f jealousy and envy, the recent greatness of his ecclesiastical
ally. The execution of his own and his father's promises was
respectfully eluded: the king of the Franks and Lombards asserted the
inalienable rights of the empire; and, in his life and death, Ravenna,
as well as Rome, was numbered in the list of his metropolitan cities.
The sovereignty of the Exarchate melted away in the hands of the popes;
they found in the archbishops of Ravenna a dangerous and domestic
rival: the nobles and people disdained the yoke of a priest; and in the
disorders of the times, they could only retain the memory of an ancient
claim, which, in a more prosperous age, they have revived and realized.

Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning; and the strong, though
ignorant, Barbarian was often entangled in the net of sacerdotal
policy. The Vatican and Lateran were an arsenal and manufacture,
which, according to the occasion, have produced or concealed a various
collection of false or genuine, of corrupt or suspicious, acts, as they
tended to promote the interest of the Roman church. Before the end
of the eighth century, some apostolic scribe, perhaps the notorious
Isidore, composed the decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the
two magic pillars of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes.
This memorable donation was introduced to the world by an epistle of
Adrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the liberality, and
revive the name, of the great Constantine. According to the legend, the
first of the Christian emperors was healed of the leprosy, and purified
in the waters of baptism, by St. Silvester, the Roman bishop; and never
was physician more gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte withdrew
from the seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his resolution of
founding a new capital in the East; and resigned to the popes the free
and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the West.
This fiction was productive of the most beneficial effects. The Greek
princes were convicted of the guilt of usurpation; and the revolt
of Gregory was the claim of his lawful inheritance. The popes were
delivered from their debt of gratitude; and the nominal gifts of the
Carlovingians were no more than the just and irrevocable restitution of
a scanty portion of the ecclesiastical state. The sovereignty of Rome no
longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; and the successors of
St. Peter and Constant