owever, was begun by the
Benedictine Congregation of St. Maur, their work, like many another
magnificent undertaking of the monks, was interrupted by the French
Revolution. What they had accomplished up to this time showed the
necessity for such work, and accordingly in the early part of the
nineteenth century a continuation of it was undertaken by the members
of the Institute of France. The Sixteenth Volume from which the
quotation just cited comes was mainly written by Pierre Claude
Francois Daunou, the French historian and politician. His life had not
been such as to make him a sympathetic student of the Middle Ages. He
had been a deputy to the Convention, 1792-1795, was elected the first
President of the Council of 500 in this latter year, and became a
member of the Tribunate in 1800. His contributions to history were
made near the close of his life. While he is usually considered an
authority in the political details of these centuries, it is easy to
understand that he was not favorably situated for familiarity with the
medical history of these times.

Once it is understood that the paragraph in question was written by M.
Daunou and not by the Benedictines, its adventitious prestige as a
Catholic historical {55} authority, to which we shall see presently it
has absolutely no right, vanishes. A word about M. Daunou will serve
to show how carefully any declaration of his with regard to the Popes
must be weighed. He belonged to that French school of Catholics who
try to minimize in every way the influence of the Papacy in the
Church, and who, as students of history know very well, do not
hesitate even to twist historical events to suit their prejudices and
give them a significance detrimental to the Popes. This was the
principal purpose of Daunou's historical writing. There is a little
volume called Outlines of a History of the Court of Rome and of the
Temporal Power of the Popes, declared by the translator to be by
Daunou, which was published in Philadelphia in 1837. The American
edition was issued as a Protestant tract, and the translator states
frankly that M. Daunou's purpose in composing it was to prove that
"the temporal power of the Roman Pontiffs originated in fraud and
usurpation; that its influence upon their pastoral ministry has been
to mar and degrade it, and its continuation is dangerous to the peace
and the liberties of Europe; and that its constant influence to these
effects is to retard the advanceme