T HE Work of which the following is a translation, had its origin in the transactions which took place between Pius VII. and the French Emperor, relative and subsequent to the restoration of the Roman Catholic religion in France. Its object appears to have been, to exhibit to the world the unreasonable pretensions of the Roman Court, and to appeal to public opinion for support in resisting claims deemed incompatible with the independence of the civil power, and derogatory to the honour of the Fr

W E have introduced into this Third Edition some developments which were not in the two former. We have inserted many justificatory pieces, some of which have never before been published. These pieces, and the reflections induced by them, occupy the second volume, which is divided into three parts, containing: 1. Exposition of the Maxims of the Court of Rome, since the fabrication of the False Decretals, and especially from the time of Gregory VII. to the present day: Exposition of the Maxims of

W HOEVER has read the Gospel, knows that Jesus Christ founded no temporal power, no political sovereignty. He declares that his kingdom is not of this world; 1 he charges his apostles not to confound the mission he gives them, with the power exercised by the princes of the earth. 2 St. Peter and his colleagues are sent not to govern but to instruct 3 and the authority with which they are clothed, consists only in the knowledge and the benefits they are to bestow. Faithful to confining themselves

C HARLEMAGNE had condemned gifts made to the church, to the prejudice of the children or near relatives of the donor. In 816, a capitulary of Louis I. declared all donations of this kind void. But, far from continuing to limit by such restraints the sacerdotal ambition, Louis was destined to become one of the first victims, and, by the same circumstance, one of the first founders of the clerical power. Pascal succeeding Stephen IV. in 817, did not wait for the consent of the prince to instal him

P ROTESTANTS take a malicious pleasure in pourtraying the court of Rome in the tenth century, and in extracting from Liutprand a contemporary author, the unedifying details with which he has filled up the ecclesiastical and political history of this period. But without examining whether the relations of this writer are as faithful as they are satirical, we may say with Fleury 108 that Rome under these unworthy popes ceased not to be the centre of Christendom. We may add with other theologians, t

A SHORT time after the death of Sylvester II. a patrician, consuls, twelve senators, a prefect, and popular assemblies, were seen to re-appear at Rome. A second Crescentius, the son perhaps of the first, filled the prefectorial office. As to the patrician, who was named John, and who was the principal author of the reestablishment of this civil magistracy, he is expressly designated to us as son of the first Crescentius. But in 1013, Henry II. came to Rome: he received from Pope Benedict VIII. t

W ITH the pontifical power, such as Hildebrand would have it, not to gain a great deal was to lose a little. Now under the popes of the twelfth century it was not much extended: they knew not how to reap the fruits of the labours of Gregory VII. Pascal II. however, who reigned near twenty years, from 1099 to 1118, very earnestly aspired to universal monarchy; but his designs, opposed by circumstances, were still more so by the weakness of his character. The antipope Guibert, who died in 1100, ha

I NNOCENT III. in one and the same year, bestowed in the plenitude of his power three royal crowns; to Ioanice, that of Walachia 217 ; to Premislaus, that of Bohemia 218 ; to Peter II., that of Arragon. Peter received his at Rome, and did the pope homage for his states, which became tributary to the Holy See. 219 But Innocent, the dispenser of kingdoms, and who even gave away that of Armenia, distinguished himself still more frequently by his anathemas. Venice, France, England, the emperor, all

T HE residence of the popes within the walls of Avignon, from 1305 till subsequent to the year 1370, and the schism which, in 1378, divided for a long time the church between rival pontiffs, are the two leading circumstances of the ecclesiastical history of the fourteenth century; both have contributed to the decline of the pontifical empire. It is true that in leaving Italy the popes sheltered themselves from some perils: they removed from the theatre of the commotions which their ambitious pol

F OUR great councils were held in the fifteenth century, all previous to the year 1460. The council of Pisa in 1409: it is not reverenced as an oecumenical one; it nevertheless, in deposing. Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. elected Alexander III. to their place. This act did not extinguish the schism; on the contrary it occasioned at once three popes. The council of Constance in 1414: this had greater authority; it caused John Huss and Jerome of Prague to be burned; further, it declared the super

O F all the periods of modern history, the sixteenth is the fullest of tempests, of revolutions, and of important events. It shines with the bright lustre of Italian literature; but, it is tinged with all the blood which fanaticism could shed in the lapse of an hundred years. Each of the eras which divides the duration of this age, is itself a memorable event; the league of Cambray in 1508; the concordat of Leo X. and Francis I. in 1515: the conquest of Egypt by the Turks, new expeditions to the

N O pope since the year 1600 united to an energetic ambition talents worthy of seconding it. Henceforward the Holy See becomes but a power of the second order, which, scarcely capable of bold aggressions, defends itself by intrigue, and no longer attacks but by secret machinations. The reforms which separated from the Romish Church one part of Christendom, serve to deliver the remainder from the pontifical tyranny. Everywhere the civil power became confirmed; disturbances even tended either to o

C HRISTIANITY had for a period of seven hundred years, glorified God, sanctified man, and given consolation to the earth, before any minister of the gospel ever thought of erecting himself into a temporal prince. This ambition sprung up in the eighth century, after the dissolution of the Roman empire, and the ravages of the barbarians, in the bosom of universal ignorance, and of troubles which overturned Europe, but in an especial manner rent and divided Italy. But the popes had scarcely obtaine