The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

304 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
the legatine college. It is significant of this that in the Papal
secretariate the correspondence with him is drawn up in legal
style, just as was done when issuing instructions to the legates.^
All parties at Trent endeavoured to win over the French
Cardinal to their way of thinking, and the latter soon found
himself drawn into both open and secret negotiations with
men of opposite views. Charles de Guise endeavoured, with
the best will and the most persevering courage, above every-
thing else to bring about an agreement of the opposing parties
concerning the question of residence, and the much disputed
seventh canon. Until the following year the discussions
upon the proposals put forward for treatment concentrated
more and more, with unending repetitions and often in very
heated debates, upon these questions,^ the defenders of the
divine right of the bishops often laying themselves open to the
charge of holding very dangerous opinions. For example,
Danes, Bishop of Lavaur, in France, maintained that Peter
had not been universal bishop of the Church, that the authority
of his successors over the bishops was only an accessory, and
that the bishops not only held their power by divine right,
but also that in their own churches they were equal to the
Pope !^
It is not to be wondered at that the development of affairs
in Trent was watched with increasmg anxiety in Rome.^
The discussions, which were as tedious as they were dangerous,
might have been avoided altogether if the fathers of the
Council had paid attention to the fundamental distinction
which Charles Borromeo had drawn in one short sentence of
the letter which he addressed to the legates on October 29th.
^ Cf. SicKEL, Berichte, I., 60 ; III., 14, 42 ; Susta, III., v-vi.
2" Este capitulo de la residencia y el septimo canon," writes
Mendoga (p. 668), " han side los dos mayores esterbos que han
tenido las cosas del concilio, para dilatarse mas de lo que era
menester y mas de lo que muchos querian." For the disgraceful
scene at the speeches of the Bishops of Cadiz and Alife on Decem-
ber I and 2, 1562, see Pallavicini, ig, 5.
^ See Theiner, II., 172-3; Grisar, Primat, 480.
* Cf. the pessimistic expressions of Girolamo Soranzo, 82.