Page:History of England (Macaulay) Vol 2.djvu/399

 While Lewis was thus forcing his friends in Holland to become, or to pretend to become, his enemies, he was labouring with not less success to remove all the scruples which might have prevented the Roman Catholic princes of the Continent from countenancing William's designs. A new quarrel had arisen between the Court of Versailles and the Vatican, a quarrel in which the injustice and insolence of the French King were perhaps more offensively displayed than in any other transaction of his reign.

It had long been the rule at Rome that no officer of justice or finance could enter the dwelling inhabited by the minister who represented a Catholic state. In process of time not only the dwelling, but a large precinct round it, was held inviolable. It was a point of honour with every Ambassador to extend as widely as possible the limits of the region which was under his protection. At length half the city consisted of privileged districts, within which the Papal government had no more power than within the Louvre or the Escurial. Every asylum was thronged with contraband traders, fraudulent bankrupts, thieves and assassins. In every asylum were collected magazines of stolen or smuggled goods. From every asylum ruffians sallied forth nightly to plunder and stab. In no town of Christendom, consequently, was law so impotent and wickedness so audacious as in the ancient capital of religion and civilisation. On this subject Innocent felt as became a priest and a prince. He declared that he would receive no Ambassador who insisted on a right so destructive of order and morality. There was at first much murmuring; but his resolution was so evidently just that all governments but one speedily acquiesced. The Emperor, highest in rank among Christian monarchs, the Spanish court, distinguished among all courts by sensitiveness and pertinacity on points of etiquette, renounced the odious privilege. Lewis alone was impracticable. What other sovereigns might choose