But, as yet, no independence. Pope Paschal in 823, being accused by the Romans of participation in various homicides, Hluduuig sent his Missi,—Adalung a presbyter and abbot, and Hunfrid duke of Rhætia (or Coire) to investigate the affair. Paschal appeared before them, and cleared himself by oath. “Qui supradictus Pontifex cum iuramento purificavit se in Lateranensi patriarchio coram supradictis legatis et populo Romano, cum episcopis 34, et presbyteris et diaconibus quinque.” Thegan. Vit. Hludov. Imp. Pertz, ii. 597. ----- But this gradual advance and this commanding power could not at first have been contemplated. It is a common error to suppose that great results, which seem necessarily produced by a long series of combined causes, have from the first been prepared and foreseen. The spectator in his own struggle after a logical unity rejects the accidental and accessory facts, to fix his eyes upon the apparently essential development; and supposes everything to have been grasped together, because his intellect cannot conceive the whole variety of occurrences without so grasping them. The relations of Rome with the Franks were hardly the consequence of any deliberate or well-considered plan. The Frankish kings had been selected as patrons merely because they could afford the protection which was looked for in vain from Constantinople, or indeed any other quarter; and had Italy not been overrun by Germanic invaders of various race, from whose power there seemed no refuge, save in other and still more barbarous Germanic defenders, the Western empire might never have been restored: but when once it was so restored,—from the moment when Pope Leo and the Roman municipality agreed to place the command of the city, and the rights of the ancient Caesars, in the hands of a barbarian king,—but one capable of appreciating and securing all the advantages of his great position,—Rome itself became not only identified with the new views, but necessary to their fulfilment[836]. Had the new emperor been a Roman, or had he selected Rome as his residence, and thus made it the local as well as real and political centre of his power, the Papacy would probably never have attained its territorial authority. But the Frankish king remained true to the habits of his people and of his predecessors, resided in peaceful times at Ingleheim or Aix la Chapelle, and spent years in wandering from one royal vill to another, or in the duties of active warfare upon the several confines of his empire; and thus the government of the eternal city practically fell into the hands of Frankish officers, dukes, missi, counts palatine, and ministerials, who gradually proved no match for the enlightened skill, unwearied diplomacy and increasing power of the pontiffs, the Roman aristocratic families, and the resuscitated municipality: yet the popes had hardly succeeded in attaining to a complete independence of the German Caesars, when the son of Hugues,