Greece, ancient Greece, exercised a mysterious fascination over me.
Hitherto the example of the Roman Church had exercised no exclusive determining influence on ritual development even in the West.
The Franko-Papal alliance, which conferred a crown on Pippin and sovereign rights upon the see of Rome, held within itself that ideal of mutually Charles supporting papacy and empire which exercised so the iireat powerful an influence in medieval history.
It is one of the strongest instances furnished by history of the fascination exercised by an idea that the Italians themselves should have grown to glory in this dependence of their nation upon Caesars who had nothing but a name in common with the Roman Imperator of the past.
The proceeds of the sale of the suppressed convents and monasteries were partly converted into pensions for monks and nuns, and partly allotted to the municipal charity boards which had undertaken the educational and charitable functions formerly exercised by the religious orders.
