74/118 He trampled no less on that still more venerable _religio loci_ which attached imperial rights to Rome. By declaring his will to be crowned where he chose, he emphasized the modern state motto of _L'etat, c'est moi_, and prepared the way for a Pope's closing of a General Council by the word _L'Eglise, c'est moi_. Charles had sufficient reasons for acting as he did. The Holy Roman Empire ever since the first event of Charles the Great's coronation, when it justified itself as a diplomatical expedient for unifying Western Christendom, had existed more or less as a shadow. Charles violated the duties which alone gave the semblance of a substance to that shadow. |