The daily gazette., 1877-08-08
Two Days in the Life of Pope
Hi!debrand.

1t is raw, bitter January day in the
year 1917; the snow lies deep on the
plains of Northern Italy, and in the
courtyard of the fortress OF Canossa.-
Around the unopened gate cluster a
throng of penitents in coarse linen dresses
awaiting the Pope's forgiveness; while
apart from the rest stands tall noble
looking man of commanding presence,
though barefooted and roughly clad as
they. II
"Who is yon pilgrim?" asked one peni-
tent of another.
"Knowest thou not! IT'S Henry, King
of the Germany, whom our blessed Father
excomm mriicated but few months since;
ana 10! Already he has been driven from
his kingdom, and forced to come hither
in pilgrims guise 10 beg his PARDON
Mighty is the word of St. Peter!'
Such was indeed the case. But year
before this woeful pilgrim had been the
proudest monarch of Europe, supreme
from Saxony to the Rhine, beating down
Silesian rebels, and menacing dethrone-
meDt to the Pope himself. But Que word
from the terrible 'Hildebrand" had blast
ed all his greatness, and the head of the
Empire, chased from his own dominions,
his few friends slain or alienaled, his
beautiful wife all but dead from the null
t.plied hardshlps of Winter journey
across the Alps, had stood for three days,
barefooted and bareheaded before his
enemy's barred gates. For Gregory
VII. was not one to spare the man
whom he hated one drop in the cup of
degradation; and it was only at the en-
treaty of his faithful adherent, the Coun-
tess Matilda (who had still a woman's
pity for misfortune) that he ungraciously
yielded at last.
On the fourth morning the gloomy
gate slowly opened, and the harsh voice
Of a low born notwithstanding, like all
mean natures in the abasement of any
thing greater than himself-grated upon
the silence.
"Let the man who calls himself Henry
of Germany enterlp ~ I ..
And the stately figure came slowly for
ward to PROSTATE himself at the feet of
the little bowed, gray-haired man within
and receive a grudging and scornful abb
solution. Even the rude spearsmen who
guarded the door turned their faces away
with momentary touch of pity, when,
an hour later, the insulted king came
forth again, pledged to absolute submis-
sion and the holding of his very crown by
the word of The Pope, but with a CLEAN
in his dark eye that spoke of undying
hatred and future vengeance.
Eight years later, any one who had
mounted the walls of Rome, and looked
about in the sunny spring weather,
would have beheld a strange sight. Far
and wide around the ancient city the
whole landscape is alive with white tents
and f1uttering pennons, and shining he'll
NETS, and the CLEAN of countless spear
heads, while the air rings with the neigh
| ing of horses and shouts of the men,
snatches of discordant song, bursts of
noisy laughter or savage blasphemy.
King Henry has never forgotten or for
given that days work in the court yard
of Canossa; and he is here to-day, with
fifty thousand men at his back, to thank
the Pope for his condescension.
High above the trembling city, on a
marble balcony that stands out from the
huge gray mass of the castle ST. Angelo,
is solitary figure-the figure of whits,-
haired old man. There are many
wrinkles ON the iron visage since we last
saw it; but even in the face of this deadly
peril, it blenches not whit. Naughty,
vain'glorious, merciless as he is, there
lives no Drawer man on earth this day
cal voice is still unfaltering as it mur-
murs the words of that grand old psalm
with which he has so often defivd the
might of congregated nations:
"Why do the heather rage, and the
people imagine vain thing?
The kings OF the earth set them
selves and the rulers take counsel to-
gether against the Lord and against His
Anointed.'"
""He that sitteth in the heavens shall
laugh; the Lord shall have in deris-
ion.'"
But that unskaken confidence is sorely
tried on the following morning; for the
rising sun shines upon foreign banners
and hostile faces, not without the city
but within. The malcontents of the low
er town, weary with the long seige, have
opened the gatesi to the enemy during
the night, and, in one great wave, the
besieging hosts pour into their enemy's
last stronghold. High over all, in the
blaze of its costly armor, towers the
stately figure of the King, and with him
are Licmar of Mentz aud Luigi Sebaldo,
tiercest and bloodiest of Lombard mol bles
and many an old foe of the Church, be-
sides, and, midmost of the throng, Gull
bert, the traitor Bishop of Ravenna, ON
in the place of the man whose haggard
face looked down upon him from the
ramparts of st. Angelo.
"Ha, Holy Father" shouted the King
at the full pitch of his mighty voice, as
he locked up at the hated figure with
smile of. gratified vengeance. "Come
forth and give us thy blessing. IT'S thy
turn to go on pilgrimage now"
1t was the heaviest blow and the last.
Two months later, at Salerno, few OBJ
scure months reverently drew the pail
over the dead face befors which all Eu-
rope had trembled and all that remained
of the great Hildebrand was the bitter
boast which history has made immor-
tall
"I have loved righteousness and hated
iriJm y; therefore l die an exile."-He,a-
ry We IS.