There is not a single prince in Europe who does not assume the title of sovereign of a country possessed by his neighbor. This political madness is unknown in the rest of the world. The king of Boutan never called himself emperor of China; nor did the sovereign of Tartary ever assume the title of king of Egypt.

The most splendid and comprehensive pretensions have always been those of the popes; two keys, saltier, gave them clear and decided possession of the kingdom of heaven. They bound and unbound everything on earth. This ligature made them masters of the continent; and St. Peter’s nets gave them the dominion of the seas.

Many learned theologians thought, that when these gods were assailed by the Titans, called Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists, etc., they themselves reduced some articles of their pretensions. It is certain that many of them became more modest, and that their celestial court attended more to propriety and decency; but their pretensions were renewed on every opportunity that offered. No other proof is necessary than the conduct of Aldobrandini, Clement VIII., to the great Henry IV., when it was deemed necessary to give him an absolution that he had no occasion for, on account of his being already absolved by the bishops of his own kingdom, and also on account of his being victorious.

Aldobrandini at first resisted for a whole year, and refused to acknowledge the duke of Nemours as the ambassador of France. At last he consented to open to Henry the gate of the kingdom of heaven, on the following conditions:

1. That Henry should ask pardon for having made the sub-porters — that is, the bishops — open the gate to him, instead of applying to the grand porter.

2. That he should acknowledge himself to have forfeited the throne of France till Aldobrandini, by the plenitude of his power, reinstated him on it.

3. That he should be a second time consecrated and crowned; the first coronation having been null and void, as it was performed without the express order of Aldobrandini.

4. That he should expel all the Protestants from his kingdom; which would have been neither honorable nor possible. It would not have been honorable, because the Protestants had profusely shed their blood to establish him as king of France; and it would not have been possible, as the number of these dissidents amounted to two millions.

5. That he should immediately make war on the Grand Turk, which would not have been more honorable or possible than the last condition, as the Grand Turk had recognized him as king of France at a time when Rome refused to do so, and as Henry had neither troops, nor money, nor ships, to engage in such an insane war with his faithful ally.

6. That he should receive in an attitude of complete prostration the absolution of the pope’s legate, according to the usual form in which it is administered; that is in fact, that he should be actually scourged by the legate.

7. That he should recall the Jesuits, who had been expelled from his kingdom by the parliament for the attempt made to assassinate him by Jean Chatel, their scholar.

I omit many other minor pretensions. Henry obtained a mitigation of a number of them. In particular, he obtained the concession, although with a great deal of difficulty, that the scourging should be inflicted only by proxy, and by the hand of Aldobrandini himself.

You will perhaps tell me, that his holiness was obliged to require those extravagant conditions by that old and inveterate demon of the South, Philip II., who was more powerful at Rome than the pope himself. You compare Aldobrandini to a contemptible poltroon of a soldier whom his colonel forces forward to the trenches by caning him.

To this I answer, that Clement VIII. was indeed afraid of Philip II., but that he was not less attached to the rights of the tiara; and that it was so exquisite a gratification for the grandson of a banker to scourge a king of France, that Aldobrandini would not altogether have conceded this point for the world.

You will reply, that should a pope at present renew such pretensions, should he now attempt to apply the scourge to a king of France, or Spain, or Naples, or to a duke of Parma, for having driven the reverend fathers, the Jesuits, from their dominions, he would be in imminent danger of incurring the same treatment as Clement VII. did from Charles V., and even of experiencing still greater humiliations; that it is necessary to sacrifice pretensions to interests; that men must yield to ............