The competition between aspiring candidates for the opulent bishopric of Rome had often been productive of turmoil and bloodshed. The favorite and intended successor of Adrian I. having been disappointed by the unexpected election of Leo III., his exasperated adherents attacked the sacred procession on the occasion, assaulted the chosen vicar of Christ, and, as it is alleged, cut out his tongue, dug out his eyes, and left him dead on the ground. But a miracle, it is averred, interposed in his behalf; restored his life, eyes and tongue; and enabled him to escape a repetition of the outrage by gaining the invisible precincts of the Vatican. After having received this assistance from heaven he invoked the temporal aid of the Duke of Spoleto, and of the friendly interposition of Charlemagne in his favor. By the influence of these secular princes he was enabled to ascend the sacerdotal throne, and to exercise his spiritual authority in banishing his competitors and their adherents. On a visit of Charlemagne to Rome, after these events, the pope abruptly crowned him with a diadem, invested him with the regalia of the Cæsars, anointed him with the holy oil which the dove had conveyed from Paradise, and pronounced him the pious Cæsar crowned by God. The emperor who, professing to have been astonished at the pope's singular conduct, nevertheless took an oath to preserve the faith and privileges of the church. Agreeably to this oath he entrusted the clergy with temporal and civil jurisdiction, expended more cost and labor in the construction of cathedrals than on useful undertakings, and as the demons of the air had admonished the payment of tithes he enforced their exaction with extreme rigor. The favor and liberal indulgence of the pope enabled the emperor, consistently with his Catholicism to enjoy the possession of nine wives, to divert his capricious fancy with numberless mistresses, to prolong the celibacy of his daughters that it might extend the period of an illicit commerce, and to become the father of numerous illegitimate children, whom, however, in atonement for his indiscretions, he consecrated to the priesthood.