iniquity which Robert declared to the pope that he would rather die than commit. But the obdurate and savage-hearted holy father, whom the view of no misfortune could move, in order to reduce the king to obedience proceeded to pronounce a sentence of excommunication against him. This act was designed to call into requisition all the appliances of the pope's machinery in blasting the happiness of two persons, whose worth was unequaled in the kingdom, and perhaps unsurpassed in the records of history. Accordingly the churches were draped in mourning; the pictures of the images of the saints shrouded in black; the bells were tolled night and day; religious worship was suspended in the kingdom; and no funeral ceremony allowed to be performed. The immaculate Bertha was declared polluted; stories were circulated that she had given birth to a monster, which had the head of a savage and the tail of a serpent; the poor, on whom she had been accustomed to bestow charity, now fled at her approach; her domestics broke the costly vases which adorned the palace, and taking the viands from the royal table dashed them into the fire. Consternation seized the populace; and priests, courtiers and people fled alike from the sight of the amiable couple, as if they were destructive monsters. At length, through the repeated requests of Bertha, Robert agreed to a separation, and allowed her to retire to a convent. This act, by which he placed his wife at the mercy of licentious priests, conciliated the vengeance of the sacerdotal monster.