282 THE DECLINE AND FALL [A.D. 798] of a procession, when a furious band of conspirators dispersed the unarmed multitude and assaulted with blows and wounds the sacred person of the pope. But their enterprise on his life or liberty was disappointed, perhaps by their own confusion and remorse. Leo was left for dead on the ground ; on his revival from the swoon, the effect of his loss of blood, he recovered his speech and sight ; and this natural event was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and tongue, of which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins.-'^ From his prison, he escaped to the Vatican ; the duke of Spoleto hastened to his rescue, Charlemagne sympathized in his injury, and in his camp of Paderborn in Westphalia accepted or solicited a visit from the Roman pontiff. Leo repassed the Alps with a commission of counts and bishops, the guards of his safety and the judges of his innocence ; and it was not without reluctance that the conqueror of the Saxons [A.D. 799] delayed till the ensuing year the personal discharge of this pious office. In his fourth and last pilgrimage, he was received at Rome with the due honours of king and patrician ; Leo was permitted to purge himself by oath of the crimes imputed to his charge ; his enemies were silenced, and the sacrilegious attempt against his life was punished by the mild and insuffi- cient penalty of exile. On the festival of Christmas, the last [AD. 800] year of the eighth century, Charlemagne appeared in the church of St. Peter ; and, to gratify the vanity of Rome, he had ex- changed the simple dress of his country for the habit of a patrician.-"^ After the celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo suddenly placed a precious crown on his head,-'" and the dome '■'• The assurance of Anastasius (torn. iii. pars i. p. 197, 198) is supported by the creduUty of some French annalists ; but Eginhard and other writers of the same age are more natural and sincere. " Unus ei oculis paullulum est icesus," says John the deacon of Naples (Vit. Episcop. Napol. in Scriptores Muratori, torn. i. pars ii. p. 312). Theodolphus, a contemporary bishop of Orleans, observes with prudence (1. iii. carm. 3) : — Reddita sunt ? mirum est ; mirum est auferre nequisse, Est tamen in dubio, hinc mirer an inde magis.
- ' Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, he appeared at Rome — longa
tunica et chlamyde amictus, et calceamentis quoque Romano more formatis. Eginhard (c. x.xiii. p. 109-113) describes, like Suetonius, the simplicity of his dress, so popular in the nation that, when Charles the Bald returned to P>ance in a foreign habit, the patriotic dogs barked at the apostate (Gaillard, Vie de Charle- magne, torn. iv. p. 109). ^See Anastasius (p. 199) and Eginhard (c. xxviii. p. 124-128). The unction is mentioned by Theophanes (p. 399 [A.u. 6289]), the oath by Sigonius (from the Ordo Romanus), and the pope's adoration more antiquorum principum by the Annales Bertiniani (Script. Murator. torn. i. pars ii. p. 505) [cp. Chron. Moissac. ad. ann. 801].
