OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 29y

more firmly established by this unseasonable chap.attack. lxix.

Had the election been always held in the Va- Ab 7enceoftican, the rights of the senate and people would ‘ tle P°i’ e *not have been violated with impunity. But theRomans forgot, and were forgotten, in the ab-sence of the successors of Gregory the seventh,who did not keep as a divine precept their ordi-nary residence in the city and diocese. Thecare of that diocese was less important than thegovernment of the universal church ; nor couldthe popes delight in a city in which their autho-rity was always opposed, and their person wasoften endangered. From the persecution of theemperors, and the wars of Italy , they escapedbeyond the Alps into the hospitable bosom ofFrance; from the tumults of Rome they pru-dently withdrew to live and die in the more tran-quil stations of Anagni, Perugia , Viterbo, andthe adjacent cities. When the flock was offend-ed or impoverished by the absence of the shep-herd, they were recalled by a stern admonitionthat St. Peter had fixed his chair, not in an ob-scure village, but in the capital of the world; bya ferocious menace that the Romans wouldmarch in arms to destroy the place and peoplethat should dare to afford them a retreat. Theyreturned with timorous obedience; and were sa-luted with the account of a heavy debt, of allthe losses which their desertion had occasioned,the hire of lodgings, the sale of provisions, andthe various expences of servants and strangers