⁶⁰ In uniting all these facts, says Bossuet, it is easy to see that Baronins asserts very inappropriately, that the popes had deposed the emperors because of their heresy, and transferred their empire to the French. It is on the contrary evident, that in Italy and at Rome, the popes themselves have constantly recognized as emperors, the image-breaking princes; and that the empire was only transferred to the French when it was possessed by Irene, a most catholic princess after her rejection of heresy.
It is no less evident, that the popes solicited the assistance of the French, not on account of the heresy of the Emperor, but because they had no other resources to oppose the Lombards: that their affairs were altogether desperate, and that they could hope for no succour from the emperors of the east. There were wanting none of the circumstances necessary, as is said in the present day, to justify the deposition of kings. These emperors were heretics, obstinate in error, cruel in their persecutions, and besides, were forgers and perjurers; a circumstance, which according to our adversaries, rendered them still more worthy of deposition, since it was against the church they sinned, in violating the oath, which they had taken at the foot of the altar, to commit no innovation in religion.
Notwithstanding the violation of these solemn promises, the catholics not only honored as emperor, the prince who persecuted them, but did all which lay in their power, to restrain those who, under such pretext, wished to excite seditions and revolt against the empire: so true it is, that they had not then the least idea of that power, in which, at the present day, all the hopes of the church are made to consist, and which is regarded as the firmest bulwark of the pontifical authority. Def. Cler. Grail, p. 26. 6 ch. 20. in the year 803,⁶¹ and in 806,⁶² dates from the reign of the Emperor Charles. This prince designates himself ‘Head of the Roman Empire;’⁶³ and the confines of his states are, henceforward extended, even to the lower Calabria, by Eginhard⁶⁴ and other historians.
Stephen IV. as soon as he was elected successor to Leo. III. made the Romans take an oath of allegiance to Louis-le-Debonnaire, the successor of Charlemagne.⁶⁵ Among the gifts of which the Holy See avails itself, there is one which bears the name of this first Louis, and the date of 816 or 817:⁶⁶ it is pretended, that in confirming the concessions of Charlemagne and of Pepin, Louis has reckoned Sicily in the number of the territories acquired by the Roman Court, and that he has renounced for himself and his successors also, the right of ratifying the elections of the popes.