336 POLITICAL HERESY.-THE STATE. which solemnly condemned the propositions. The council debated the question with unwearied prolixity through twenty-eight ses- sions, and finally, on February 23, 1314, it adopted a sentence con- demning the nine propositions to be burned as erroneous in faith and morals, and manifestly scandalous. The sentence was duly executed two days later on a scaffold in front of Xotre Dame, in presence of a vast crowd, to whom the famous doctor, Benoist Gencien, elaborately explained the enormity of the heresy. Jean sans Peur thereupon appealed to the Holy See from this sentence, and John XXIII. appointed a commission of three cardinals — Orsini. Aquileia, and Florence — to examine and report. Thus Jean Petit had succeeded in becoming a European question, but in spite of this a royal ordonnance on March 17 commanded all the bish- ops of the kingdom to burn the propositions ; on March 18, the University ordered them burned ; on June -1 there was a royal mandate to publish the condemnation ; on December 4 the Uni- versity came to the royal court and delivered an oration on the subject, and on December 27 Charles VI. addressed a royal letter to the Council of Constance asking it to join in the condemna- tion. Evidently the affair was exploited to the uttermost ; and when, on January 4, 1315, the long-delayed obsequies of the Duke of Orleans were performed in Xotre Dame, Chancellor Gerson preached a sermon before the king and the court, the boldness of which excited general comment. The government of the Duke of Orleans had been better than any which had succeeded it ; the death of the Duke of Burgundy was not counselled, but his humil- iation was advocated ; the burning of Petit's propositions was well done, but more remained to do, and all this Gerson was ready to maintain before all comers.* It was in this mood that Gerson went to Constance as head of the French nation. In his first address to the council. March 23, 1415, he urged the condemnation of the nine propositions. The trial of John XXIIL, the condemnation of Wickliff and of com- munion in both elements, and the discussion over Huss for a while monopolized the attention of the council, and no action was taken
- D'Argentre, I. n. 184-6. — Religieux de S. Denis, Histoire de Charles VI.
Liv. xxxiii. ch. 28. — Juvenal des Ursins, ann. 1413. — Gersoni Opp. Ed. 1494, I. 14 B, C— Von der Hardt, T. III. Prolegom. 10-13.— Monstrelet, I. 139.
