ent; and some pains were employed to disguise the manifest guilt
of Arbogastes, and to persuade the world, that the death of the young
emperor had been the voluntary effect of his own despair. [106] His
body was conducted with decent pomp to the sepulchre of Milan; and the
archbishop pronounced a funeral oration to commemorate his virtues and
his misfortunes. [107] On this occasion the humanity of Ambrose tempted
him to make a singular breach in his theological system; and to comfort
the weeping sisters of Valentinian, by the firm assurance, that their
pious brother, though he had not received the sacrament of baptism,
was introduced, without difficulty, into the mansions of eternal bliss.
[108]

[Footnote 102: Sozomen, l. vii. c. 14. His chronology is very
irregular.]

[Footnote 103: See Ambrose, (tom. ii. de Obit. Valentinian. c. 15,
&c. p. 1178. c. 36, &c. p. 1184.) When the young emperor gave an
entertainment, he fasted himself; he refused to see a handsome actress,
&c. Since he ordered his wild beasts to to be killed, it is ungenerous
in Philostor (l. xi. c. 1) to reproach him with the love of that
amusement.]

[Footnote 104: Zosimus (l. iv. p. 275) praises the enemy of Theodosius.
But he is detested by Socrates (l. v. c. 25) and Orosius, (l. vii. c.
35.)]

[Footnote 105: Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 9, p. 165, in the second
volume of the Historians of France) has preserved a curious fragment of
Sulpicius Alexander, an historian far more valuable than himself.]

[Footnote 106: Godefroy (Dissertat. ad. Philostorg. p. 429-434) has
diligently collected all the circumstances of the death of Valentinian
II. The variations, and the ignorance, of contemporary writers, prove
that it was secret.]

[Footnote 107: De Obitu Valentinian. tom. ii. p. 1173-1196. He is forced
to speak a discreet and obscure language: yet he is much bolder than any
layman, or perhaps any other ecclesiastic, would have dared to be.]

[Footnote 108: See c. 51, p. 1188, c. 75, p. 1193. Dom Chardon,
(Hist. des Sacramens, tom. i. p. 86,) who owns that St. Ambrose most
strenuously maintains the indispensable necessity of baptism, labors to
reconcile the contradiction.]

The prudence of Arbogastes had prepared the success of his ambitious
designs: and the provincials, in whose breast every sentiment of
patriotism or loyalty was extinguished, expected, with tame resignation,
the unknown master, whom the choice of a Frank might place on the
Imperi