masters of
the whole of Italy. A united Italy suited their views then, no more than
it does now. Not only did they conceive of Rome as still the centre of
the western world, but more, their stock in trade was at Rome. The
chains of St. Peter, the sepulchres of St. Peter and St. Paul, the
catacombs filled with the bones of innumerable martyrs;--these were their
stock in trade. By giving these, selling these, working miracles with
these, calling pilgrims from all parts of Christendom to visit these in
situ, they kept up their power and their wealth. I do not accuse them of
misusing that power and that wealth in those days. They used them, on
the contrary, better than power and wealth had been ever used in the
world before. But they were dependent on the sanctity attached to a
particular spot; and any power, which, like the Lombard, tended to give
Italy another centre than Rome, they dreaded and disliked. That Lombard
basilica, near Milan, with all its treasures, must have been in their
eyes, a formidable rival. Still more frightful must it have been to them
to see Astulf, when he encamped before the walls of Rome, searching for
martyrs' relics, and carrying them off to Milan. That, as a fact, seems
to have been the exciting cause of Stephen's journey to Pepin. This
Astulf was a good Catholic. He founded a nunnery, and put his own
daughters in it. What could a man do more meritorious in the eyes of the
Pope? But he took away the lands of the Church, and worse, the relics,
the reserved capital by which the Church purchased lands. This was
indeed a crime only to be expiated by the horrors of a Frank invasion.

On the same principle the Popes supported the Exarchs of Ravenna, and the
independent duchies of Spoleto and Beneventum. Well or ill ruled,
Iconoclast or not, they were necessary to keep Italy divided and weak.
And having obtained what they wanted from Pepin and Charlemagne, it was
still their interest to pursue the same policy; to compound for their own
independence, as they did with Charlemagne and his successors, by
defending the pretences of foreign kings to the sovereignty of the rest
of Italy. This has been their policy for centuries. It is their policy
still; and that policy has been the curse of Italy. This fatal gift of
the patrimony of St. Peter--as Dante saw--as Machiavelli saw,--as all
clear-sighted Italians have seen,--as we are seeing it now in these very
days--has kept her divided, tor