⁵⁷ Fleury. Hist. Eccles. 1. 45. n. 14. See also how Anastasias, the historian of the popes, relates the coronation of Charlemagne: Post hæc, adveniente die natali. D. N. J. C. in jam dictâ basilicâ B. Petri apostoli omnes interum congregati sunt, et tunc yenerabilis almificus pontifex xnanibus suis propriis pretiosissimâ coronâ coronavit eum. Tunc universi jidelcs Romani...unanimiter altisonâ voce, Dei nutu atque B. Petri clavigeri regni cœlorum, exclamaverunt: Carolo piissimo Au-gusto à Deo coronato, magno, pacifico imperatori, vita et victoria. Ante sacram confessionem B. Petri apostoliter dictus est, et ab omnibus constitutes est imperator Romanorum. Illico sanctissimus pontifex unxit oleo sancto Carolum, &c.— Anast. Bibl. in vita Leonis III. Behold, then, the precise period of the extinction of the sovereign rights of the Eastern Emperor in Rome: then, also, ceased the patriciate, properly so called; and the pope, no longer recognizing any intermediate person between him and the Western Emperor, became, indeed, the governor or first magistrate of Rome and of its territory. Charlemagne, in order to deceive the court of Constantinople, had pretended to fill only a passive part in his own coronation:—it was without his knowledge that they decreed him the imperial crown —it was against his consent that he suffered it to be placed on his victorious head: such, at least, is the account which his chancellor Eginhard has given us of this event; an account which Sigonius⁵⁸ and Muratori⁵⁹ have classed with the fabulous, and to which even Father David himself refuses all credence. ⁵⁸ De Regn. Ital. 1. iv. p. 252. ⁵⁹ Annali d’ltalia, ann. 800. Charlemagne hastened to dispatch ambassadors to Constantinople; he received in return those of the Emperor Nicephoras, and concluded a treaty of friendship and alliance with him, which fixed the limits of the two empires, without, however, a formal recognition of the Emperors of the West by the Greeks. But the absolute sovereignty of Charles over the Exarchate, the Pentapolis, and the Roman territory, became undisputed.⁶⁰ ⁶⁰ In uniting all these facts, says Bossuet, it is easy to see that Baronins asserts very inappropriately, that the popes had deposed the emperors because of their heresy, and transferred their empire to the French. It is on the contrary evident, that in Italy and at Rome, the popes themselves have constantly recognized as emperors, the image-breaking princes; and that the empire was only transferred to the French when it was possessed by Irene, a most catholic princess after her rejection of heresy.