t. Ambrose, remain to us
of the ancient city. Warned by her destruction, Verona, Vicenza, Padua,
Treviso, and Venice, joined in the vow--called of the Lombard League--to
reduce the Emperor's power within its just limits. And, in 1164,
Alexander, under the protection of Louis VII. of France and Henry II. of
England, returned to Rome, and was received at Ostia by its senate,
clergy, and people.

Three years afterwards, Frederic again swept down on the Campagna;
attacked the Leonine city, where the basilica of the Vatican, changed
into a fortress, and held by the Pope's guard, resisted his assault
until, by the Emperor's order, fire was set to the Church of St. Mary of
Pity.

The Leonine city was taken; the Pope retired to the Coliseum, whence,
uttering once again his fixed defiance of the Emperor, but fearing
treachery, he fled in disguise down the Tiber to the sea, and sought
asylum at Benevento.

The German army encamped round Rome in August of 1166, with the sign
before their eyes of the ruins of the church of Our Lady of Pity. The
marsh-fever struck them--killed the Emperor's cousin, Frederic of
Rothenburg, the Duke of Bavaria, the Archbishop of Cologne, the Bishops
of Liege, Spire, Ratisbonne, and Verden, and two thousand knights; the
common dead were uncounted. The Emperor gathered the wreck of his army
together, retreated on Lombardy, quartered his soldiery at Pavia, and
escaped in secret over the Mont Cenis with thirty knights.

88. No places of strength remained to him south of the Alps but Pavia
and Montferrat; and to hold these in check, and command the plains of
Piedmont, the Lombard League built the fortress city, which, from the
Pope who had maintained through all adversity the authority of his
throne and the cause of the Italian people, they named "Alessandria."

Against this bulwark the Emperor, still indomitable, dashed with his
utmost regathered strength after eight years of pause, and in the temper
in which men set their souls on a single stake. All had been lost in
his last war, except his honor--in this, he lost his honor also.
Whatever may be the just estimate of the other elements of his
character, he is unquestionably, among the knights of his time, notable
in impiety. In the battle of Cassano, he broke through the Milanese
vanguard to their _caroccio_, and struck down with his own hand its
golden crucifix;--two years afterwards its cross and standard were bowed
before him--and in vain.[91] H