of the earth and the stability of the sun, in accordance with the general opinion of modern astronomers is permitted at Rome.”[613] This decree was ratified by Pius VII. on 25th September. But full thirteen years more went by until, in 1835, when the new edition of the catalogue of prohibited books appeared, the five works in which the theory of the double motion was maintained and defended were expunged from the list. It was not until 1835, therefore, that the last trace was effaced of the memorable warfare so long and resolutely waged by ecclesiastical power against the superior insight of science. If it is denied to history to surround the head of Galileo, the greatest advocate of the new system, with the halo of the martyr, ready to die for his cause, posterity will ever regard with admiration and gratitude the figure of the man, who, though he did not heroically defend the truth, was, by virtue of his genius, one of her first pioneers, and had to bear for her sake an accumulation of untold suffering. APPENDIX. I. _HISTORY OF THE VATICAN MANUSCRIPT._[614] We know next to nothing of the history of the Vatican MS. up to the time when Napoleon I. took possession of the papal city. During this period, when proud Rome had sunk so low as to be a department of France, in 1811, by the mandate of the then ruler of the world, the treasures of the Vatican archives were removed from Rome to Paris. Among them was the volume containing the Acts of Galileo’s trial. It is not known how Napoleon’s special attention came to be directed to them; but it is certain that he requested Alexander Barbier, then State Librarian, to furnish him with a detailed report about them.[615] Barbier handed it to the Minister of Worship and Instruction. He also proposed that the whole of the documents should be printed, in the interests of historical truth, in the original Latin and Italian, with a French translation. The proposal was approved by the Emperor, and the volume was handed over to Barbier that he might have the translation made. When the convulsions of 1814 had swept Napoleon out of Paris, and transported him to Elba, and the Bourbons again ruled France, the Roman curia repeatedly took steps to regain possession of the volume. After the return of Pius VII. to Rome in 1814, after his compulsory residence at Fontainebleau, Mgr. Marini was staying at Paris as Papal Commissary, in order to demand from the new French Government the restitution of the archival treasures taken by Napoleon from the Holy See. He first applied for the Acts of Galileo’s trial to the Minister of the Interior, who referred him to the Count de Blacas, Minister of the Royal Household.[616] He assured Marini that he would have a search instituted in the royal library.[617] He wrote on the same day to Barbier charging him to search for the documents, and to report to him on their historical value.[618] Barbier’s answer is too characteristic not to be given.