Perhaps this was merely a confusion with the legend of Gregory the Great, his predecessor, to whom that attribute belongs; perhaps some gentle brother whose heart ached with sympathy for the suffering Pope had glamour in his eyes and saw. Gregory continued his journey, drawn along in the army of Robert Guiscard as in a chariot, which began now to be, as he reached the south Italian shores, a chariot of triumph. All the towns and villages on the way came out to greet the Pope, to ask his blessing. The bishop of Salerno, with his clergy, came forth in solemn procession with shining robes and sacred standards to meet him. Neither Pope nor prince could have found a more exquisite retreat from the troubles of an evil world. The beautiful little city, half Saracenic, in all the glory of its cathedral still new and white and blooming with colour like a flower, sat on the edge of that loveliest coast, the sea like sapphire surging up in many lines of foam, the waves clapping their hands as in the Psalms, and above, the olive-mantled hills rising soft towards the bluest sky, with on every point a white village, a little church tower, the convent walls shining in the sun. It is still a region as near Paradise as human imagination can grasp, more fair than any scene we know. One wonders if the Pope's heart had sufficient spring left in it to take some faint delight in that wonderful conjunction of earth and sea and sky. But such delights were not much thought of in his day, and it is very possible he might have felt it something like a sin to suffer his heart to go forth in any such carnal pleasure. But at least something of his old energy came back when he was settled in this wonderful place of exile. He sent out his legates to the world, charged with letters to the faithful everywhere, to explain the position of affairs and to assert, as if now with his last breath, that it was because of his determination to purify the Church that all these conspiracies had risen against him--which was indeed, notwithstanding all the developments taken by the question, the absolute truth. For it was Gregory's strongly conceived and faithfully held resolution to cleanse the Church from simony, to have its ministers and officers chosen for their worth and virtue, and power to guide and influence their flocks for good, and not because they had wealth to pay for their dignity and to maintain it, which was the beginning of the conflict. Henry who refused obedience and made a traffic of the holiest offices, and those degenerate and rebellious priests who continued to buy themselves into rich bishoprics and abbacies in defiance of every ecclesiastical law and penalty, were the original offenders, and ought before posterity at least to bear the brunt.