letter 3), "an inexorable sovereign, whom it was very hard to break by force, and impossible to bend by humility and caresses; "and Dante (_Inferno,_ canto xix.
v.

45 57) makes Pope Nicholas III.

say, "Already art thou here and proudly upstanding, O Boniface?
Hast thou so soon been sated with that wealth for which thou didst not fear to deceive that fair dame (the Church) whom afterwards thou didst so disastrously govern?
"Two men so deeply imbued with evil and selfish passions could not possibly meet without clashing; and it was not long before facts combined to produce between them an outburst of hatred and strife which revealed the latent vices and fatal results of the two systems of absolute power of which they were the representatives.
Philip the Handsome had been nine years king when Boniface VIII.

became pope.

On his accession to the throne he had testified an intention of curtailing the privileges and power of the Church.