mankind a better faith and a better rule of life;
he has laid down the infidel maxim that 'God expects not a man to
believe anything that cannot be demonstrated by reason.'" The opinion of
Christendom rose against Frederick; its sentiment of piety was shocked.
The pontiff proceeded to depose him, and offered his crown to Robert of
France. [Sidenote: Frederick uses his Saracen troops.] But the Mussulman
troops of the emperor were too much for the begging friars of the pope.
His Saracens were marching across Italy in all directions. The pontiff
himself would have inevitably fallen into the hands of his mortal enemy
had he not found a deliverance in death, A.D. 1241. Frederick had
declared that he would not respect his sacred person, but, if
victorious, would teach him the absolute supremacy of the temporal
power. It was plain that he had no intention of respecting a religion
which he had not hesitated to denounce as "a mere absurdity."

Whatever may have been the intention of Innocent IV.--who, after the
short pontificate of Celestine IV. and an interval, succeeded--he was
borne into the same policy by the irresistible force of circumstances.
The deadly quarrel with the emperor was renewed. To escape his wrath,
Innocent fled to France, and there in safety called the Council of
Lyons. In a sermon, he renewed all the old accusations--the heresy and
sacrilege--the peopling of Italian cities with Saracens, for the purpose
of overturning the Vicar of Christ with those infidels--the friendship
with the Sultan of Egypt--the African courtesans--the perjuries and
blasphemies. [Sidenote: Excommunication of Frederick.] Then was
proclaimed the sentence of excommunication and deposition. The pope and
the bishops inverted the torches they held in their hands until they
went out, uttering the malediction, "So may he be extinguished." Again
the emperor appealed to Europe, but this time in vain. Europe would not
forgive him his blasphemy. Misfortunes crowded upon him; his friends
forsook him; his favourite son, Enzio, was taken prisoner; and he never
smiled again after detecting his intimate, Pietro de Vinea, whom he had
raised from beggary, in promising the monks that he would poison him.
The day had been carried by a resort to all means justifiable and
unjustifiable, good and evil. For thirty years Frederick had combated
the Church and the Guelph party, but he sunk in the conflict at last.
When Innocent heard of the death of his foe, he