Among the malicious stories which were put into circulation, it had been said, that the Grand Duke had withdrawn his favour, which emboldened many, who would not otherwise have ventured on such open opposition, to declare against Galileo. His appearance at Rome, where he was lodged in the palace of Cosmo's ambassador, and whence he kept up a close correspondence with the Grand Duke's family, put an immediate stop to rumours of this kind. In little more than a month he was apparently triumphant, so far as regarded himself; but the question now began to be agitated whether the whole system of Copernicus ought not to be condemned as impious and heretical. Galileo again writes to Picchena, "so far as concerns the clearing of my own character, I might return home immediately; but although this new question regards me no more than all those who for the last eighty years have supported these opinions both in public and private, yet, as perhaps I may be of some assistance in that part of the discussion which depends on the knowledge of truths ascertained by means of the sciences which I profess, I, as a zealous and Catholic Christian, neither can nor ought to withhold that assistance which my knowledge affords; and this business keeps me sufficiently employed." De Lambre, whose readiness to depreciate Galileo's merit we have already noticed and lamented, sneeringly and ungratefully remarks on this part of his life, that "it was scarcely worth while to compromise his tranquillity and reputation, in order to become the champion of a truth which could not fail every day to acquire new partisans by the natural effect of the progress of enlightened opinions." We need not stop to consider what the natural effects might have been if none had at any time been found who thought their tranquillity worthily offered up in such a cause.