"Very well! But if, in case of disunion, the people leaned towards the spiritual, it would be easy to lessen the Emperor's person, and overthrow the tyrant."
"One moment, Sire; you give an incorrect interpretation to our meaning. The father of the faithful ought to oppose all those who wish to exercise tyranny and oppression. The Gospel delivered mankind from the slavery imposed upon it by paganism. Believe me," added the old man, in a prophetic tone, "the day that the Popes shall cease to protect liberty, anarchy and revolution will convulse the world."
Barbarossa shook his head with an incredulous and discontented air.
"The Emperor of the East has no Pope," he replied, "and yet he reigns peacefully."
"You are again in error, Sire! Mark attentively what is going on in Byzantium. What do you see there? An exhausted and dying kingdom, a weak and corrupt clergy, a host of ecclesiastics knowing no law but the Imperial will; an effeminate people without morals, and puffed up with vanity and servile ideas. Is this the state to which you would reduce your brilliant Empire?"
"You exaggerate; matters are scarcely in so bad a state as that."
"Ah, Sire! they are in an infinitely worse condition. Great God! I see it now; Salisbury was right!--I deplore it, but he was right."
"Salisbury!" said Barbarossa, starting, for he had a great respect for this illustrious scholar. "May I ask in what he was right?"
Peter sighed deeply.
"Why do you hesitate, my lord Archbishop? You know the opinion which a wise man entertains of our actions; why then do you seek to conceal it from us?"