beyond the limits of Reason by means of Reason? and, what more contrary to Faith, than to be unwilling to believe that which one is unable to reach by means of Reason?"

Abailard fared no better at Rome than at Sens. His defeat was ratified by that authority from which there is no appeal. Moreover, he was commanded to desist from holding any more lectures; and all persons who should obstinately maintain his errors were excommunicated. Foremost among these was Arnold of Brescia, who scorned to imitate Abailard's submission to the authority of the Church, and blamed his penitential retreat at Clugny, where he shortly died an edifying death.

St. Bernard,—who had previously formed an ill opinion of Arnold from the reports which preceded him out of Italy,—no sooner saw him at Sens actively interested for Abailard, than he penetrated the entire duplicity of his character; at the same time that he felt fully alive to the damage, which the victory just won over error might yet suffer from a man so able and resolute. Wherefore, as it was not his custom to serve the cause of truth by halves, the saint resolved to include the scholar with the master in his denunciations to the pope; who, at his instance, ordered that Arnold too, as well as Abailard, should be incarcerated in a convent. But the crafty Italian managed to elude his doom by a timely flight; and after running many dangers by reason of the keen chace which St. Bernard gave him, found a safe retreat at Zurich.

In that age Zurich, by reason of the trade of Germany and Italy passing through it, was the most flourishing town of Switzerland. Trading communities are commonly as fond of novelty in opinion as in wares. Zurich verified this assertion in many ways; for, owing to its free government, its proximity to the republics of Lombardy, and to the settlements of the Waldenses in the Alps, the place swarmed with that motley tribe of political and religious dreamers which Liberty is ever doomed to tolerate in her train. Of course, Arnold had his clique among the rest. His reception by the citizens was enthusiastic; a public situation was given to him; and he resided in the city for the next six years. During that interval, he confined his activity to Zurich and the cantons bordering it. In these he propagated his doctrines with success, and seems to have been forgotten by the public of France and Italy. No doubt, he may be viewed as having helped to pave the way for Zwingli in the 16th, and Strauss in the 19th,—both of whom, like Arnold, spread the poison of their ideas from Zurich.

In the meantime, events were transpiring at Rome which were destined to call Arnold from his retreat, and produce him again on the great stage of the world in a part more important than ever. These were the attempts of the Romans to restore their ancient republic on the ruins of the papal government. These attempts were not peculiar to the 12th century, but had been made in preceding ages, invariably to no other purpose than anarchy to the city, and scandal to the world. Indeed, there seems always to have been a party at Rome whose adherents, more pagan than Christian in their hearts, perversely mistook the destiny of the city; and far from viewing its new spiritual empire as nobler than its old material one, held the former as something meanly inferior to the latter; wholly blind to the fact that the senate and emperors had been merely types of the hierarchy and the popes, and that in these, and not in those, God had decreed, from the time of Romulus himself, the true power and majesty of Rome should eventually reside. This party then,—who viewed the pope as the Jews viewed our Saviour, whom they would not accept as their Messias, but reviled him as an impostor because he possessed no worldly-power; this party it was that, at the end of the 8th century, treated Leo III. with such impious cruelty in their first recorded attempt to overthrow the papal government; that in the 10th century not only dethroned, but imprisoned and murdered, by the hands of the consul Crescentius, Benedict VI., and plunged the state into such disorders as to render necessary the bloody but just intervention of Otho III. Emperor of Germany, who delivered the Holy See from the oppression and indignities which overwhelmed it. About the middle of the 12th century, the example of the cities of Lombardy, roused to their struggle for freedom to a great degree by the eloquence of Arnold of Brescia, again awoke the republican faction at Rome; where other elements of lawlessness unhappily existed in the papal schism which then raged, and in which the anti-pope Anacletus drove from the Holy See Innocent II., the lawful pope. On the death of Anacletus and the return of Innocent, the sentence of the council, above mentioned, against Arnold of Brescia, still more embittered the revolutionary spirits of the city, worked up to wild enthusiasm by the temporary presence of that arch-demagogue on the spot to defend his cause. At last the pope's conduct to the citizens of Tivoli burst the storm of rebellion over his head.

During the late schism, Tivoli had sided with Anacletus, and on his death still refused to acknowledge Innocent. A Roman army was accordingly marched out to reduce the place to obedience, but was defeated by a sudden sally of the besieged. A fresh army which was shortly raised behaved better, and Tivoli was reduced. Burning with shame at the disgraceful failure of their first attempt, the Romans clamoured for the total destruction of a hated rival and the dispersion of its inhabitants. But the pope, satisfied with the triumph of his authority, would lend no countenance to so guilty a severity, and concluded with his chastised children a fatherly peace. For thus checking the bad passions of his subjects, he incurred their displeasure; whereupon, the republican leaders, perceiving their opportunity seized it at once, and, by their virulent denunciations to the mob of the pretended tyranny of priests, soon stirred up an insurrection; and got the citizens to hold a congress in the Capitol, at which the papal government was declared at an end, and the ancient republic restored. Innocent strove to counteract this revolution, and called a synod at the Lateran; before which he protested against any right of the laity to interfere with his government, much less to alter it. But his efforts were vain; and he took his ill-fortune so much to heart that he sickened and died of grief.

Celestine II., his successor, had, as papal legate in France, formerly befriended Arnold of Brescia: a circumstance that could not fail to make him popular, and conduce to give effect to his efforts at conciliation; so that he completely succeeded in allaying the revolutionary storm during his short reign, which his death terminated in the spring of the following year.

Under Lucius II., who was next elected to the papal throne, the public disorders burst forth again in an aggravated degree. Lucius deeply offended the Romans by seeking to secure himself against their fickle loyalty in an alliance with Roger, the Norman king of Sicily. In resentment of this proceeding, the newly elected senate first caused the strongholds of the Frangipani, and of other adherents of the papal party within the city, to be demolished, and then sent an embassy to Conrad III. of Germany to invite him to come and assume the imperial crown under their auspices, and act as counter-check to the king of Sicily. But Conrad, mistrusting the high-flown letter containing the invitation, and feeling moreover little sympathy with rebels against the pope, declined it.

Hereupon, Lucius thought it the proper time to strike a blow towards recovering his authority. To this end he marshalled his cardinals and other dignitaries in all their pomp; put himself at their head, and, escorted by an armed array of lay partisans, set out for Rome with the intention of besieging the Capitol.

At first the people, awed by so solemn and resolute an appearance of the Supreme Pontiff, showed signs if not of helping, at least, of not resisting his attempt.