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As we reached the post-road again, they were glowing in the last rays of the sun, and the evening vapors that settled over the plain concealed the distant Alps, although the snowy top of the Jungfrau and her companions the Wetterhorn and Schreckhorn, rose above it like the hills of another world.
"Sovereign of France from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, and of Italy from the Alps to the Tiber," he had given the throne of Holland to his brother Louis, that of Naples to Joseph, and made Jerome king of Westphalia. Spain was content to do his will, and Germany was under his feet. He was the leader of mighty armies, with no military rival to endanger his supremacy over them.
On the other hand, the pope, who hated the Grecian empire, and equally feared the success of the Lombards, saw with joy this new star arise in the north, and gave it the sanction of his authority. Presently after he called it to his assistance. Pepin passed the Alps, relieved the pope, and invested him with the dominion of a large country in the best part of Italy.
Far off across that 'waveless sea' of Lombardy, which has been the battlefield of countless generations, rise the dim grey Alps, or else pearled domes of thunder-clouds in gleaming masses over some tall solitary tower. Such backgrounds, full of peace, suggestive of almost infinite distance, and dignified with colours of incomparable depth and breadth, the Venetian painters loved.
No sooner had Pippin recrossed the Alps than the Lombard king, ever anxious to add Rome to his possessions, again invested the Eternal City. Pope Stephen's letters to the king of the Franks at this juncture are characteristic of the time. The pope warmly argues that Pippin owes all his victories to St. Peter and should now hasten to the relief of his successor.
He was told that the Alps stood in the way of his armies "There shall be no Alps," he said, and the road across the Simplon was constructed, through a district formerly almost inaccessible. "Impossible," said he, "is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools." He was a man who toiled terribly; sometimes employing and exhausting four secretaries at a time.
The territory acquired by these victories was organized into a Transalpine province; this province gradually went on increasing; its communications with Italy were assured, by the Romans obtaining possession of the passes of the Alps.
But the journey proved much more difficult than it had been in the ascent, as the declivity of the Alps being generally shorter on the side of Italy is consequently steeper; for nearly all the road was precipitous, narrow, and slippery, so that neither those who made the least stumble could prevent themselves from falling, nor, when fallen, remain in the same place, but rolled, both men and beasts of burden, one upon another.
There is no need to dwell upon the incidents of a commonplace tour like this, though one can never forget the delightful sense of exhilaration produced by a first experience of the living grandeur of the Alps. Switzerland was not so completely hackneyed in those days as it is now, and to me, of course, as a newcomer, it did not seem to be hackneyed at all.
He crossed the Alps, defeated the army which Matilda had raised in the pope's cause, and laid siege to Rome, a siege which continued without success for the long period of three years. At length the city was taken, Wilprecht von Groitsch, a Saxon knight, mounting the walls, and making his way with his followers into the city, aided by treachery from within.
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