27th of April, sent to the Parliament an edict, which forbade the University to meddle in any matter of public police, or to hold any assembly touching such matters, under pain, as to the whole body, of having its privileges revoked, and, as to individuals, of banishment and confiscation.  The king’s party demanded of Parliament registration of this edict.  Parliament confined itself to writing to the king, agreeing that the University had no right to meddle in affairs of government, but adding that there were strong reasons, of which it would give an account whenever the king should please to order, why it, the Parliament, should refuse registration of the edict.  It does not appear that the king ever asked for such account, or that his wrath against the University was more obstinately manifested.  The Concordat was registered, and Francis I., after having achieved an official victory over the magistrates, had small stomach for pursuing extreme measures against the men of letters.

We have seen that in the course of the fifteenth century, there were made in France two able and patriotic attempts; the Pragmatic Sanction, in 1458, under Charles vii., and the States General of 1484, under Charles viii.  We do not care to discuss here all the dispositions of those acts; some of them were, indeed, questionable; but they both of them, one in respect of the church and the other of the state, aimed at causing France to make a great stride towards a national, free and legalized regimen, to which French feudal society had never known how or been willing to adjust itself.  These two attempts failed.  It would be unjust to lay the blame on the contemporary governments.  Charles vii. was in earnest about the Pragmatic Sanction which he submitted to the deliberations and votes of a national council; and Louis XI., after having for a while given it up to the pope, retraced his steps and left it in force.  As to the States General of 1484, neither the regent, Anne de Beaujeu, nor Charles viii., offered the slightest hinderance to their deliberations and their votes; and if Louis xii. did not convoke the States afresh, he constantly strove in the government of his kingdom to render them homage and give them satisfaction.  We may feel convinced that, considering the social and intellectual condition of France at this time, these two patriotic attempts were premature; but a good policy, being premature, is not on that account alone condemned to failure; what it wants is time to get itself comprehended, appreciated, and practised gradually and consistently.  If the successors of Louis xii. had acted in the same spirit and with the same view as their predecessor, France would probably have made progress in this salutary path.  But exactly the contrary took place.  Instead of continuing a more and more free and legal regimen, Francis I. and his chancellor, Duprat, loudly proclaimed and practised the maxims of absolute power;