Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/193

 they sought him, praying in the Titular Church of S. Callixtus, and having seated him on the pontifical throne, and signed the decree of his election, they sent him to the very-invincible Augusti Lothair and Louis, and the first of these died on 29 September, 855, just seventy-four days after the death of Pope Leo.’”

Bayle in his Dictionnaire historique et critique, under the article Papesse Jeanne, says: “Is it not true that if we found in a manuscript a statement that the Emperor Ferdinand II. died in the year 1637, and that at once he was succeeded by Ferdinand III., and that Charles VI. succeeded Ferdinand II., and held the throne for two years, after which Ferdinand III., was elected Emperor, we should say that the same writer could not have made both statements, and that we were necessitated to attribute to copyists without judgment the statements which do not correspond? Would not the man be a fool who related that Innocent X. having died, he was promptly given as successor Alexander VII., and that Innocent XI. was Pope immediately after Innocent X., and sat for two years and more, and that Alexander VII. succeeded him? Anastasius Bibliothecarius must have committed a like extravagance, if he was the author of