Meanwhile the good Pope, Nicolas, went on with his charities while his Cardinal Archdeacon thundered in his name. He went, in the end of his life, with his court on a visit to the Normans, who had now, for some time--since they defeated Pope Leo before the gates of Benevento and came under the charm of papal influence, though in the person of their prisoner--become the most devout and generous servants of the Papacy: which indeed granted them titles to the sovereignty of any chance principality they might pick up--which was a good equivalent. When the troops of Guiscard escorted his Holiness back to Rome they were so obliging as to destroy a castle or two of those robber nobles who infested all the roads and robbed the pilgrims, and were, in the midst of all greater affairs, like a nest of venomous wasps about the ears of the Roman statesmen and legislators--especially those of the ever turbulent family of Tusculum, the Counts of Frascati, who kept watch afar upon the northern gates and every pilgrim path. This Pope died soon after in 1061 in Florence, his former episcopal see, which he often revisited and loved. And now came the opportunity for Hildebrand to carry out his own bold law, and elect at once, by the now legal methods, a new head to the Church. But his coadjutors probably had not his own courage: and though bold enough under his inspiration to pass that law, hesitated to carry it out. It is said, too, that in Rome itself there was the strong opposition of a German party really attached to the imperial order, or convinced that without the strong backing of the empire the Church could not stand. Reluctantly Hildebrand consented to send a messenger to consult the imperial court, where strong remonstrances and appeals were at once presented by the Germans and Lombards who were as little desirous of having an Italian Pope over them as the Romans were of a Teutonic one. The Empress Agnes had been alarmed probably by rumours in the air of her removal from the regency. She had been alienated from Hildebrand by the reports of his enemies, and no doubt made to believe that the rights of her son must suffer if any innovation was permitted. She forgot her usual piety in her panic, and would not so much as receive Hildebrand's messenger, who, alone of all the many deputations arriving on the same errand, was left five days (or seven) waiting at the gates of the Palace--"For seven days he waited in the antechamber of the king," says Muratori--while the others were admitted and listened to. This was too much for Hildebrand, to whom his envoy, Cardinal Stefano, returned full of exasperation, as was natural. The Cardinals with timidity, but sustained by Hildebrand's high courage and determination, then proceeded to the election, which was duly confirmed by the people assembled in St. Peter's, and therefore perfectly legal according to the latest law. We are told much, however, of the excited state of