f his body and the salvation of his soul . . . that if he
attempted to destroy the images in Rome, the pontiff would take refuge
with the Lombards, and then he might as well chase the wind that the
Popes were the mediators of peace between East and West, and that the
eyes of the nations were fixed on the Pope's humility, and adored as a
God on earth the apostle St. Peter. And that the pious Barbarians,
kindled into rage, thirsted to avenge the persecution of the East.' Then
Luitprand took up the cause of the Pope and his images, and of the mob,
who were furious at the loss of their idols; and marched on Ravenna,
which opened her gates to him, so that he became master of the whole
Pentapolis; and image-worship, to which some plainspoken people give a
harsher name, was saved for ever and a day in Italy. Why did Gregory II.
in return, call in Orso, the first Venetian Doge, to expel from Ravenna
the very Luitprand who had fought his battles for him, and to restore
that Exarchate of Ravenna, of which it was confessed, that its civil
quarrels, misrule, and extortions, made it the most miserable government
in Italy? And why did he enter into secret negotiations with the Franks
to come and invade Italy?

Again, when Luitprand wanted to reduce the duchies of Beneventum and
Spoleto, which he considered as rebels against him, their feudal
suzerain; why did the next Pope, Gregory III., again send over the Alps
to Charles Martel to come and invade Italy, and deliver the Church and
Christ's people from ruin?

And who were these Franks, the ancestors of that magnificent, but
profligate aristocracy whose destruction our grandfathers beheld in 1793?
I have purposely abstained from describing them, till they appear upon
the stage of Italy, and take part in her fortunes--which were then the
fortunes of the world.

They appear first on the Roman frontier in A.D. 241, and from that time
are never at rest till they have conquered the north of Gaul. They are
supposed (with reason) not to have been a race or tribe at all; but a
confederation of warriors, who were simply 'Franken,' 'free;' 'free
companions,' or 'free lances,' as they would have been called a few
centuries later; who recruited themselves from any and every tribe who
would join them in war and plunder. If this was the case; if they had
thrown away, as adventurers, much of the old Teutonic respect for law,
for the royal races, for family life, for the sacred bonds of kindr