Such were the words of his last address.²³⁰ In the midst of the anathemas which he pronounced against Louis and Philip Augustus, he was seized with a fever, which, in a very few days brought on a paralysis, a lethargy, and finally the death of the most haughty of pontiffs, of the most skilful enemy of kings. He had governed the Church, or rather Europe, for eighteen years ten months and nine days; it is the most brilliant period of the papal power. England, Poland, Portugal, and we know not how many other States besides, became his tributaries. All historians of this era²³¹ relate, that in a mysterious vision, St. Latgarde saw Innocent III. in the midst of flames, and that this pious maid having asked him, wherefore he was thus tormented, he answered, that he should continue so to be till the day of judgment, for three crimes which would have plunged him into the depths of the eternal fire of hell, if the holy virgin to which he had dedicated a monastery had not averted the divine wrath. We may be allowed to doubt respecting the vision: but, says Fleury²³² this relation proves persons of the greatest virtue were convinced that this pope had committed enormous crimes. What were the three to which St. Lutgarde alluded? It would be extremely difficult to select them in the life of Innocent. ²³⁰ Ionoc. III. Serm. de consec. pontif. op. yoI. i. p. 180. ²³¹ Fleury’s eccles. Hist 1. 77, n. 62. ²³² Thom. Cantiprat. in vita St. Lutg. virg. apud Surium 16 Jan.—Raynald. ad. ann. 1216. ²³³ Hist, eccles. 1. 77, n. 62. After having had too weak a successor in Honorius III. his place was more worthily supplied by Gregory IX. This pope announced his pretensions by the extraordinary pomp of his coronation.— Historians²³³ describe this gorgeous ceremony, in which nothing was omitted which could threaten Europe with a universal monarchy. Frederick II. who in receiving the imperial crown from the hands of Honorius, had ceded the heritage of Matilda, and placed his own son on the throne of the two Sicilies, in order that this kingdom should not remain united to the domains of the empire; notwithstanding so many compliances, and though he was the foster child as it were of the court of Rome, Frederick II. became the principal victim of the enterprises of Gregory IX. ²³⁴ Fleury’s eccles. Hist. 1. 79, n. 21.