the defence of the kingdom, and the chapter-general of the order of Citeaux wrote to Philip the Handsome himself, “On all grounds of natural equity and rules of law we ought to bear our share of such a burden out of the goods which God hath given us.”  In every instance, the question had been as to the necessity for and the quota of the ecclesiastical contribution, which was at one time granted by the bishops and local clergy, at another expressly authorized by the papacy.  There is nothing to show that Boniface VIII., at the time of his elevation to the Holy See, was opposed to these augmentations and demands on the part of the French crown; he was at that time too much occupied by his struggle against his own enemies at Rome, the family of the Colonnas, and he felt the necessity of remaining on good terms with France; but in 1296, Philip the Handsome, at war with the King of England and the Flemings, imposed upon the clergy two fresh tenths.  The bishops alone were called upon to vote them; and the order of Citeaux refused to pay them, and addressed to the pope a protest, with a comparison between Philip and Pharaoh.  Boniface not only entertained the protest, but addressed to the king a bull (called Clericis laicos, from its first two words), in which, led on by his zeal to set forth the generality and absoluteness of his power, he laid down as a principle that churches and ecclesiastics could not be taxed save with the permission of the sovereign pontiff, and that “all emperors, kings, dukes, counts, barons, or governors whatsoever, who should violate this principle, and all prelates or other ecclesiastics who should through weakness lend themselves to such violation, would by this mere fact incur excommunication, and would be incapable of release therefrom, save in articulo mortis, unless by a special decision of the Holy See.”  This was going far beyond the traditions of the French Church, and, in the very act of protecting it, to strike a blow at its independence in its dealings with the French State.  Philip was mighty wroth, but he did not burst out; he confined himself to letting the pope perceive his displeasure by means of divers administrative measures, amongst others by forbidding the exportation from the kingdom of gold, silver, and valuable articles, which found their way chiefly to Rome.  Boniface, on his side, was not slow to perceive that he had gone too far, and that his own interests did not permit him to give so much offence to the King of France.  A year after the bull Clericis laicos, he modified it by a new bull, which not only authorized the collection of the two tenths voted by the French bishops, but recognized the right of the King of France to tax the French clergy with their consent and without authorization from the Holy See, whenever there was a pressing necessity for it.  Philip, on his side, testified to the pope his satisfaction at this concession by himself making one at the expense of the religious liberty