village of Bethlehem, the solitary residence of St. Jerome and his
female converts, was crowded with illustrious beggars of either sex, and
every age, who excited the public compassion by the remembrance of their
past fortune. This awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished
Empire with grief and terror. So interesting a contrast of greatness and
ruin disposed the fond credulity of the people to deplore, and even to
exaggerate, the afflictions of the queen of cities. The clergy, who
applied to recent events the lofty metaphors of oriental prophecy, were
sometimes tempted to confound the destruction of the capital and the
dissolution of the globe.

There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the
advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times. Yet, when
the first emotions had subsided, and a fair estimate was made of the
real damage, the more learned and judicious contemporaries were forced
to confess that infant Rome had formerly received more essential injury
from the Gauls than she had now sustained from the Goths in her
declining age. The experience of eleven centuries has enabled posterity
to produce a much more singular parallel, and to affirm with confidence
that the ravages of the Barbarians, whom Alaric had led from the banks
of the Danube, were less destructive than the hostilities exercised by
the troops of Charles V, a Catholic prince, who styled himself Emperor
of the Romans.

The Goths evacuated the city at the end of six days, but Rome remained
above nine months in the possession of the Imperialists, and every hour
was stained by some atrocious act of cruelty, lust, and rapine. The
authority of Alaric preserved some order and moderation among the
ferocious multitude which acknowledged him for their leader and king;
but the constable of Bourbon had gloriously fallen in the attack of the