the exercise of legitimate authority. To this demand the archbishop of Spoleto and the bishop of Cervi, in the name of Eugenius, made certain frivolous objections, which were immediately over-ruled. The pontifical deputies were then informed by the president, that if they were prepared to announce the determination of their master to comply with the requisitions of the assembly in whose presence they stood, this welcome intelligence would be received with the utmost joy—but that if they were not authorised so to do, they might rest assured, that the members of the council would prefer death to the adoption of any measures which were likely to endanger the church of Christ. The envoys of Eugenius not being authorised to make the required concessions, withdrew from the assembly, and it was expected that a legal process would have been instantly commenced against their refractory constituent. In this crisis Eugenius was sheltered from the threatened storm by the friendship of the emperor Sigismund. Towards the latter end of the year 1431, that monarch had come into Italy with the intention of receiving the imperial crown from the hands of the pope.[197] Eugenius, however, taking umbrage at his intimate connexion with the duke of Milan, whom he regarded as a secret enemy to himself, and the avowed foe of his country, refused to permit him to visit Rome.[198] The emperor being thus frustrated in the attainment of the object of his journey across the Alps, quitted Milan, and after visiting Piacenza, Parma, and Lucca, at length went to Siena, where he fixed his abode for the space of several months. During his residence in this city he carried on a negociation with the pontiff, in the course of which he found means to calm the jealous apprehensions of Eugenius, who at length consented to admit the imperial petitioner into his capital. Sigismund accordingly made his triumphant entry into Rome, where he was received on the twenty-first of May, 1433, by the acclamations of the populace; and on the thirty-first of the same month he was crowned with all due solemnity in the church of the Vatican.[199] The festivity which occurred on this occasion was increased by the joy diffused throughout Italy, on account of the termination of the war between the duke of Milan and the Florentines, who had been induced, by the mediation of the marquis of Este, to sign a treaty of peace at Ferrara about three weeks before Sigismund’s arrival in Rome.[200] During the emperor’s residence in that city, he experienced from Eugenius the respectful hospitality which was due to his exalted rank and the excellence of his character.[201] In return for the kindness of the pontiff, he determined to promote his interests by moderating the violence of the council. He accordingly sent by his ambassadors a letter to that assembly, in which, after recounting the good services which he had rendered to the council of Constance, which,