page_title: Pope Innocent XI
section_title: Relations with France
hierarchical_section_title: Pope Innocent XI / Foreign relations / Relations with France
caption_attribution_description: English: Piastre à l'effigie du Pape Innocent XI (1678-1679) Description avers&#160;: Buste habillé d’Innocent XI à droite, avec un bonnet&#160;; sur la tranche du buste HAMERANO . Traduction avers&#160;: (Innocent XI, grand pontife, année 1) . Description revers&#160;: Le Christ, et les apôtres sur un bateau, calmant les flots&#160;; au-dessous un écu aux armes de Corsini sous un chapeau de cardinal . Traduction revers&#160;: (Saint Mathieu, apôtre) .
context_page_description: Pope Innocent XI, born Benedetto Odescalchi, was Pope from 21 September 1676 to his death on August 12, 1689. He is known in Budapest as the "Saviour of Hungary".
  Much of his reign was concerned with tension with Louis XIV of France. He lowered taxes in the Papal States during his pontificate and he also produced a surplus in the papal budget. Because of this surplus he repudiated excessive nepotism within the Church. Innocent XI was frugal in matters of governing the Papal States, from dress to leading a life with Christian values. Once he was elected to the Papacy, he applied himself to moral and administrative reform of the Roman Curia. He abolished sinecures and pushed for greater simplicity in preaching as well as greater reverence in worship—requesting this of both the clergy and faithful.
  After a difficult cause for canonization, starting in 1791, which caused considerable controversy over the years and which was stopped on several occasions, he was beatified with no opposition in 1956 by Pope Pius XII.
context_section_description: The pontificate of Innocent XI was marked by the struggle between the absolutism and hegemonic intentions of Louis XIV, and the primacy of the Catholic Church. As early as 1673, Louis had by his own power extended the right of the régale over the provinces of Languedoc, Guyenne, Provence, and Dauphiné, where it had previously not been exercised.
  All the efforts of Innocent XI to induce Louis XIV to respect the rights and primacy of the Church proved useless. In 1682, the King convoked an assembly of the French clergy which adopted the four articles that became known as the Gallican Liberties. Innocent XI annulled the four articles on 11 April 1682, and refused his approbation to all future episcopal candidates who had taken part in the assembly.
  To appease the Pope, Louis XIV began to act as a zealot of Catholicism. In 1685 he revoked the Edict of Nantes and inaugurated a persecution of French Hugenots. Innocent expressed displeasure at these drastic measures and continued to withhold his approbation from the episcopal candidates.
  Innocent XI irritated the King still more that same year by abolishing the much abused right of asylum, by which foreign ambassadors in Rome had been able to harbor in embassies any criminal wanted by the papal court of justice. He notified the new French ambassador, Marquis de Lavardin, that he would not be recognised as ambassador in Rome unless he renounced this right, but Louis XIV would not give it up. At the head of an armed force of about 800 men Lavardin entered Rome in November 1687, and took forcible possession of his palace. Innocent XI treated him as excommunicated and placed under interdict the Church of St. Louis at Rome where he attended services on 24 December 1687.
  In January 1688, Innocent XI also received the diplomatic mission which had been dispatched to France and the Vatican by Narai, the King of Siam, under Fr. Guy Tachard and Ok-khun Chamnan in order to establish relations.
caption: Innocent XI (1678-1679)
exif: {}