His long Pontificate came to an end on December 25th (or 26th) in the year 795, and it is an indication of the new position of the Papacy that his successor at once sent to Charlemagne the keys of Rome and of the tomb of St. Peter. We have the assurance of Eginhard that the Frank monarch wept as one weeps who has lost a dear son or brother, and he afterwards sent to Rome a most honouring epitaph of Hadrian, cut in gold letters on black marble. The character of Charlemagne and his inmost attitude toward the new Papacy he had created do not seem to me to be sufficiently elucidated by any of his biographers, but with that we are not concerned. He had deep regard for Hadrian, in spite of the Pope's failings. The new royal state was too heavy a burden for Hadrian I. to bear with dignity. One cannot doubt the sincerity of his religion, his humanity, and his impersonal devotion to what he conceived to be his duty. But it is equally plain that in the first Pope-King the cares of earthly dominion enfeebled the sense of spiritual duty and at times warped his character. It needed a great man to pass without scathe through such a transformation. Hadrian I. was not a great man. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 113: So the successor of Honorius, Leo II., wrote to the Emperor. _Ep._, iii.] [Footnote 114: Stephen I., who was chosen at the death of Zachary, died before consecration, and some historians decline to insert him in the series.] [Footnote 115: Pippin repeated his oath at Quiercey, and the bargain is sometimes described as the "Quiercey Donation." The "Fantuzzian Fragment," an ancient document which professes to give the precise extent of the donation, is full of errors and anachronisms, and is not now trusted by any serious historian.] [Footnote 116: _Ep._, v.] [Footnote 117: This is sometimes called the "Donation of Aistulph," but is really the completed Donation of Pippin. On this point the _Liber Pontificalis_ is confirmed by the _Annals_ of Eginhard, in which we read that Pippin gave the Roman See "Ravenna and the Pentapolis and the whole exarchate belonging to Ravenna" (year 756), and by the later letters of Hadrian I.] [Footnote 118: Writers who say merely that Stephen was "suspected of complicity" must have overlooked the testimony of Hadrian himself in the _Liber Pontificalis_. He tells the Lombard envoys that Stephen assured him that, on Didier promising to return the cities, the Pope "caused the eyes of Christopher and Sergius to be put out." Stephen's character is further illustrated by his letter to the sons of Pippin (_Ep._, iv.), when it was proposed that one of them should marry Didier's daughter Hermingard. They were both married, but the Pope says very little about the sin of divorce; it is the infamy of alliance with the Lombards which he chiefly denounces. In point of fact, Charlemagne divorced his wife and married Hermingard, and not a word further was heard from Rome about this or any other of his peculiar domestic arrangements.]