Spanish members had not ceased to be religious, although the brief of Clement VIII had not been received in Spain.

Meanwhile, the Holy Father, by letters of the 15th of April, 1592, commanded his legate to the League of Paris, Cardinal Philip Sega, to watch that the faith did not suffer in France, which had recognized a king who was Calvinist. On the other hand, Henry, gently urged by the Roman court, with all the delicacy that such circumstances required, and seeing that he could not easily hold the throne of France if he persisted in the errors of Calvinism, asked his Huguenot ministers if he could be saved in the event of his becoming a Catholic. They replied affirmatively. Then he said to them: "Certainly, then, it will be better that I shall go to heaven as King of France than only as King of Navarre." From that moment the prince received instructions in the dogmas of our religion from David du Perron, a former Calvinist, but sincerely converted to the faith.

The particulars of the negotiation tending to restore Henry to the bosom of the Church naturally find there place here.

We have already mentioned that a French agent, Arnaud d'Ossat, employed in the French king's embassy at Rome, had solicited from Pope Gregory XIV, on behalf of Louise of Lorraine, widow of Henry III, that solemn obsequies should be performed in honor of that prince, and that thus the excommunication should be revoked which had been pronounced against him by Sixtus V.

The papal absolution of King Henry IV "was thwarted," says D'Ossat, "by the Duke of Sesso, the Spanish ambassador, and by the Lorraine princes." The French Huguenots themselves, much attached as they were to Henry IV, whom they had assisted with both sword and purse, did not desire his reconciliation with the Holy See.

Henry IV, whose sincerity was beyond all doubt, attentively read D'Ossat's correspondence, which exposed all the difficulty, and he deemed it so prudent and judicious that he wrote to D'Ossat, announcing the departure of the Duke of Nevers for Rome, and requesting D'Ossat to act in concert with him.

Clement VIII congratulated D'Ossat, and told him that he should be pleased to treat with him, and that the selection of such a plenipotentiary could not but increase the favorable disposition of the Roman court. Meantime the king's ministry at Paris imagined that the French prelates could give absolution to the king at Paris, subject to the authority of the Holy Apostolic See.

The cardinal of Piacenza, legate in France, endeavored to prevent such an invalid absolution by a letter which he addressed to all the Catholics of the kingdom. In that letter the cardinal stated that Henry of Bourbon, who styles himself King of France and Navarre, having called upon the French prelates to give him absolution, the legate believes it to be his duty to announce that the excommunication pronounced by Sixtus V against Henry is and still remains effectual and that the sovereign pontiff Clement alone can absolve the king from it.

Notwithstanding this notice, Henry IV allowed himself to be persuaded that he could make his abjuration in the hands of the Archbishop of Bourges, in the presence of Cardinal de Bourbon Vendome and of seven or eight bishops. Chancellor de Chiverny says that the king determined to perform the ceremony in the abbey church of Saint Denis, in testimony that he desired to live and die, like the kings who are buried there, in the bosom of the Roman Church. As to the absolution, the archbishop pronounced it in these terms: "Saving the authority of the Holy See, I absolve thee from the crime of heresy and apostasy; I restore thee to the Holy Roman Church, and admit thee to her sacraments. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Ghost." According to this condition, the king was need in of the absolution of the pope, or, at the least, the confirmation of that of the bishops.

Henry had not yet subjected Paris and was in a really dangerous position. Commanding a mixed army of Catholics and Protestants, he was closely watched by both parties. As he passed in front of his guards, he saw a crowd of those Protestants who had been mutilated in his service, and who looked upon him with a respect that was mingled with grief and compassion, perhaps, and even with something of menace. On entering his council, he saw Rosny, with his stern brow, and ardent Catholics who were unwilling to be disappointed in their hopes, and who ready to desert a sovereign whom they supposed to be uncertain in his plans. He had promised that he would believe as they did; and they awaited, but with no great confidence, the fulfillment of that promise. A third party consisted of friends, both Catholic and Protestant, of the Duchess of Beaufort's faction, who knew not what to advise. By turns they blamed or applauded. Their sole view was to favor the king's passion for a woman who already aspired to share his throne. In such circumstances, a warrior who knew how devotedly the Calvinists had shed their blood for him, a prince whose line had so long aspired to the French scepter, and who now saw the day come on which he could, as of right, wear a crown which belonged to him, and return into the religion in which he had been reared, and which he only abandoned on compulsion, and at an age when strength and courage are not yet fully developed; a man–and here he is only a man to be pitied–carried away by a frantic love which he knew not how to control, and who feared the austerity of Rome, as it was necessary to bend her and solicit a divorce, with the secret intention of a misalliance, which made it all the more difficult–a man thus distracted might well be Inconsistent.

Clement VIII was aware of, but disapproved, the step intended to be taken by the archbishop and bishops assembled at Saint Denis.

A truce had been entered into, in order to suspend hostilities but the Spanish and the Leaguers were for preventing the people from leaving Paris for Saint Denis. In spite of that prohibition, a great number of the citizens contrived, by urgency and entreaty, to pass the guard, and quite a multitude of Parisians reached the king, whom they loudly applauded as he passed.

D'Ossat having reported to the pope the feeling in France on the king's conversion, another negotiation commenced, more serious than the first.

D'Ossat represented that the reduction of Paris had become more easy and more probable; that the French bishops appeared to have rendered a service to the kingdom and to the king, without offending the pope, who definitively had the sovereign authority in the matter of absolution. At the same time Spain insisted that Clement should meet the king's request with a direct refusal, and the language of the Spanish ambassador was so unmeasured as to give serious offence to the Holy See.

Clement would not refuse audiences to D'Ossat, whom the Italians loved, because, as they said, he was "fertile in expedients." But the negotiation lasted several months.

Meantime Paris had recognized the King of France. The 22nd of March, 1594, was a holiday for almost the entire kingdom; and by the effect of a singular state of the public mind, the king's council did not so firmly press the request that had so long before been presented at Rome. Some of the ministers had raised the dangerous cry: "Let us temporize! Spain has too much power at the Vatican; let us await another reign in Rome!" That wish became known to the Sacred College. D'Ossat thought it his duty to oppose that opinion, and wrote to Henry on the 23rd of December. He commenced by agreeing with those who anticipated the death of the pope; and he then declared that that expectation, too much prolonged, was of no advantage to the interests of the king, and he showed how all would have to be begun anew with a new pontiff.

An animated correspondence ensued between the king and D'Ossat. The latter also kept in constant communication with the pope's nephew, Cardinal Aldobrandini, a man greatly distinguished for his intellect. Though scarcely twenty-four years of age, he had obtained the entire confidence of his uncle. D'Ossat having asked permission from Clement VIII to communicate the general state of affairs to that nephew, the pope replied: "Tell him everything, even to what we have said in this audience." Thus the French minister on this occasion found an opportunity to repeat and strengthen all that he had before said, and he gathered the replies which, though substantially the same, yet often allowed admissions or concealments to be sufficiently visible to give the negotiator the advantage.

Cardinal Delfino, minister from Venice to Rome during the years 1596, 1597, and 1598, spoke thus of Cardinal Aldobrandini: "He is of a most noble nature, and amiable and graceful as can be imagined. We may add that he was very amiable and thoroughly to be relied upon."

However, there was one point upon which Aldobrandini, with all his elegance, and D'Ossat, with all his zeal, could not come to an agreement. Clement, in measured and paternal tones, had expressed his opinion upon the absolution pronounced by the French archbishop and bishops. Aldobrandini, with all the forms of the most exquisite politeness, explained the consequences of that act of the French episcopate. The pope must needs treat as a nullity the absolution given by the bishops of France, who, according to the laws of Rome, had no authority to revoke, or even to moderate or interpret, the judgments and censures of the Holy See. It was said at Rome that nothing like that procedure of the French bishops had ever before been witnessed, where, in a single morning, instruction, conversion, satisfaction, penance, and absolution had been hurried through simultaneously. That was the reason why the pope and Aldobrandini made no reply when D'Ossat, a good servant and somewhat exacting Frenchman, spoke so much about the Catholicism of the king and his inflexible determination to live and die in the apostolical Roman Catholic religion.

Meanwhile Seraphin Olivier, auditor of the Rota, an able and courageous personage, said one day very bluntly to the pope: "Most Holy Father, permit me to tell you that Clement VII lost England through being too complaisant to Charles V, and that Clement VIII will lose France if he continues to be too complaisant to Philip II."

A suspicion was felt by the Council of Paris, from the idea that it was sought to impose humiliating terms upon the king.

At length Davy du Perron, bishop-elect of Evreux, was sent to act, in conjunction with D'Ossat, as proxy of His Majesty in the great ceremony of the absolution.

D'Ossat, who at first singly conducted that negotiation, had acted so ably that when Du Perron arrived he had little more to do than to reap the fruits.

After several conciliatory proceedings, which were approved by the pope, Du Perron and D'Ossat, on the 30th June, 1595, presented a formal application to His Holiness.

It is true that he treated with two personages of singular integrity in business, and who preserved that reputation during their whole lives.

"The Holy Father," says D'Ossat, "on Wednesday. 2nd of August, summoned all the cardinals to a general congregation, and called their attention to the said business, informing them of all that had been done in it from the commencement of his pontificate. He pointed out all the severities which he had used concerning it, and how ineffectual such severities had been, seeing that the king still prospered and established himself in the kingdom, notwithstanding all the resistance that could be opposed to him. His Holiness proceeded to state that at length he had informed Cardinal de Gondi that His Holiness would give audience to any new envoy from the Most Christian King, and that thereupon the king had sent M. du Perron as the bearer of two letters from His Majesty, one of which was in his own handwriting and explained his request. His Holiness urged that this was the most important business that the Holy See had had before it in several centuries; and His Holiness begged, prayed, and exhorted those assembled princes of the Church to consider it well, and to lay aside all human passion and interest, and to have no thought but for the honor of God, the preservation and extension of the Catholic faith, and the common benefit of all Christendom. His Holiness reminded them that in this instance they had not to deal with the case of a private man detained in prison, but with that of a very great and most potent prince, commanding armies and many people, and that they ought to consider less that prince himself than that whole great kingdom which followed and depended upon him, and not to be as strict in absolving from censures as in absolving from sins. The pope added that in four or five days from that time he would separately consult each of the cardinals, in their rank and order, so that in his own chamber he might have the true opinion and best advice of each of them; and he desired that they would all be prepared.

"On the following Monday, the 7th of August, the pope began to hear the opinions of the said lords cardinals, and partly on account of the slowness which is natural to Rome, and partly because His Holiness could not neglect the general business of that court, he did not finish hearing them until Wednesday, the 23rd of that month. More than three fourths of the cardinals were of opinion that His Holiness should give the absolution. In the week which has elapsed since the pope finished hearing the said opinions, we have solicited and treated upon the conditions of the future absolution,and have come to agreement upon the same. At the least, we have said to them, and guaranteed in writing, all that we could grant them, without reserving anything to ourselves, and we have declared that we could add no more. It would seem that they require more, but more they will not have from us; and we require that the business should be ended without delay, as we entreated of the Holy Father in the third audience given to us by His Holiness, on Monday, the 28th day of this month. We then made him, in person, the above declaration, that we could add nothing to the conditions by us previously conceded. Accordingly, today, the 30th of August, His Holiness held a consistory, in which he declared to the cardinals that, having collected their votes, he found that nearly all were in favor of granting the absolution, and accordingly he had determined to give it, and had already consulted with the proxies as to their conditions, the principal and most important of which they had heard from him; adding that he would endeavor to obtain more if possible, and what he could not obtain at present he would endeavor subsequently to obtain by means of a legate whom he would send, and by means of nuncios whom he would keep near the king, and by the ambassadors from His Majesty. It now remains for us to sign the above-mentioned conditions and promises, and for His Holiness to make and publish the decree of the absolution."

"Meantime there is great eagerness to draw up the form of the abjuration and confession of faith that we shall to make here in the name of the king; and the form of the bull of absolution, of which we are to have a copy, and on which nothing is to be done without previous consultation with us. That done, His Holiness will publicly perform the solemnity of the said abjuration and confession of faith, and of the absolution which will govern with reference to it, and of the same tenor. And we have the hope, almost the certainty, that that will occur on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady, the 8th of next month, and that the same bull, signed and sealed, will be conveyed to the king and published in France and in all Christendom."

"The Spanish ambassador (the Duke of Sessa) has always persisted in maintaining the king to be impenitent, and that he should on no account be absolved; and in the meantime he has a great number of venal tools who have privately aided him, by urging all sorts of pretexts on which the absolution might be denied altogether, or deferred as long as possible."

"Now, the more malignant spirits endeavored to prevent or postpone so great a benefit, the more our Holy Father has caused public or private prayer to be offered up by all the good people in Rome, and the more he has himself been assiduous in prayer and in the invocation of the grace and inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Besides his customary devotions, which at all times are great, on Saturday, the 5th of this month, the feast of the dedication of Saint Mary's of the Snows, accompanied by a small number of servants, both he and they being barefooted, he went at daybreak from his palace of Monte Cavallo to Saint Mary Major, where he prayed at great length. He returned thence, still barefooted, to his palace, weeping, with downcast face, without giving his benediction or looking at any one. And on the day of the Assumption of Our Lady, the 15th of the month, he returned at the same hour to the above-mentioned church, barefooted, and again prayed earnestly, and, still barefooted, said Mass; and then he held the chapel of that day, attended by the cardinals in state, whom he awaited there more than two hours after finishing his devotions. And, as he daily makes some new demonstration of his devotion and piety, so, in the audience that we had of His Holiness on the 28th of the month, he gave us a very great and distinguished testimony of his esteem for the king and kingdom of France, and of his paternal affection for both, as will be declared to you at a more secure time and place."

Here we may usefully give some details upon the ceremony of the absolution.

A scaffolding was erected on Saint Peter's Square, on which was placed a very lofty throne for the pope; and all the cardinals took their places below him. The ceremony commenced by the reading of a decree of His Holiness. pope approved and confirmed all the acts of religion had followed the absolution of Saint Denis. The request of the king was then read that had been presented by Du Perron and D'Ossat, who were then introduced. Kneeling, they abjured the errors of Calvinism in the usual form.

Then the conditions of the absolution were read. Especial stress was laid upon a peace to be concluded with Spain; after which Du Perron and D'Ossat, in the name of the king, promised, upon the holy Gospels, that he would persevere in the Apostolic Roman Catholic faith. They were then conducted to the foot of the throne of His Holiness, where, again kneeling, with downcast eyes and bowed heads, they recited the Psalm Miserere. At each verse the pope, having in his hand a long and slender wand, like those which the Romans termed Vindicta, and used for the enfranchisement of slaves, slightly touched with that wand the ministers of the king, as was the custom of the Church, to signify that Christian liberty was restored to those who had been in the bonds of censure.

Then the pope rose, and having, with uncovered head, recited the usual prayers, resumed his tiara, and, seating himself upon his throne, he raised his voice and declared that by the authority of the Almighty, by that of the blessed apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and by his own, he gave to Henry of Bourbon, King of France, absolution from the ecclesiastical censures incurred by reason of heresy. Then the pope gave his benediction to the ministers of the king, and said to them: "You will make known to the king your master that we have opened to him the gate of the Church militant here on earth, and that it is for himself, by a lively faith and by works of piety, hereafter to enter into the Church triumphant in heaven." Then, by order if the pope, the hitherto closed doors of the church were thrown open, and the cardinal of San Severino, grand penitentiary, conducted the French envoys to the church, where the Te Deum was sung amidst a great concourse of all orders of the people. Cardinal de Joyeuse then conducted them to the Church of Saint Louis, the national church of the French, where the Te Deum was again sung with an equally numerous concourse, and William d'Avanson, Archbishop of Embrun, celebrated the Mass. In the afternoon the Te Deum was sung for the third time at the Trinita dei Monti, a convent of the French Minims, where the Bishop of Lisieux officiated. All the prelates and the gentlemen who were subjects of the king, and even a great number of Roman prelates and gentlemen, followed by an immense crowd, were present at the religious acts of that day. The king was prayed for in all the churches, and the Te Deum was sung.

For three days there were fireworks and illuminations at Rome, in token of rejoicing, the Spaniards alone standing aloof. The popular joy evinced on this occasion was the more humiliating to the enemies of the king, because it especially proceeded from the attachment of the people for Henry IV. For, not only were the arms of France seen upon many houses, but even the poorest people bought Henry's portrait, which had recently been engraved, and which was fixed upon the walls amidst cries of "Vive le Roi de France, who is restored to us !" In brief, all were eager to give tokens of affection for Henry IV, and of joy at his reconciliation to Holy See.

Bonanni, treating of the pontifical medals of this reign, gives the following details upon the ceremony of the absolution:

Sixtus V disapproved of the actions of Henry, King of Navarre. As that pontiff was of warm temper and was not timid towards offenders, he launched his anathema, in 1585, against Henry, as a heretic and the patron of heretics. Gregory XIV, in 1591, ordered the archbishops and bishops of France and all the members of the clergy to break off all relations with the same Henry. Subsequently Clement VIII made every effort to save the Church of France. He loved that Church, so celebrated for its antiquity, its sanctity, and its knowledge, and he assiduously prayed for it. According to Baronius, he unceasingly and with tears entreated God on behalf of that Church. And that France, daughter of the Clementine tears, saw that Church flourish in tenderness, in piety, and in veritable love, under Henry IV and his son. Clement had warned the confederates that they were to recognize rights to the crown of France only in a Catholic prince.

"In the midst of these perturbations, Henry, struck by the divine light and by the arguments of the Apostolic Church, was instructed in her dogmas, learned to detest errors, and professed in Saint Denis the Roman religion, which was that of the holy kings of France."

"He successively sent, to ask absolution in his name Peter de Gondi and the Marquis de Pisani. Clement would not listen to either of them. Then Henry sent the Duke of Nevers, who succeeded in discovering in Clement an inclination towards pardon. Subsequently Du Perron and D'Ossat renewed the attempts. They affirmed that Henry from the bottom of his heart had renounced all his previous errors. Saint Philip Neri interposed and zealously supported the efforts of the king. On the 20th of December, 1595, (should be August 30, 1595), Clement, in consistory, declared that he had collected the opinions of all the cardinals, and that a great portion of them inclined to the reconciliation. The king's agents were treated with; the Saint Denis absolution was declared null and void. The king was to abjure again in the presence of a legate. The Prince de Conde was to be recalled from Rochelle and reared at Paris, as presumptive heir to the king. The Catholic religion was to be re-established in Bearn. The Council of Trent was to be published and observed. Finally, the king was to notify all the Catholic princes of his conversion."

Bonanni subsequently says that the two agents, taken before the pope, pronounced the abjuration–Du Perron aloud, and D'Ossat in a lower tone. They swore upon the Gospels of God, which were placed before them, and Don Cosmas de Angelis then read the decree of absolution. Then the pope, mitre on head, recited the Psalm Miserere, and at each verse touched the heads of the king's agents (the wand is not mentioned). All was conducted in the pontifical form, but in that form the wand called the Vindicta is concerned.

When the doors of Saint Peter's were thrown open, the Cardinal San Severino said to the king's two envoys: "Enter, 0 you whom your king has empowered to act for him, enter into the Church of God; recognize that he inconsiderately departed from it, and that he has escaped from the bonds of death; let all hold heretical depravity in horror, and adore Almighty God !"

Bonanni subsequently relates that letters from Henry testified to his lively gratitude to the pope; and Henry, in his own letters, speaks of his intention to go to Rome to return thanks in person.

In commemoration of those events a granite column was set up in front of the Church of Saint Anthony the Abbot, near Saint Mary Major.

The pope, in addition to all the demonstrations of joy permitted at Rome, struck a medal, with his own head on one side and that of Henry IV on the other.

On this occasion, also, the king gave the cardinals the title of cousin. Till then he addressed them only as "dear friend."

At the same time the pope, considering that Henry had no children by Margaret of Valois (daughter of Henry II, and sister of the three last kings of France, Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III), to whom the young King of Navarre had been married by force, ordered the delicate circumstances of the case to be carefully examined; and at Iength complied with the entreaties of the king, who subsequently applied for a divorce, that he might be enabled to marry Mary de' Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Previous to the absolution, two fanatics, Peter Barriere and John Chatel, attempted the king's life. The enemies of the Jesuits did not neglect that opportunity to tell the prince that those religious had incited the assassins to that crime, the assassins being recognized as having studied in the schools of the society. The Jesuits were expelled from the kingdom; but Clement, who yielded to no one in esteem and goodwill of the society (as he himself wrote to the archbishop of Lima), so urgently pressed the monarch, who did not share the error of a part of his council, that the Fathers were recalled to the kingdom and their colleges. Subsequently, in 1604, in spite of the representations of the Parliament, the prince gave them the magnificent college of La Fleche, where, in token of his affection, his last will ordered his heart to be deposited.

On the subject of the Jesuits, the king was accustomed to say: "I observe that two classes of persons are opposed to their return: first, the partisans of the Reformation, that is to say, the Huguenots; and ecclesiastics whose life is not very edifying."

The barefooted Carmelites having been instituted in 1562 by Saint Teresa, assisted by Saint John of the Cross, Gregory XIII approved the reform on the 22nd of June, 1580, and separated them from the Great Carmelites. Clement completed the separation, and included the barefooted Carmelites among the mendicant orders.

The missionaries sent to distant countries had not discontinued their holy labors. The Patriarch of Alexandria, stimulated by the exhortations of missionaries, sent to Rome two Egyptian ambassadors, who were received with honors by pope. At his feet they made their profession of faith, abjuring the errors of the Greek sect on the procession of the Holy Ghost and on the repetition of baptism. They admitted seven sacraments, and declared that they received the first Council of Nice, the first and second councils of Constantinople, and those of Ephesus and Chalcedon; they reprobated the Eutychian heresy; and finally, in the name of their patriarch, they acknowledged the primacy of Rome, received the councils of Florence and Trent, and earnestly entreated the pope to unite the churches of Egypt to the Apostolic Church. The Holy Father sent those ambassadors home filled with joy, giving them rich presents and holy relics.

The sufferings of the Catholics of Mount Lebanon were from time to time made known at Rome by monks who visited there, and Clement intrusted an important mission to the Jesuits Dandini and Bruno, who were directed to visit in that distant part such Catholics as recognized the Holy See, and to present them with various gifts in money, church plate, books, vestments, and a pontifical, intended for the patriarch. The arrival of those Jesuits was joyfully greeted on the mountain, "and the ancient cedars shook with joy."

1596 there was a great promotion of cardinals, among whom were: (1) Anne des Cars de Givry, of the counts of Limoges, and related to the royal house of France, who had several times been ambassador to Rome from the princes of the Valois branch,–Saussay has included him in the Gallican Martyrology; (2) Camillo Borghese, who became pontiff in 1605, under the name of Paul V; (3) Caesar Baronius, born of an honorable family at Sora, and sent at an early age to Rome, where he placed himself under the direction of Saint Philip, in his congregation of the Oratory. There, by order of that saint, he composed that immortal work, the Ecclesiastical Annals, which obtained him the surname of the Father of Ecclesiastical History. That noble and learned personage, after eloquently preaching in the churches of the Florentines, of the Charity, and of the Vallicella, was named Librarian of the Holy Church. In 1605, in the conclave which elected Paul V, Baronius would have been made pope, there being thirty-five votes for him, but that his humility and his eloquence turned the electors from their determination. He begged so earnestly and spoke so eloquently that he succeeded in preventing his own election.

One of the most glorious works of the pontificate of Clement VIII was, doubtless, the union of the duchy of Ferrara to the States of the Holy See. Duke Alphonsus II of Este, being without legitimate heir, asked Gregory XIV for permission to bequeath the principality to some of his relations of the house of Este, and it is said that Gregory XIV made no very great resistance. Alphonsus dying on the 27th of October, 1597, it was found that he had left a will by which he named as his heir Caesar d'Este, a distant relation; and Caesar, with the favor of the emperor, caused himself to be crowned Duke of Ferrara. It was thought that Clement would consent, but while he was still a cardinal, he, as strongly as was consistent with respect, opposed the concession that had been asked from Gregory. Now that he had become pope, Clement acted in concert with Henry IV. That prince declared that Ferrara was a dependency of the exarchate of Ravenna, formerly given to the popes by Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious. In consequence, Clement, assured of his right and of a powerful support, would not recognize Casar d'Este. On these grounds, enumerated in the Bullarium Romanum, he declared that the duchy had reverted to the Holy See. He fulminated serious penalties to deter the usurper from taking possession; and having levied an army, he gave the command of it to his nephew Peter Aldobrandini, with orders to resist the pretensions of Caesar. The latter, already Duke of Modena and Reggio, and confident of obtaining from the Holy See the rights enjoyed by Alphonsus, at once renounced his pretensions, and the papal army occupied Ferrara on the 24th of January, 1598. Clement, by the bull Sanctissimus, declared the duchy of Ferrara restored to the Holy See, because, in addition to all other reasons, by the terms of a constitution of Saint Pius V it was forbidden to alienate the property of the Church. The duchy was attributed in perpetuity to the patronage of the holy apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul. But the pope granted to the duchy of Ferrara the right to keep an ambassador at Rome, with the same privileges as all the other members of the diplomatic body.

A dispute then arose between the Ferrarese ambassador and the ambassador of Bologna as to precedence. Each wished to precede the other in the ceremonies of the papal chapel. Clement ordered that they should only attend there alternately, and never together, so that the question of precedence was forever undecided between them.

Clement next determined to give his subjects the benefit of his presence. He left at Rome, as legate and vice-pontiff, cardinal Innico Avalos, of Aragon, and set out to take possession of the duchy, attended by twenty-seven cardinals and by a large number of prelates. According to ancient custom, a priest bore in front of the pope the Most Holy Sacrament, in a costly shrine, under a rich canopy of cloth of gold. The Ferrarese received some privileges; an imposing citadel was erected, and the pope returned to Rome with the blessings of all his subjects.

He had returned to the city only three days, when, on the 23rd of December, the Tiber furiously overflowed its banks and a great number of persons perished in the fields. A bridge, serving as a dam, was constructed between Rieti and Terni, so that the waters could not again accumulate so disastrously to the citizens of Rome.

This year, 1598, is famous. Philip II died on the I3th of September, and about the month of October an agent of Rosny procured the last will of that prince, or, rather, the copy of the discourse or treatise which, when dying, he addressed to his son.

At the time of the unexpected publication of this confession, France was beginning to be strong; and for her this document was in effect a series of historical lessons, and a warning, more or less essential, as to the measures that Spain would adopt in the pursuit of her own interest. But Rome found in that communication most important information and caution; she could beware, without risking anything in investigations uncertain of success. She could warily make inquiries and researches around herself, and thenceforth more completely understand her position, and weigh and measure the perils that threatened her, and the trials of attacks and meddlings which were to torment the wise Clement VIII, and, by associating the Roman policy with violences useful in other countries, deprive him in his own capital of that peace which he so much desired to secure to every country in the world.

The Protestants complained to Henry IV about some administrative embarrassments which had affected them, and of which Henry had been unaware.

The Edict of Nantes was published. On occasion of that publication, the Holy Father addressed to all the bishops of France the constitution Dives in misericordia sua Deus. He exhorted them to propagate the increase of the Catholic faith, the observance of ecclesiastical discipline, and the extirpation of vice, especially in the cities to which the exercise of the Catholic religion was restored.

On the 3rd of March, 1599, in a very numerous promotion of cardinals, the pope gave the purple to Arnaud d'Ossat.

In the same promotion the purple was granted to Robert Bellarmine, a noble Tuscan of Montepulciano, nephew of Pope Marcellus II by his mother Cynthia Cervini. That Jesuit, celebrated by his lectures in the schools and by his Latin sermons against the errors of Lutheranism, had so high a reputation that Protestants from England and Holland travelled to Italy for the purpose of hearing him. He was named professor in the Roman college founded by Gregory XIII. Sixtus V assigned him as theologian to Cardinal Gaetani, legate in France; and Gregory XIV appointed him as one of the seven learned persons to revise the edition of the Vulgate published under Sixtus V and corrected under Clement VIII. On the death of the Jesuit Cardinal Toledo, the pope named Bellarmine his theologian, consulter of the Holy Office, examiner of the bishops, and finally, as we have just shown, promoted him to the purple. In the allocution to the consistory, Clement expressed himself thus: "We select Father Bellarmine because he has not his equal in the Church in learning."

Bellarmine died at Rome in the novitiate of the Jesuits,, where he was visited by Gregory XV. On the death of Leo XI, Bellarmine would have been pope, if he had not, with sincere firmness, opposed his own election. The cardinals could not resist so formal and so sublime a renunciation of the highest dignity within the reach of man.

Under Clement VIII, in 1599, took place the trial of the celebrated Beatrice Cenci, accused of having, with her step-mother Lucretia, murdered her father. The whole city of Rome, in consequence of the beauty of that young Roman lady, and still more on account of some doubts which arose on the trial, as well as of the horrible charges brought against the father, were upon the very point of pardoning her, when a Roman lord was guilty of the disgraceful crime of matricide. That fresh abomination aroused the indignation of the pope. He summoned Monsignor Taverna, the governor of Rome, and intrusted the Cenci case to him. Taverna, after a most careful examination, pronounced sentence of death against all the parties concerned; and Beatrice was executed on the 11th of September, 1599, on the square of the palace of Sant' Angelo.

The Roman lord whose crime had intercepted the pope's clemency was subsequently punished with the same severity.

D'Ossat, becoming cardinal through the expressed wish of Henry IV, could not be otherwise than doubly zealous in the still difficult business of his royal master. The interests of France, those of Rome, and doubtless, indirectly, all Europe, required Henry IV to strengthen his glorious dynasty by a marriage which would secure to that family the succession to the throne in the person of a legitimate son. Henry, at the time of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, in 1572, had been compelled to marry Margaret of Valois; her brother, Charles IX, and her mother, Catherine de Medici, deeming that marriage useful to their cause.

Margaret of Valois, Queen of France and Navarre, had thrown obstacles in the way of the divorce, as Iong as there was any hope of the Duchess of Beaufort marrying the king. But the duchess having died suddenly and terribly in 1599, in a manner which history has not even yet sufficiently explained, Margaret was again solicited to consent to the divorce. Clement VIII, on his part, caused the princess to be spoken to by several pious and devout persons; and Sully was charged, without concealing anything from Henry IV, with various measures for ascertaining the inclinations of the king's wife.

A correspondence between Rosny and the queen being laid before Pope Clement, he saw therein a favorable augury. D'Ossat negotiated, and the sentence dissolving the marriage was pronounced on the 17th of December, 1599.

In the year 1600 Clement celebrated the eleventh jubilee of the holy year, which he had published on the 19th of May of the previous year.

Independently of the pilgrims who were received into private houses, the hospital of the Trinita de' Pelegrini received five hundred thousand. It was calculated that in the course of the year they reached three million two hundred thousand. On Easter Sunday two hundred thousand pilgrims were present. From France alone there successively arrived three hundred thousand, which caused an immense joy to France, and to the enemies of France a great confusion. Among the personages of rank at Rome, at this jubilee, were the Duke of Bavaria, concealed beneath the simple habit of a pilgrim, the Duke of Bar, the Duke of Parma, and Cardinal Andrew of Austria, who chose to visit the churches incognito. The pope, in spite of his age and infirmities, made seventy visits to the churches, although the number of visits prescribed to Roman residents was thirty, and to strangers fifteen. Clement, on his knees, ascended the Scala Santa, accompanied, barefooted, the processions, washed the feet of the pilgrims, served them at table, heard their confessions and distributed alms among them to the amount of more than three hundred thousand crowns. He had had a palace fitted up in the Borgo of Saint Peter's, for the reception of all bishops, prelates, and clerics, who were at liberty to remain there ten days. At the sight of so tender a proof of practical piety, and at the example given by the pope, the cardinals, and the prelates, who seemed to vie with each other in works of piety, even Turks asked and received baptism, and many Protestants, indignant at the calumnious epithets of Antichrist and Babylon, so insolently applied to the pope of Rome, detested their past blindness, and abjured, with execration, the heresy which inspired such an unjust fury, and distinguished themselves as the most exemplary and docile sons of the Roman Church. Among that number was Stephen Calvin, a relation of John Calvin; the pope confirmed him, treated him as a son, and provided magnificently for the expenses of his stay in Rome until the moment of his admission into the order of the barefooted Carmelites, in which he died piously.

The same year, at the request of Cardinal Baronius and of the pious Fulvia Sforza, the Holy Father instituted the order of the Nuns of Saint Clare, called of Saint Urban, from the name of their church. They were poor girls who called the scattered, because they had no fixed resting place in the city; they were then collected in the conservatory of Saint Euphemia, and placed under the direction of the cardinal-vicar. Four years previously the pope had given a constitution in favor of poor youths of the other sex who were equally scattered, and who, having been got together by a learned though poor man, were called "poveri literati."

We must not forget the institution of the College for the Scotch, in which young men of that country were so instructed that, on their return home, they should take with them a love of the faith, and a desire to restore the primitive Christian religion. Another college, also, was created at Rome, for Italian youth; it was called the Clementine College, and became a fitting monument of that glorious name. In 1604 the pope intrusted the care of it to the Fathers of Somasco, who discharged their duties with untold zeal. They thus trained to piety and knowledge the flower of the Italian nobility. The Illyrian College, which at first was annexed to the Christian College, was afterwards removed to the city of Loretto by Urban VIII.

Gregory XIII had ordered that none but the Jesuits should propagate the faith in Japan and China. That pope knew that it was they who first successfully introduced the Catholic religion there. Clement extended that privilege to all religious orders, especially the mendicants, so illustrious for their doctrinal purity and their piety. The privilege was granted on condition that all the missionaries should be sent from Portugal to their respective superiors in the East Indies, belonging to that kingdom, which, although then united to Spain, wished to keep the Portuguese and the Spanish conquests apart.

To the commencement of the year 1600 must be referred a deed which was not useful to religion, and which indicates a certain serfdom to the cruel policy of Philip III; a deed which some hold up to excuse the infamous cruelties committed by the agents of Elizabeth of England against the Catholics. This was the execution of Giordano Bruno, a Neapolitan, who perished at Rome, in the field of Flora, in consequence of a trial that had been commenced a long time previously in Venice, but was continued in Rome herself.

Bruno, born at Nola, in the kingdom of Naples, about 1550, was very carefully educated. After mathematical, or rather the philosophical studies, he devoted himself to literature and theology, exhibiting from his youth upward great power of memory, a facile comprehension, and a mind naturally tending to enthusiasm. To pursue still higher studies, he entered the Dominican order. Unfortunately, such advantages as this, when imprudently directed, lead to error. Bruno manifested his peculiar opinions upon the Immaculate Conception, a question upon which others have previously written. His opinions were condemned by some of his superiors. Then Bruno quitted his convent and retired to Geneva in 1580. In that city he embraced Calvinism, and exerted in defence of that heresy the talents which he ought to have exerted against it. This sectary was at Paris in 1582. A self-constituted professor, he attacked the doctrine of Aristotle. Repulsed by the disciples of the Stagirite, Bruno took refuge in England. It was at that period that Gregory XIII sent a consecrated host to Mary, Queen of Scots, who was daily threatened with death by Queen Elizabeth. There, almost at the very moment when Sixtus V received the sublime letter of Mary, Bruno, braving the Roman court and the bull of Saint Pius V, called for assistance in chanting the praises of Elizabeth, who gave him not only food and raiment, but even honors.

Bruno, in his gratitude, wrote, under the title of the Song of the Swan, an apotheosis to the glory of his benefactress. To him Elizabeth was so great that her kingdom resembled none of the States of the Continent, and everywhere, under her reign, the verses of Virgil had become a reality:

"Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos."

It is my duty to mention this document, because this act incited the Spanish government to destroy Bruno. Philip II, after marrying Mary, Queen of England and sister of Elizabeth, had lost the throne by the death of Mary. England, under Elizabeth, who succeeded Mary, crushed the hopes of Spain. An Italian had eulogized Elizabeth in the most fulsome terms and irritated the vexations of Madrid. That Italian would have long been confined, could he have been taken. When asked if he composed that panegyric, read to him, he acknowledged to the minutest shade the exaggerations of his rancor.

The Neapolitan thus expressed himself:

"Endowed, raised, favored, and supported by Heaven, neither speech nor force will succeed in injuring the divine Elizabeth. No noble of her empire equals her in dignity or heroism; no statesman equals her in wisdom. As to beauty, and knowledge of languages, both vulgar and learned; as to acquaintance with the arts and sciences; as to talent for governing–the fruit of a long experience; as to the other natural and acquired qualities, what to her were the Sophonisbas, the Faustinas, Semiramis, Didos, Cleopatras, and all those female glories of whom Italy, Greece, and Egypt in the old day made their boast? To me the best proof of genius is to be found in deeds–in success."

- "Our century beholds that princess with astonishment, with admiration. While political tempests swept over the whole face of Europe, the queen, by the majesty of her flashing gaze, imposed upon the great ocean a peace which has now endured more than five lustres. She constrained it, amidst its perpetual ebb and flow, to receive serenely into its vast bosom that dear Thames, which, fearless and unfatigued, winds tranquilly and gaily between its flowery banks."

That extraordinary lady rose like a brilliant light, to diffuse itself over the whole world by her title and by her royal dignity. She is inferior to no monarch in the world. For the judgment, prudence, and reflection that she displays in governing, it is difficult to discover a queen who approaches her. Certainly, if the empire given by fortune were in proportion to the empire merited by the finest and most generous genius, this new Amphitrite would dominate not England and Ireland only, but the entire globe, and her potent hand would sustain a universal monarchy. Still, it is not for me to speak of those designs of such profound maturity, with which that heroic soul has made peace and rest to triumph, as though by a single glance of her eyes, during more than twenty-five years, and amidst a sea of adversities."

After this eulogy Bruno published at London his famous book on the expulsion of the Triumphant Beast. It has been supposed that he alluded to the pontifical power. Several authors, and among them Bartholomes, think accusation ill founded. It does not even appear that the Roman tribunals laid much stress upon that accusation, among those which were to press hard upon Bruno. Bartholomes says on that point: "We must remember that that word, so often misinterpreted, has more than one sense, as well as the book of which it is the summary. Strictly speaking, it refers to the beasts, that is to say, the animals, that astronomy and mythology put in the sky; figuratively, it refers to the popular superstitions as to the influence of the stars upon the destinies and volitions of men. The beast is called triumphant because the signs of the zodiac and the notions of starry influences, with the whole tribe of cognate prejudices, were things generally received."

Bruno, meanwhile, kept up some correspondence with Rome. The friends whom he still possessed there saw, in all that series of libels, only attacks upon the humanists. Perhaps Spain had not yet seriously thought of making use of her pensions, her hirelings, and her rage, which she claimed had all privilege at Rome. The pope had as dexterously as generously shown his clemency in the business of Henry IV. Bruno persuaded himself also that Cardinal AIdobrandini shared the sentiments of his uncle. Homesickness, too, misled Bruno. Whithersoever he had taken his bitterness and his disorderly eccentricities, he had been but little liked. From Wittenberg, the primitive country of Protestantism, for which the restless Dominican doubtless appeared to be still too much of a Catholic, he went to Prague; from Prague, where the halo of Nepomucene was still too brilliant upon the banks of the Moldau, he went to Brunswick, and thence to Helmstedt; and at length was in Frankfort, which in 1591 was still a somewhat mixed city. Finally, he thought he might venture to Venice, which seemed to observe a judicious obedience to the Holy See; but there he was arrested, thrown into a dungeon, and then transferred to Rome. In that city more than one humanist, instead of foreseeing in the mild Christian spirit that some terrible sentence might be pronounced, united with the pensioners of Madrid. No doubt the whole life of Bruno had been devoted to labors very ill befitting a son of Saint Dominic. But he had done still worse than that: he had told the professors of all Europe that they were ignorant, he had lauded the adversary of Madrid in the pursuit a scepter so heavy that no human hand could support it. Bruno had heaped errors upon errors; nevertheless, he might change his conduct. A devoted subject of the monarchy of Spain, why should not he, the exile, aspire to revisit Naples or Nola? He was called upon to abandon his errors. There commenced an error of another kind. The Song of the Swan, in favor of Elizabeth, had its excuse in hunger and distress. The insults to the humanists were for the most part dictated by his peculiar pride. He knew that no reform is made in the arts and sciences by insult, contumely, and gross imputations.

At Rome Clement VIII and Cardinal Aldobrandini reigned: we know them both. The astronomical doctrine of Bruno alone could be attacked, because experience had not yet produced the triumph of that which now is received as incontestable truth at Rome, at London, at Stockholm, and in Spain. But the requirements of paltry and contemptible vengeance, the great mace left by Charles V and Philip to a prince who, without experience, resigned his power to subalterns more imbecile than energetic, decided the question differently.

In his agonies Bruno neither asked nor accepted quarter, entered into no explanations, remained obstinately plunged in his books, and seemed to disdain the clemency on the throne. He was sentenced to be burned, and the sentence was executed in the field of Flora, on the 17th of February, 1600.

The execution of Bruno deeply humiliated and wounded Clement VIII, and the more so because it was obstinately demanded by Santorio de San Severino, his rival in the conclave of 1592.

In this purely Spanish affair we may almost say that no one did his duty. There was a natural and appropriate punishment that might have been inflicted upon Bruno. He had been repulsed by every country into which he had carried his absurd imaginations. Venice should have thrown him into a gondola, and from Mestre had him conveyed to Germany; though there, also, he was not wanted. If the Ten could not adopt that course, they should have required his trial to take place at Venice, in order that the sentence should not be dictated by Spain.

In 1601 Clement was the first to introduce the practice of sending blessed linen to the infants of Catholic princes. The Holy Father despatched Maffeo Barberini to France, to take such clothes to the dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII, son of Henry IV and Mary de' Medici, born on the 27th of September.

The same year Clement solemnly canonized Saint Raymond de Pennaforte, third general of the order of Saint Dominic, and chaplain to Gregory IX. Raymond died at the age of one hundred, on the 6th of January, 1275.

In 1538 there was printed, at Lisbon, a book entitled "On the Agreement of Grace and Free Will," by Louis de Molina, a Spanish Jesuit. That book, which had been circulated all over Europe without any opposition and with great success, was denounced to the Inquisition of Rome. Clement ordered the matter to be most strictly examined. In 1602 he named eight theologians, who, after a deliberation of three months, declared sixty of Molina's propositions be erroneous and rash. The Jesuits replied, and a second and more numerous congregation reduced the said sixty propositions to twenty.

Then the Holy Father ordered that, with the assistance of the cardinals of the supreme Inquisition, of the deputed examiners, and of the two generals of the two disputing orders, the Dominicans and the Jesuits, the two parties should state their case in his presence.

To determine this affair, forty-seven congregations were held between the 20th of March, 1602, and the 22nd of February, 1606. They were termed De Auxiliis. The pope presided over twenty-seven of them. He fell sick before he could pronounce sentence, and a decision was not given until the reign of Paul V, who, after being present at the last ten congregations, where the examination was left to the cardinals only, pronounced, on the 27th of April, 1606, that it would be allowed for both orders to teach in their respective schools the contrasted systems as to grace, provided they did so with that prudent and respectful moderation which becomes Catholic theologians in general, an religious in particular.

In the month of March, 1603, died Elizabeth, Queen England.

By her will she called to the throne James, King of Scotland, whose mother, Mary, had perished on the scaffold, as much by order of the Parliament as by order of Elizabeth, who persecuted her because she professed the Catholic religion. The pope thought that with James the faith would again ascend the throne of England; but it speedily appeared that all the exertions of the pope in that direction were fruitless. The king embraced the doctrine of the Church of England. He was the first to take the title of King of Great Britain, as he was also the first to exercise the rights exclusively belonging to the vicar of Christ. So that all hope vanished of seeing the old faith restored in the kingdom.

An untoward event at this moment grieved the pope and disturbed all Rome. An offender, pursued by the police, took shelter in the palace of Cardinal Odoard Farnese. The sbirri, on entering the palace, were resisted by the cardinal's domestics, so that the criminal escaped in the confusion. On being informed of the fact, the pope was much irritated and ordered the governor of Rome to prosecute the servants of the cardinal, whom he rebuked sharply, ordering them to give up the offenders.

Several Roman princes and the ambassadors of the Catholic king waited upon the pope and endeavored to appease him. Then the cardinal left Rome, but with so strong an escort that he had nothing to fear from violence. That circumstance still further irritated the pope, who would no longer consent to pardon.

Ranutius Farnese, Duke of Parma, hastened to Rome to obtain his brother's restoration to favor. He presented himself before Clement with such a good mien and such a deeply respectful manner that he succeeded in appeasing the pope, and the delinquents obtained their pardon. The cardinal was recalled, but did not hasten to return. It was on that occasion that the pope took into his pay six hundred Corsicans and two hundred mounted arquebusiers, who were to guard the pontifical palace and other important points of the capital.

In 1604 France and Rome deplored the death of Cardinal D'Ossat. That faithful servant of Henry IV was only sixty-eight years of age, and it had been hoped that he would preserve his health in a country where the air is so mild and the temperature favorable to the aged. Henry experienced a deep affliction, which he did not attempt to conceal, when he heard that news.

Father Tarquinius Galuzzi, of the Society of Jesus, pronounced the funeral oration on Cardinal D'Ossat, at Rome, the 18th of March, 1604.

When D'Ossat died, Clement fell seriously ill. In the following year he was attacked by an intermittent fever. It was so violent that he at times was delirious; suddenly losing his memory and that understanding which had been so vast and profound, he died, aged sixty-nine, on the 5th of March, 1605, after having governed the Church thirteen years, one month, and four days. He was interred in the Vatican, and afterwards removed, on the 26th of April, 1646, to a magnificent tomb in the Borghese Chapel at Saint Mary Major.

Clement was endowed with many virtues. He was zealous for the propagation of the Gospel, for the extirpation of the heresies which then flooded all Europe, for the conversion of the schismatics of the East, and for the restoration of morals and of discipline. Unwearied in the discharge of duty, age and infirmity in naught diminished his courage. Humble in heart, he nevertheless distinguished himself by a certain air of command, and by an absolute tone, as was shown in the affair of Cardinal Farnese. Extremely kind of heart, he could protect his just rights and avoid dangers fatal to some of his predecessors. More than once he was seen at the confessional, receiving, like some good parish priest, all those who presented themselves, who desired to have it to say that they had received absolution from the lips of the pope himself. He said Mass daily, often in tears and every evening confessed to Cardinal Baronius. He fasted every Wednesday, and had only bread and water every Saturday. A hair shirt next to his infirm body attested his spirit of penance. He often went barefoot in ceremonies. He daily invited to a frugal repast as many paupers as there were years in his pontificate, served them with water to wash, blessed their table, and sent the dishes to them from his own. He visited the unfortunate, he consoled the afflicted, and he spent considerable sums in redeeming from slavery Catholics who had fallen into the power of the infidels. Such was the pope whom the impudent sectaries would represent as the Antichrist.

Literary men received his rich favors, and he gloried to be numbered among them. He gave the purple to Bellarmine, D'Ossat, Du Perron, and Marzali– the first of the Capuchins who received the hat–and to the Jesuit Toledo. Toledo and Bellarmine were the first of their order to obtain that honor.

He forbade Italians to reside in any places out of Italy where they had not liberty to exercise the Catholic religion in public–a rule confirmed by Gregory XVI. He declared that it was not allowable for any one to confess by letter or by message to an absent confessor, or in such manner to receive absolution. For though the Council of Trent had decided that those who, after baptism, had sinned were to present themselves at the tribunal of penance, to be absolved by the competent minister, yet the scholastics, fertile in subtleties, had taught that confession could be made, and absolution received, by letters or by proxy. Nothing could be more convenient than to commit one's sins to paper, that raises no blush; or to confess them, like the Sacramentaries, only to the Eternal Father. In that wise confession would be deprived of its most rigorous quality, because it is necessary to confess viva voce our own proper departures from the right path. The sacred tribunal would thus be deprived of what it has of the most salutary, for confession is a great part of the penance for the past, and one of the most efficient preservatives against relapse. On those grounds Clement was obliged to condemn the new opinion as false, erroneous, and rash, forbidding it to be maintained either in public or in private, even as merely probable, under pain of excommunication, reserved to the pope. He condemned the opinion of those who affirmed that Christians ought not to hear Mass except in their own parish churches, or to confess to any one but their own parish priest. The pope declared that both were perfectly lawful, provided each one duly received communion at Easter in his own parish church. He forbade any litany to be chanted in public offices except the Litany of the Saints and Litany of Loretto. He corrected the Roman pontifical, breviary, and the ceremonial of the bishops.

Bartholomes passes this judgment on Clement: "This pope was one of the most eminent of modern times. He was prodigiously active and untiring; an experienced and adroit administrator; jealous to govern by himself; a persevering statesman; circumspect even to taciturnity; rarely inclined to even an innocent duplicity; an enemy to Spain and to the Medici."

This biographical data is from "The Lives and Times of the Popes" by The Chevalier Artaud De Montor. Published by The Catholic Publication Society of New York in ten volumes in 1911. The pictures, included in the volumes, were reproduced from " Effigies Pontificum Romanorum Dominici Basae."