A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [339]
Ignorant of Latin, the language of the oration, Charles listened graciously without understanding a word. Afterward a translation was ordered for the Royal Council, whose lay members, too, evidently knew no Latin. Clamanges’ impassioned plea was ignored. Governments do not like to face radical remedies; it is easier to let politics predominate, and the politics that the court was currently engaged in was the effort, promoted by Louis and resisted by Burgundy, to establish Louis in Italy. The University was ordered by the King—or in his name—to abstain from further agitation. Its reply was to suspend courses in what amounted to a strike by the faculty, a method used successfully against a tax levy in 1392 although at the cost of many foreign students leaving Paris.
The University also circulated Clamanges’ letter throughout Europe, not least to the See of Avignon, where it was presented to the Pope in a full assembly of cardinals. After reading a few lines, Clement’s eyes filled with anger and he exclaimed, “This letter defames the Holy See! It is wicked, it is venomous!” Denouncing it as a calumny that “does not deserve to be read in public or private,” he left the room in a rage and would neither listen nor speak to anyone. The cardinals read the letter through and, after conferring among themselves, concluded that postponement was indeed dangerous and that the Pope would have to accept the University’s program. Summoned by Clement when he learned of their conference, they advised him that if he had the good of the Church at heart he must choose one of the Three Ways. Such was his indignation at this “traitorous cowardice” that within three days, on September 16, he died of a heart attack or apoplectic stroke, or, according to his contemporaries, of “profound chagrin.” So ended Robert of Geneva, to be ultimately recorded as Anti-Pope by the Church.
The news of his death reached Paris six days later on September 22. Here at last was the moment to re-unite the Church painlessly, without use of force or a General Council—if the election of a successor to Clement could be prevented. “Never again will there be such an opportunity,” wrote the University to the cardinals; “it is as though the Holy Ghost stood at the door and knocked.” The Royal Council immediately dispatched a message in the name of the King to the Avignon cardinals, exhorting them “in the interests of all Christianity” to postpone their conclave until they received a “special and solemn” letter from the King of France which would follow.
Led by Marshal Boucicaut, the royal messengers galloped for Avignon, covering the 400 miles in the record time of four days. When they arrived, the conclave was already in session. The cardinals were anxious for union, but not at their own expense. They had been persuaded by the suave Spaniard, Cardinal de Luna, a former professor of canon law, that their position depended on their right of election, which must not be abridged. Divining the contents of the King’s letter, they decided not to open it until the election was accomplished. But lest they be charged with sustaining the schism, they agreed to sign a written oath binding whichever of them was elected to resign if a majority of the cardinals called on him to do so. The oath bound them to work diligently for union of the Church “without fraud, deceit or machination whatsoever,” and sincerely to examine without excuse or delay all possible ways to that goal “even to the point of ceding the papacy, if necessary.” Eighteen of 21 cardinals signed, among them the most fervent exponent of union, Cardinal Pedro de Luna of Aragon.
In the conclave, when the name of one cardinal was proposed for election, he confessed in an agony of honesty, “I am weak and perhaps would not abdicate. Do not expose me to temptation!”
“I on the other hand,” spoke up Cardinal