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
conqueror, at the head of a French army, which was led by the king in
person. The Lombards, after a weak resistance, obtained an ignominious
peace, and swore to restore the possessions, and to respect the
sanctity, of the Roman church. But no sooner was Astolphus delivered
from the presence of the French arms, than he forgot his promise and
resented his disgrace. Rome was again encompassed by his arms; and
Stephen, apprehensive of fatiguing the zeal of his Transalpine allies
enforced his complaint and request by an eloquent letter in the name and
person of St. Peter himself. The apostle assures his adopted sons, the
king, the clergy, and the nobles of France, that, dead in the flesh,
he is still alive in the spirit; that they now hear, and must