Boniface can only respond by denouncing the…

Boniface can only respond by denouncing the charges; but it is already too late for him: Philip has planned the abduction of the pope to France.

On September 7, 1303, the king's advisor Guillaume de Nogaret, denouncing Boniface as a heretical criminal to the French clergy, leads a band of two thousand mercenaries on horse and foot.

They join locals, notably Sciarra Colonna of the Colonna family, in an attack on the palaces of the pope and his nephew at the papal residence, later notorious as the Outrage of Anagni.

The Pope's attendants and his beloved nephew Francesco all soon flee; only the Spaniard Pedro Rodríguez, Cardinal of Santa Sabina, remains at his side to the end.

The King and the Colonnas demand that the pope resign, to which Boniface responds that he would "sooner die".

The palace is plundered and Boniface is nearly killed (Nogaret prevents his troops from murdering the pope).

Still, the aged pope is subjected to harassment and held prisoner for three days during which no one brings him food or drink.

Eventually, the townsfolk expel the marauders and Boniface pardons those who had been captured.

He returns to Rome on September 13.