In the first place, only a month or two after he had performed the long-delayed surrender of the exarchate, Aistulf died. His death was due to an accident in the hunting-field, but as he had been so often at war with the Church, of course the papal biographer sees in it “a blow from the Divine hand.” Desiderius, Duke of Tuscany, now aimed at the Lombard crown; but Ratchis, the long since dethroned king emerged from his convent and succeeded in reigning once more for three months as King of the Lombards. Desiderius, however, sought the intervention of the pope--probably the return of the monk Ratchis to secular life was disapproved of on religious grounds--and by the promise of adding yet more cities to the new papal dominions succeeded in procuring his powerful interference on his behalf. Abbot Fulrad, too, that able _chargé d’affaires_ of the Frankish king, exerted himself on the same side, probably threatening his master’s intervention. The result of the negotiations was that the matter was settled, apparently without bloodshed. Ratchis stepped back into his convent, Desiderius surrendered the cities for which the pope had bargained, and became King--as it proved the last native king--of the Lombards (March, 757). In the following month Pope Stephen II. died, and was succeeded by his brother Paul I. The ten years of this prelate’s pontificate seem to have been a time of comparative peace between pope and Lombard king. Then came a stormy interregnum, the invasion of the papal see by an intrusive Tuscan nobleman, his expulsion after thirteen months, and the elevation to the papal chair of the Sicilian, Stephen III. We need not here enter into the history of these obscure revolutions in which two parties, a Lombard and a Frankish, are dimly seen struggling for the mastery. We note only that Stephen III.’s elevation (7th August, 768) happened but a few months before the death of Pippin. About two years after, we find him addressing an extraordinary letter full of passionate animosity against the Lombards, to the two young Frankish kings. He has heard that Desiderius King of the Lombards is seeking to persuade one or other of the royal brothers to dismiss his lawfully wedded wife and marry a Lombard princess, his daughter. Perish the thought! To say nothing of the impiety of putting away a wedded wife to marry another woman, what folly, what madness it would be in the kings of so noble and illustrious a nation as the Franks to pollute themselves by marrying a woman of the stinking Lombard race, which is not counted in the number of the nations, and from which it is certain that the brood of lepers has sprung! “Remember and consider that ye have been anointed with holy oil with celestial benediction by the hands of the vicar of St. Peter, and take care that you do not become entangled in such crimes. Remember, too, that you have promised the blessed Peter, his vicar [Pope Stephen II.] and his successors that you