"You are right," replied Gherardo; "no power can subdue the Church. The papacy is eternal,--as immovable as the rock on which it is built, and which, God has promised, shall endure forever. But, alas! dear Guido, what fearful disasters must result from the strife which is now preparing!" "It would be easy to prove," said Galdini Sala, "that the Church has never had an enemy so dangerous to her peace as this same Barbarossa. From the times of Nero until the conversion of Constantine, the bloody tyrants strove only to tear away her members. Frederic does not tear away; he stifles! his deadly work is the more dangerous, that it is wrought in silence. The Pagans would have overthrown Christianity, in order to prevent their own conversion; but this despot seeks to destroy the order of things which has existed for centuries. The Roman Emperors sought to protect and save their own paganism. Frederic would subvert the Christian world, in order to build up, upon its ruins, his own Imperial omnipotence." "I am not well versed in history," said Count Biandrate, a secret partisan of Barbarossa; "but I know of other emperors who were decidedly hostile to the Papacy: Henry IV. for example." "True," replied Sala; "but the Church has saved the world from destruction. The military operations of Henry IV. against her were terrible; his hatred for the Papacy, beyond all bounds; but Barbarossa is still more to be feared. In him you see none of that cruelty which marked Henry's conduct; on the contrary, he appears frank, and generous, and brave, and he well knows how to surround himself with all that can flatter the eyes. So far, he has not attacked the Pope, sword in hand; but he holds his nets ready to throw over Spain and England, Germany and France, in order to ensnare all Christendom in his baneful schism. It is to this end that he never ceases to proclaim his regret for the sorrows of the Holy Church, and his great desire for the acknowledgment of the legitimate Pope, and the downfall of heresy. All hypocrisy, diabolical equivocation!" cried Sala, angrily; "it is he himself who has caused the schism; it is he who has wounded the unity of the Church, in order the more easily to destroy her. He seeks to control everything,--to become the master of the Universe,--and will brook neither a superior nor an equal!" "Your words, my lord Archdeacon, are harrowing, but they are not exaggerated," said Nigri. "And it is the more to be regretted that many refuse to see their peril. Genoa, through jealousy of Milan, is wilfully blind and will not reflect that the time may come, when she too will feel the yoke. Barbarossa is skilful in taking advantage of these dissensions between us Lombards. His policy is to destroy, one by one, our cities; so that Italy may count none but insignificant villages, submissive to his Imperial supremacy."