ascertain the date or
circumstances]

[Footnote 50: The option will depend on the various readings of the Mss.
of Anastasius--deceperat, or decerpserat, (Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars
i. p. 167.)]

[Footnote 51: The Codex Carolinus is a collection of the epistles of
the popes to Charles Martel, (whom they style Subregulus,) Pepin, and
Charlemagne, as far as the year 791, when it was formed by the last of
these princes. His original and authentic Ms. (Bibliothecae Cubicularis)
is now in the Imperial library of Vienna, and has been published by
Lambecius and Muratori, (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 75,
&c.)]

In his distress, the first [511] Gregory had implored the aid of the
hero of the age, of Charles Martel, who governed the French monarchy
with the humble title of mayor or duke; and who, by his signal victory
over the Saracens, had saved his country, and perhaps Europe, from the
Mahometan yoke. The ambassadors of the pope were received by Charles
with decent reverence; but the greatness of his occupations, and the
shortness of his life, prevented his interference in the affairs of
Italy, except by a friendly and ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin,
the heir of his power and virtues, assumed the office of champion of
the Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince appears to have been
prompted by the love of glory and religion. But the danger was on the
banks of the Tyber, the succor on those of the Seine, and our sympathy
is cold to the relation of distant misery. Amidst the tears of the city,
Stephen the Third embraced the generous resolution of visiting in person
the courts of Lombardy and France, to deprecate the injustice of his
enemy, or to excite the pity and indignation of his friend. After
soothing the public despair by litanies and orations, he undertook this
laborious journey with the ambassadors of the French monarch and the
Greek emperor. The king of the Lombards was inexorable; but his threats
could not silence the complaints, nor retard the speed of the Roman
pontiff, who traversed the Pennine Alps, reposed in the abbey of St.
Maurice, and hastened to grasp the right hand of his protector; a hand
which was never lifted in vain, either in war or friendship. Stephen
was entertained as the visible successor of the apostle; at the next
assembly, the field of March or of May, his injuries were exposed to a
devout and warlike nation, and he repassed the Alps, not as a suppliant,
but as a