Note 096
These privileged places, the quartieri or franchises, were adopted from the Roman nobles by the foreign ministers. Julius II. had once abolished the abominandum et detestandum franchitiarum hujusmodi nomen: and after Sixtus V. they again revived. I cannot discern either the justice or magnanimity of Louis XIV., who, in 1687, sent his ambassador, the marquis de Lavardin, to Rome, with an armed force of a thousand officers, guards, and domestics, to maintain this iniquitous claim, and insult Pope Innocent XI. in the heart of his capital, (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 260 - 278. Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xv. p. 494 - 496, and Voltaire, Siccle de Louis XIV. tom. i. c. 14, p. 58, 59.)

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The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire —Fall In The East —Chapter 70