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.

Egotism, even in kings, has often narrow and short-sighted views.  It was calculated that there were in France at this period ten archbishoprics, eighty-three bishoprics, and five hundred and twenty-seven abbeys.  Francis I. and his chancellor saw in the proposed Concordat nothing but the great increment of influence it secured to them, by making all the dignitaries of the church suppliants at first and then clients of the kingship.  After some difficulties as to points of detail, the Concordat was concluded and signed on the 18th of August, 1516.  Five months afterwards, on the 5th of February, 1517, the king repaired in person to Parliament, to which he had summoned many prelates and doctors of the University.  The chancellor explained the points of the Concordat, and recapitulated all the facts which, according to him, had made it necessary.  The king ordered its registration, “for the good of his kingdom and for quittance of the promise he had given the pope.”