within its walls, all Flanders rushed to arms.  “The labors of the workshop and the field were everywhere suspended,” say contemporary Historians:  “the women kept guard in the towns:  you might traverse the country without meeting a single man, for they were all in the camp at Courtrai, to the number of twelve hundred thousand, according to popular exaggeration, swearing one to another that they would rather die fighting than live in slavery.”  Philip was astounded.  “I thought the Flemings,” said he, “were destroyed; but they seem to rain from heaven; “and he resumed his protestations and pacific overtures.  Circumstances were favorable to him:  old Guy de Dampierre was dead; Robert of Bethune, his eldest son and successor, was still the prisoner of Philip the Handsome, who set him at liberty after having imposed conditions upon him.  Robert, timid in spirit and weak of heart, accepted them, in spite of the grumblings of the Flemish populations, always eager to recommence war after a short respite from its trials.  The burghers of Bruges had made themselves a new seal, whereon the old symbol of the bridge of their city on the Reye was replaced by the lion of Flanders wearing the crown and armed with the cross, with this inscription:  “The lion hath roared and burst his fetters “(Rugiit leo, vincula fregit).  During ten years, from 1305 to 1314, there was between France and Flanders a continual alternation of reciprocal concessions and retractations, of treaties concluded and of renewed insurrections, without decisive and ascertained results.  It was neither peace nor war; and, after the death of Philip the Handsome, his successors were destined, for a long time to come, to find again and again amongst the Flemish communes deadly enmities and grievous perils.

At the same time that he was prosecuting this interminable war against the Flemings, Philip was engaged, in this case also beyond the boundaries of his kingdom, in a struggle which was still more serious, owing to the nature of the questions which gave rise to it and to the quality of his adversary.  In 1294 a new pope, Cardinal Benedetto Gaetani, had been elected under the name of Boniface VIII.  He had been for a long time connected with the French party in Italy, and he owed his elevation to the influence, especially, of Charles II., King of Naples and Sicily, grandson of St. Louis and cousin-german of Philip the Handsome.  Shortly before his election, Benedetto Gaetani said to that prince, “Thy pope (Celestine V.) was willing and able to serve thee, only he knew not how; as for me, if thou make me pope, I shall be willing and able and know how to be useful to thee.”  The long quarrel between the popes and the Emperors of Germany, who, as Kings of the Romans, aspired to invade or dominate Italy, had made the Kings of France natural allies of the papacy, and there had been a saying ever since, arising from a popular instinct, which had already found its way into poetry,—­