in the fifteenth.
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.