The conflict was brought to an end for the moment by a very curious transaction. A certain dignified ecclesiastic, Gratiano by name, the Cardinal-archdeacon of St. John Lateran, who happened to be rich, horrified by this struggle, and not sufficiently enlightened as to the folly and sin of doing evil that good might come--always, as all the chronicles seem to allow, with the best motives--bought out the two competitors, and procured his own election under the title of Gregory VI. But this mistaken though well-meant act had but brief success. For, on the arrival in 1046 of the Emperor Henry III. in Italy, at a council called together by his desire, Gregory was convicted of the strange bargain he had made, or according to Baronius of the violent means taken to enforce it, and was deposed accordingly, along with his two predecessors. It was this Pope, in his exile and deprivation, who first brought in sight of a universe which he was born to rule, a young monk of Cluny, Hildebrand--German by name, but Italian in heart and race--who had already moved much about the world with the extraordinary freedom and general access everywhere which we find common to monks however humble their origin. From his monastic home in Rome he had crossed the Alps more than once; he had been received and made himself known at the imperial court, and was on terms of kindness with many great personages, though himself but a humble brother of his convent. No youthful cleric in our modern world nowadays would find such access everywhere, though it is still possible that a young Jesuit for instance, noted by his superiors for ability or genius, might be handed on from one authority to another till he reached the highest circle. But it is surprising to see how free in their movements, how adventurous in their lives, the young members of a brotherhood bound under the most austere rule then found it possible to be.