Uncompromising as ever, Father Paul continued to write letters
and publish treatises which clenched more and more firmly into
the mind of Venice and of Europe the political doctrine of which
he was the apostle,--the doctrine that the State is rightfully
independent of the Church,--and throughout the Christian world he
was recognized as victor.

Nothing could exceed the bitterness of the attacks upon him,
though some of them, at this day, provoke a smile. While efforts
were made to discredit him among scholars by spurious writings or
by interpolations in genuine writings, efforts equally ingenious
were made to arouse popular hostility. One of these was a
painting which represented him writhing amid the flames of hell,
with a legend stating, as a reason for his punishment, that he
had opposed the Holy Father.

Now it was indeed, in the midst of ferocious attacks upon his
reputation and cunning attempts upon his life, that he entered a
new and most effective period of activity. For years, as the
adviser of Venice, he had studied, both as a historian and as a
statesman, the greatest questions which concerned his country,
and especially those which related to the persistent efforts of
the Vatican to encroach upon Venetian self-government. The
results of these studies he had embodied in reports which had
shaped the course of the Republic; and now, his learning and
powers of thought being brought to bear upon the policy of Europe
in general, as affected by similar papal encroachments, he began
publishing a series of treatises, which at once attracted general
attention.[1]