enterprises of the Latins. Thus, according to Clement IV., interest, brute force, and threats were the true means of obtaining unity. Michael Palæologus was particularly in danger of an invasion on the part of Charles, King of Sicily. Remembering that Clement IV. had written to him that the only mode of protecting himself against the Latins was to unite the churches, he wrote to Gregory X. to express to him his own good intentions in this respect.
It is not our purpose to give a detailed account of the relations between Gregory and Michael. We need only say that the latter acted solely from political motives; that he abused his imperial power to persuade some of the bishops to favour his projects; that he persecuted those who resisted him; that some bishops, who were traitors from interested motives, made all the concessions that the Pope demanded; that their course was disavowed by the rest, notwithstanding the dreadful persecutions that this disavowal drew upon them; in fine, that reünion, instead of being established by those intrigues and acts of violence, only became more difficult than ever.
Such is, in substance, the history of what took place at the second Council of Lyons (1274) in regard to the reunion of the churches, and of what took place in the Greek Church after the Council. It is all political, and has no religious character, Gregory X. declared peace at Lyons upon the basis laid down by Clement IV. But this union was only made with Michael Palæologus and a few men without principles. The Church of the East had no share in it. Rome herself was so persuaded of this, that Martin IV. excommunicated Michael Palæologus for having tricked the Pope under pretext of reünion, (1281.) Andronicus, who succeeded Michael, (1283,) renounced a policy in which there was so little truth.
