the assembling of the synod that the next step was taken. On the 23d of December, in the presence of the Roman clergy, as well as of the Frankish followers of the king, Pope Leo appeared in the _ambo_[62] of St. Peter’s, bearing a copy of the four gospels, which lie clasped to his breast, and then he swore with a loud and clear voice: “Of all those charges which the Romans, my unjust persecutors, have brought against me, I declare in the presence of God and St. Peter, in whose church I stand, that I am innocent, since I have neither done those things whereof I am accused nor procured the doing of them.” The result of the whole investigation was that Paschalis and Campulus and their accomplices were found guilty of high treason and condemned to death, a sentence which, on the intercession of the pope, was commuted to perpetual banishment into Frank-land. During the weeks that the papal trial was proceeding Charles, of course, abode in Rome, whether in one of the old imperial dwellings on the Palatine, or as an honored guest of the pope at the Lateran, we are not informed. It was observed that now, as on the occasion of a previous visit to Rome, out of courtesy to the pope he laid aside his Frankish dress--a tunic with silver border, a vest of otter-skins and sable, and a blue cloak--and wore instead, after the Roman fashion, a long tunic and a _chlamys_[63] over it, shoes also made like those of the Romans, instead of his Frankish boots with stockings and garters. It was precisely during this month of December that by a fortunate coincidence, the priest Zacharias, whom more than a year before Charles had sent on a mission to the holy places, returned from the East. Two monks came with him, from Olivet and St. Saba, sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and bringing by way of blessing from that ecclesiastic the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and of Calvary, of Jerusalem and Mount Zion, together with a consecrated banner. A more striking testimony to the world-wide fame of the Frankish conqueror could hardly have been rendered than this, which must have been meant to invest Charles with a kind of protectorate over the most sacred sites in Christendom.