remaining frozen from St. Martin's day of 1076 to April, 1077. About
Christmas of this severe winter the fugitives reached the snow-covered
Alps, having so far escaped the agents of their enemies, and crossed
the mountains by the St. Bernard pass, the difficulty of the journey
being so great that the empress had to be slid down the precipitous
paths by ropes in the hands of guides, she being wrapped in an ox-hide
for protection.

Italy was at length reached, after the greatest dangers and hardships
had been surmounted. Here Henry, much to his surprise, found prevailing
a very different spirit from that which he had left behind him. The
nobles, who cordially hated Gregory, and the bishops, many of whom were
under interdict, hailed his coming with joy, with the belief "that the
emperor was coming to humiliate the haughty pope by the power of the
sword." He might soon have had an army at his back, but that he was too
thoroughly downcast to think of anything but conciliation, and to the
disgust of the Italians insisted on humiliating himself before the
powerful pontiff.

Gregory was little less alarmed than the emperor on learning of Henry's
sudden arrival in Italy. He was then on his way to Augsburg, and, in
doubt as to the intentions of his enemy, took hasty refuge in the castle
of Canossa, then held by the Countess Matilda, recently a widow, and the
most powerful and influential princess in Italy.

But the alarmed pope was astonished and gratified when he learned that
the emperor, instead of intending an armed assault upon him, had applied
to the Countess Matilda, asking her to intercede in his behalf with the
pontiff. Gregory's acute mind quickly perceived the position in which
Henry stood, and, with great severity, he at first refused to speak of a