Ado, Archbishop of Vienne, (France,) who was at Rome in 866, has left a chronicle in which he says that Benedict III. succeeded immediately to Leo IV. Prudentius, Bishop of Troyes at the same period, testifies to the same fact. In 855, the assigned Joanide period, there were in Rome four individuals who afterward successively became popes, under the names of Benedict III., Nicholas I., Adrian II., and John VIII. During the pretended papacy of Joan these men were all either priests or deacons, and must have taken part in her election, and have been present at the catastrophe, Now, of all these popes there exist many and various writings, but not a word concerning the popess. On the contrary, they all represent Benedict III. to have succeeded Leo IV. {9} Lupo, Abbot of Ferrières, in a letter to Pope Benedict, says that he, the abbot, had been kindly received at Rome by his predecessor, Leo IV. In a council held at Rome, in 863, under Nicholas I., the pontiff speaks of his predecessors Leo and Benedict. Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, writing to Nicholas I., says that certain messengers sent by him to Leo IV. had been met on their journey by news of that pontiff's death, and had, on their arrival at Rome, found Benedict on the throne. Ten other contemporary writers are cited who all testify to the same immediate succession, and afford not the slightest hint of any story or tradition that can throw the least light on that of the female pope. "The time of Pope Joan," says Gibbon, "is placed somewhat earlier than Theodora or Marozia; and the two years of her imaginary reign are forcibly inserted between Leo IV. and Benedict III. But the contemporary Anastasius indissolubly links the death of Leo and the elevation of Benedict; and the accurate chronology of Pagi, Muratori, and Leibnitz fixes both events to the year 857." But there is no smoke without fire, it is said; and the wildest stories must have some cause, if not foundation. Let us see. Competent critics find the story to be a satire on John VIII. "_Ob nimiam ejus animi facilitatem et mollitudinem_" says Baronius, particularly in the affair with Photius, by whom John had suffered himself to be imposed upon. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, was known to be a half-man, and yet so cunning to overreach John. Therefore they said John Was a woman, and called him Joanna, instead Of Joannes, in that tone of bitter raillery constantly indulged in by the Roman Pasquins and Marforios, and this raillery, naturally enough, in course of time came to be taken for truth. And again: Pope John X., elected in 914, was said to have been raised by the power and influence of Theodora, a woman of talent and unscrupulous intrigue. In 931, John, the son of Marozia and Duke Alberic, and grandson of Theodora, was said to be a mere puppet in the hands of his mother. "Their reign," (Theodora and Marozia,) says Gibbon, "may have suggested to the darker ages the fable of a female pope."