charge, no doubt invented by Arnold, as it bears all the marks of private malice, to bring against Dagobert. He had, it was said, purloined and concealed a piece of the wood of the Cross, in addition to his other offences; the king himself must have known well enough that in the eyes of the Church this offence would be far more serious than any of the others. To procure the death of a man would be venial indeed compared with the abstraction of a relic. Dagobert had very little, it would appear, to say, and an adjournment was granted, to give him time to call witnesses in his own defence. Footnote 56: His name is also written Arnoulf and Arnoul. Came, meantime, the season of Easter, and that day, Good Friday, when the Holy Oil was wont to be consecrated for the use of the sick. In place of the patriarch, whom the king assumed to be deposed, but who was really only suspended, the cardinal undertook this duty, and was already on the Mount of Olives, the place assigned to this ceremony, when the patriarch, humiliated beyond all expression by this public degradation from his functions, went to the king and implored him, with tears in his eyes, to reinstate him for that day only. Baldwin refused. Dagobert urged him again not to inflict this punishment upon him in the face of so many pilgrims. But the king remained obdurate. Then the patriarch changed his line. Instead of entreating, he bribed. He offered Baldwin three hundred byzantines. The royal treasury was empty, the knights were clamouring for their pay, and the patriarch obtained his request. After this some sort of peace was made up between the pope’s legate, Cardinal Maurice, and the patriarch; a peace founded, it would seem, on mutual interest, for we are told that they became so friendly that they were accustomed to spend the day and night together in retired places, secretly feasting, and drinking the wine of Gaza, no doubt in happy ignorance that the eye of Arnold—that first-born of Satan—was upon them, and that he was biding his time.