Charlemagne died at the age of seventy-two, at Aix-la-Chapelle, in A.D.
814. The year before, he had caused his only living son, Louis, to
assume the imperial crown. But the vast structure that Charlemagne had
raised during his lifetime tottered and fell almost immediately after
his death. Louis, known as the Gentle (_le Debonnaire_), was better
fitted for the repose of a cloister than for the government of a warlike
kingdom. His sons, among whom he divided the empire, turned their arms
first against himself and then against one another. Finally, in A.D.
843, a treaty was made at Verdun, by which France, Germany and Italy
became separate and independent states; so that, in less than thirty
years after the death of Charlemagne, the history of the FRANKS came to
an end, and the history of FRANCE and of GERMANY began.