most impenetrable mist of lies and
exaggerations. Henry was in truth upon his road to Italy, but with a
very different attendance from that which Gregory expected.
Accompanied by Bertha, his wife, and his boy son Conrad, the Emperor
elect left Spires in the condition of a fugitive, crossed Burgundy,
spent Christmas at Besancon, and journeyed to the foot of Mont Cenis.
It is said that he was followed by a single male servant of mean
birth; and if the tale of his adventures during the passage of the
Alps can be credited, history presents fewer spectacles more
picturesque than the straits to which this representative of the
Caesars, this supreme chief of feudal civility, this ruler destined
still to be the leader of mighty armies and the father of a line of
monarchs, was exposed. Concealing his real name and state, he induced
some shepherds to lead him and his escort through the thick snows to
the summit of Mont Cenis; and by the help of these men the imperial
party were afterwards let down the snow-slopes on the further side by
means of ropes. Bertha and her women were sewn up in hides and dragged
across the frozen surface of the winter drifts. It was a year
memorable for its severity. Heavy snow had fallen in October, which
continued ice-bound and unyielding till the following April.

No sooner had Henry reached Turin, than he set forward again in the
direction of Canossa. The fame of his arrival had preceded him, and
he found that his party was far stronger in Italy than he had ventured
to expect. Proximity to the Church of Rome divests its fulminations of
half their terrors. The Italian bishops and barons, less superstitious
than the Germans, and with greater reason to resent the domineering
graspingness of Gregory, were ready to espouse the Emperor's cause.
Henry gathered a formidable force as he marched onward across
Lombardy; and some of the most illustrious prelates and nobles of the
South were in his suite. A more determined leader than Henry proved
himself to be, might possibly have forced Gregory to some
accommodation, in spite of the strength of Canossa and the Pope's
invincible obstinacy, by proper use of these supporters. Meanwhile the
adherents of the Church were mustered in Matilda's fortress; among
whom may be mentioned Azzo, the progenitor of Este and Brunswick;
Hugh, Abbot of Clugny; and the princely family of Piedmont. 'I am
become a second Rome,' exclaims Canossa, in the language of Matilda's
rhyming