l'empechai, censurer cette partie de son histoire. J'en devisai
un jour avec le Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose "che
volete? i Canonici la tengono," il le disoit en riant,
(Perroniana, p. 77.)]

While the popes established in Italy their freedom and
dominion, the images, the first cause of their revolt, were
restored in the Eastern empire. ^77 Under the reign of
Constantine the Fifth, the union of civil and ecclesiastical
power had overthrown the tree, without extirpating the root, of
superstition. The idols (for such they were now held) were
secretly cherished by the order and the sex most prone to
devotion; and the fond alliance of the monks and females obtained
a final victory over the reason and authority of man. Leo the
Fourth maintained with less rigor the religion of his father and
grandfather; but his wife, the fair and ambitious Irene, had
imbibed the zeal of the Athenians, the heirs of the Idolatry,
rather than the philosophy, of their ancestors. During the life
of her husband, these sentiments were inflamed by danger and
dissimulation, and she could only labor to protect and promote
some favorite monks whom she drew from their caverns, and seated
on the metropolitan thrones of the East. But as soon as she
reigned in her own name and that of her son, Irene more seriously
undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts; and the first step of her
future persecution was a general edict for liberty of conscience.

In the restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed
to the public veneration; a thousand legends were inverted of
their sufferings and miracles. By the opportunities of death or
removal, the episcopal seats were judiciously filled the most