Note 130 — Chapter III · TENTH CENTURY

“I know,” says Bossuet, “that Peter Damien assures us, that no person held intercourse with the king, except two servants for the necessary occasions of life. But, either those of whom the pious Cardinal received this information have exaggerated, or at least we must suppose that the public officers continued to exercise their duties, since without it the government could not subsist an instant. Besides if it were true, that the exercise of certain public offices had been suspended for some time, all history would testify to this interregnum, and relate the confusion which would have resulted from it.” Defence of the Grail. Cler. p. 2,1. 6, c. 27. Bossuet also observes, that at the moment in which Robert was struck with these terrible anathemas, nobody thought or asserted that this excommunication could carry the least attaint to the sovereign authority of this monarch.