Avignon on 6 December 1352. Cardinal Pierre Desprès, Bishop of Palestrina and Dean of the College of Cardinals, presided over the Conclave of 1352. Despite the fact that he was Vice-Chancellor of the Church, the evidence does not indicate that he was a major force in the discussions, or that he had much time to become an influence. The leaders of the two major factions were Cardinal Guy de Boulogne and Cardinal Hélie de Talleyrand-Périgord, each of whom controlled sufficient votes to deny members of the other party the canonically necessary two-thirds of the votes for a successful election. There was plenty to fight about. The cardinals eventually drew up a set of Electoral Capitulations, which are enumerated by the new Pope, Innocent VI, in the bull by which he annulled them. The Conclave opened on Sunday, 16 December, and came to a successful conclusion on Tuesday, 18 December, with the election of Cardinal Étienne Aubert (Stephanus Alberti). The swiftness of the election is attributed to the fact that it was known by the cardinals that King John II of France was on his way to Avignon, intending to have a pope who would serve his interests. Wanting to preserve the liberty of the Church and their own, the Cardinals put aside their customary leisurely pace and produced a Pope before the King's arrival. In 1355, Cardinal Pierre Desprès was assigned as arbitrator between Andruin, Abbot of Cluny and Philip Abbot of Sancti Sequani (Saint-Seine) in the diocese of Mâcon, in a dispute that reached back to the time of Pope Boniface VIII. On 25 September 1355 Pope Innocent VI issued a bull, confirming the decision of Cardinal Desprès, requiring the payment of 50 gold florins to Cluny every year on All Saints' Day. In 1358, Cardinal Desprès rebuilt the Church of Saint-Pierre in Avignon, which had last been repaired in the tenth century and had fallen into ruins. He established it as a Collegiate Church with Canons. Death and tomb Cardinal Pierre Desprès died of plague on 16 May 1361 (or 30 September 1361), at the age of 73. He was buried in the Collegiate Church of Montpezat in the Choir. His marble effigy survives and is classed as an historical monument by the French Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. References Bibliography Nouvelle edition by G. Mollat II (Paris 1927). [1313-1333] [1333-1356] (second edition 1913). External