Note 60 — Chapter I · ORIGIN OF THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES
Reading edition
In uniting all these facts, says Bossuet, it is easy to see that Baronins asserts very inappropriately, that the popes had deposed the emperors because of their heresy, and transferred their empire to the French. It is on the contrary evident, that in Italy and at Rome, the popes themselves have constantly recognized as emperors, the image-breaking princes; and that the empire was only transferred to the French when it was possessed by Irene, a most catholic princess after her rejection of heresy.