"The Roman emperors were pagans." "Be it so; I am and will be entirely a Roman emperor!" "A pagan head on a Christian body!" "No!" answered Barbarossa; "but go to Byzantium; examine the _Pandects_ of Justinian; you will see there that an alliance may exist between a pagan on the throne and Christianity." "You support yourself on Justinian? but what was Justinian's code? Was it not the destruction of all liberty, the abrogation of every right of humanity? Great God!" added the illustrious prelate, standing sorrowfully before the Emperor, "what error! what peril! But the Pope has not yet worn the yoke of slavery; the nations of the Christian world will not permit it." "Very well! But if, in case of disunion, the people leaned towards the spiritual, it would be easy to lessen the Emperor's person, and overthrow the tyrant." "One moment, Sire; you give an incorrect interpretation to our meaning. The father of the faithful ought to oppose all those who wish to exercise tyranny and oppression. The Gospel delivered mankind from the slavery imposed upon it by paganism. Believe me," added the old man, in a prophetic tone, "the day that the Popes shall cease to protect liberty, anarchy and revolution will convulse the world." Barbarossa shook his head with an incredulous and discontented air. "The Emperor of the East has no Pope," he replied, "and yet he reigns peacefully." "You are again in error, Sire! Mark attentively what is going on in Byzantium. What do you see there? An exhausted and dying kingdom, a weak and corrupt clergy, a host of ecclesiastics knowing no law but the Imperial will; an effeminate people without morals, and puffed up with vanity and servile ideas. Is this the state to which you would reduce your brilliant Empire?" "You exaggerate; matters are scarcely in so bad a state as that." "Ah, Sire! they are in an infinitely worse condition. Great God! I see it now; Salisbury was right!--I deplore it, but he was right." "Salisbury!" said Barbarossa, starting, for he had a great respect for this illustrious scholar. "May I ask in what he was right?" Peter sighed deeply. "Why do you hesitate, my lord Archbishop? You know the opinion which a wise man entertains of our actions; why then do you seek to conceal it from us?" "Salisbury occasionally writes to me, Sire," said Peter, with an embarrassed manner. "Well, what has he written about us?" "I received his letter a few days since," replied the prelate, drawing a parchment from his bosom; "it contains a dissertation upon the present condition of the Church, and particularly upon your designs. But it tells me no more than your Majesty himself has just stated, still I was unwilling to believe it." "Speak!" "You will it so; make up your mind then to listen to some bitter truths.--