Note 71 — Chapter V · THE FOURTH TO THE SIXTH CRUSADES
Reading edition
A curé at Paris, instead of reading the bull from the pulpit in the usual form, said to his parishioners, “You know, my brethren, that I am ordered to fulminate an excommunication against Frederick. I know not the motive. All that I know, is, that there has been a quarrel between that prince and the pope. God alone knows who is right. I excommunicate him who has injured the other; and I absolve the sufferer.” The emperor sent a present to the preacher, but the pope and the king blamed this sally; le mauvais plaisant was obliged to expiate his fault by a canonical penance.