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The submergence of the aristocratic element, the nobles, destroyed a natural balance of power between the bishop-prince and the people. The commons exerted power beyond their intelligence. Annual elections, party contests headed by rival demagogues kept the capital, and, to a lesser extent, the smaller towns of the little state in continuous commotion .
Nevertheless, all difficulties, technical and general were ignored, and a papal dispensation enabled the candidate even to dispense with the formality of taking orders. Attired in scarlet with a feathered Burgundian cap on his head, Louis made his entry into his future capital and was duly enthroned as bishop-prince in spite of his manifest unfitness for the place.
There were two powerful weapons whereby the bishop-prince might enforce his will in opposition to that of his subjects did the latter become too obstreperous. He could suspend the court of the schepens, and he could pronounce an interdict of the Church which caused the cessation of all priestly functions.
And as he spoke there came to some of them who knew their annals well a stinging memory of the tale which was no legend of that pathetic group in their island sanctuary the brothers who were left, after the death of Otto, the exiled Doge, and of Orso, the noble bishop-prince, all of the house of Orseoli, who, with their abbess-sister Felicia, were wounded to the heart because for the crime of too great love and service the jealous and unrequiting Senate had banished them forever from the Venice so loyally served had decreed the extinction of a family to whom, as Doge and Patriarch, the Republic owed the wisest and most self-sacrificing of her rulers!
But in the exercise of his function there were many restrictions to his free administration, which papal and imperial sanction together were unable to remove. A bishop-prince of Liege could make no change in the laws without the consent of the estates, and he could administer justice only by means of the regular tribunals. Every edict had to be countersigned.
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