OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

the profane sanctuaries of Rome / formed a na-val and military force, restored and emulatedthe monuments of antiquity, and after a liberaluse and large increase of the revenue, left fivemillions of crowns in the castle of St. Angelo.But his justice was sullied with cruelty, his ac-tivity was prompted by the ambition of con-quest; after his decease, the abuses revived;the treasure was dissipated; he entailed on pos-terity thirty-five new taxes and the venality ofoffices; and, after his death, his statue was de-molished by an ungrateful, or an injured peo-ple.* The wild and original character of Sixtusthe fifth stands alone in the series of the pontiffs:the maxims and effects of their temporal go-vernment may be collected from the positive andcomparative view of the arts and philosophy,the agriculture and trade, the wealth and popu-

d These privileged places, the quartieri or franchises, were adoptedfrom the Roman nobles by the foreign ministers. Julius II. had onceabolished the abominandum et detestandum francnitiarum hujusmodinomen ; and after Sixtus V. they again revived. I cannot discerneither the justice or magnanimity of Louis XIV . who, in 1687, senthis ambassador, the marquis de Lavardin, to Rome , with an armedforce of a thousand officers, guards, and domestics, to maintain thisiniquitous claim, and insult pope Innocent XI . iu the heart of his ca-pital (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii, p. 262-278. Muratori, Annali d’ltalia,tom. xv, p. 494-496, and Voltaire , Siecle de Louis XIV tom. ii, e. 14,p. 68, 59.

* This outrage produced a decree, which was inscribed on marble,and placed in the capitol. It is expressed in a style of manly simpli-city and freedom: Si quis, sive privatus, sive magistratum gerens decollocanda vivo pontifici statua mentionem facere ausit, • legitimos. P. Q. R. decreto in perpetuum infamis et puhlicorum mnnerumexpers esto mdxc. Mense Augusto (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii, p. 469).I believe that this decree is still observed, and I know that everymonarch who deserves a statue, should himself impose the prohibi-tion. '

387

CHAU.

LXX.