widowed queen claimed to be pregnant. The prospect of a vacant throne, or at least of a regency, awaiting him in Paris rendered further dallying in Lyons insupportable, nor could he well depart without bringing his errand to a successful issue. Hastily counselling with his lawyers, it was discovered that his oath was unlawful and therefore not to be observed. Consequently he invited the reverend fathers to a colloquy in the Dominican convent, and when they were thus safely hived he sternly told them that they should not depart till they had chosen a pope. His guards blocked every entrance, and he hastened off to Paris, leaving them to deliberate in captivity. Thus entrapped they made a merit of necessity, though forty days were still required before they proclaimed Jacques d'Ozo, Cardinal of Porto, as the Vicar of Christ—the Italians having been won over by his oath that he would never mount a horse or mule except to go to Rome. This oath he kept during his whole pontificate of eighteen years, for he slipped down the Phone to Avignon by boat, ascended on foot to the palace and never left it except to visit the cathedral which adjoined it. Such a process of selection was not likely to result in the evolution of a saint, and John XXII. was its natural exponent His distinguished learning and vigorous abilities had elevated him from the humblest origin, while his boundless ambition and imperious temper provoked endless quarrels from which his daring spirit never shrank.[1]
With his election the troubles of the Inquisition of Languedoc were over. Though he published the Clementines, he soon let it be seen that the inquisitors had nothing to fear from him, and they made haste to pay off the accumulated scores of vengeance The first victim was Bernard Délicieux. During the pontificate of Clement and the interregnum he had lived in peace, and might well imagine that his enthusiasm for the people of Languedoc had been forgotten. His earnest nature had led him to join the sec tion of his order known as the Spirituals had been promi-
- ↑ Joann. Canon. S. Victor. Chron. ann. 1314–16.—Rymer, F{{subst:oe}}dera, III. 494–5.—Grandes Chroniques, ann. 1314–16.—Bern. Guidon. Vit. Joann. PP XXII.–Ptolmaei Lucens. Append. John XXII. has always passed as the son of a cobbler of Cahors. Recent researches, however, render it probable that he belonged to a well-to-to burgher family.–A. Molinier (Vaissette, Èd. Privat, X. 363).
