And then again Rome saw one of those sights which from age to age had become familiar to her, the triumph of arms and overwhelming force under the very eyes of the imprisoned ruler of the city. The Lateran Palace, so long deserted, awoke to receive a royal guest. The sober courts of the papal house blazed with splendid costumes and resounded with all the tumult of rejoicing and triumph. The first of the great ceremonies was the coronation of the Archbishop Guibert as Clement III., which took place in Passion Week in the year 1084. Four months before Gregory had descended from his stronghold to hold the council in which Henry had still hoped to persuade or force him to complaisance, flinging Guibert lightly away; but the king's hopes had failed and Guibert was again the temporary symbol of that spiritual power without which he could not maintain himself. On Easter Sunday following, three great processions again streamed over the bridge of St. Angelo under the eyes, it may be, of Gregory high on the battlements of his fortress, or at least penetrating to his seclusion with the shouts and cheers that marked their progress--the procession of the false Pope, that of the king, that of Bertha the king's wife, whom it had required all the efforts of Gregory and his faithful bishops to preserve from a cruel divorce: she who had set her maids with baton and staff to beat the life half out of that false spouse and caitiff knight in his attempt to betray her. The world had triumphed over the Church, the powers of darkness over those of light, a false and treacherous despot, whose word even his own followers held as nothing, over the steadfast, pure, and high-minded priest, who, whatever we may think of his motives--and no judgment upon Gregory can ever be unanimous--had devoted his life to one high purpose and held by it through triumph and humiliation, unmoved and immovable. Gregory was as certain of his great position now, the Vicar of Christ commissioned to bind and to loose, to judge with impartiality and justice all men's claims, to hold the balance of right and wrong all over the world, as he watched the gay processions pass, and heard the heralds sounding their trumpets and the anti-pope, the creature of Henry's will, passing by to give his master (for the third time) the much-longed-for imperial crown, as when he himself stood master within the battlements of Canossa and raised that suppliant king to the possibilities of empire from his feet.