We cannot avoid remarking, that in this affair the bishop of Auxerre and the parliaments defended the rights of the throne and the independence of the royal authority, and that their opponent was the prime minister of the monarch. Behold the peril to which a young prince was exposed in yielding such unlimited confidence to a cardinal. After Benedict XIII. Clement XII. reigned ten years; an economical and charitable pontiff, who did good to his subjects, and little ill to foreigners. His successor Lambertini, or Benedict XIV. merits greater praise: he was one of the best men and wisest princes that the eighteenth century produced. Me mounted the chair of St. Peter the same time as Frederick II. the throne of Prussia; and for eighteen years they were the two sovereigns the most distinguished by their personal qualifications. Frederick, separated as he was from the communion of the Holy See, rendered to Benedict those testimonies of esteem which did honour to both. Lambertini inspired the schismatic Elizabeth Petrowna, empress of Russia, with similar sentiments; and the English, attracted to Rome by the celebrity of this pontiff, as well as by the love of the arts, of which he was the protector, praised him with enthusiasm when they wished to paint him with truth. His amiable mind and gentle manners obtained the more approbation, from his knowing how to combine the talents and the graces of his age, with the austere virtues of his office, and the practice of every religious duty. Benedict XIV. had reconciled Europe to the papacy: in beholding him, it were impossible to recall to memory a Gregory VII. an Alexander VI. or even a Benedict XIII. His evangelical toleration confirmed, in a reasoning age, the pontifical throne, shaken by the restless ambition of his predecessors; and his successors had needed only to have copied his example, in order to secure their temporal enjoyments by the benefits of their pastoral office.