From the death of Charlemagne to the accession of Hugh Capet,--that is,
from 814 to 987,--thirteen kings sat upon the throne of France. What
then became, under their reign and in the course of those hundred and
seventy-three years, of the two great facts which swayed the mind and
occupied the life of Charlemagne? What became, that is, of the solid
territorial foundation of the kingdom of Christian France, through
efficient repression of foreign invasion, and of the unity of that vast
empire wherein Charlemagne had attempted and hoped to resuscitate the
Roman empire?
The fate of those two facts is the very history of France under the
Carlovingian dynasty; it is the only portion of the events of that epoch
which still deserves attention nowadays, for it is the only one which has
exercised any great and lasting influence on the general history of
France.
Attempts at foreign invasion of France were renewed very often, and in
many parts of Gallo-Frankish territory, during the whole duration of the
Carlovingian dynasty, and, even though they failed, they caused the
population of the kingdom to suffer from cruel ravages. Charlemagne,
even after his successes against the different barbaric invaders, had
foreseen the evils which would be inflicted on France by the most
formidable and most determined of them, the Northmen, coming by sea, and
landing on the coast. The most closely contemporaneous and most given to
detail of his chroniclers, the monk of St. Gall, tells in prolix and
pompous, but evidently heartfelt and sincere terms, the tale of the great
emperor’s far-sightedness. “Charles, who was ever astir,” says he,
“arrived by mere hap and unexpectedly, in a certain town of Narbonnese
Gaul. Whilst he was at dinner, and was as yet unrecognized of any, some
corsairs of the Northmen came to ply their piracies in the very port.
When their vessels were descried, they were supposed to be Jewish traders
according to some, African according to others, and British in the
opinion of others; but the gifted monarch, perceiving, by the build and
lightness of the craft, that they bare not merchandise, but foes, said to
his own folk, ‘These vessels be not laden with merchandise, but manned
with cruel foes.’ At these words all the Franks, in rivalry one with
another, run to their ships, but uselessly: for the Northmen, indeed,
hearing that yonder was he whom it was still their wont to call Charles
the Hammer, feared lest all their fleet should be taken or destroyed in
the port, and they avoided, by a flight of inconceivable rapidity, not
only the glaives, but even the eyes of those who were pursuing then.
[Illustration: Northmen on an Expedition??----254]
“Pious Charles, however, a prey to well-grounded fear, rose up from
table, stationed himself at a window looking eastward, and there remained
a long while, and his eyes were filled with tears. As none durst
question him, this warlike prince explained to the grandees who were
about his person the cause of his movement and of his tears: ‘Know ye, my
lieges, wherefore I weep so bitterly? Of a surety I fear not lest these
fellows should succeed in injuring me by their miserable piracies; but it
grieveth me deeply that, whilst I live, they should have been nigh to
touching at this shore, and I am a prey to violent sorrow when I foresee
what evils they will heap upon my descendants and their people.’”
[Illustration: He remained there a long while, and his eyes were filled
with tears.----255]
The forecast and the dejection of Charles were not unreasonable. It will
be found that there is special mention made, in the chronicles of the
ninth and tenth centuries, of forty-seven incursions into France of
Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Irish pirates, all comprised under the
name of Northmen; and, doubtless, many other incursions of less gravity
have left no trace in history. “The Northmen,” says M. Fauriel,
“descended from the north to the south by a sort of natural gradation or
ladder. The Scheldt was the first river by the mouth of which they
penetrated inland; the Seine was the second; the Loire the third. The
advance was threatening for the countries traversed by the Garonne; and
it was in 844 that vessels freighted with Northmen for the first time
ascended this last river to a considerable distance inland, and there
took immense booty. . . . The following year they pillaged and burnt
Saintes. In 846 they got as far as Limoges. The inhabitants, finding
themselves unable to make head against the dauntless pirates, abandoned
their hearths, together with all they had not time to carry away.
Encouraged by these successes, the Northmen reappeared next year upon the
coasts and in the rivers of Aquitaine, and they attempted to take
Bordeaux, whence they were valorously repulsed by the inhabitants; but in
848, having once more laid siege to that city, they were admitted into it
at night by the Jews, who were there in great force; the city was given
up to plunder and conflagration; a portion of the people was scattered
abroad, and the rest put to the sword.” Tours, Rouen, Angers, Orleans,
Meaux, Toulouse, Saint-Lo, Bayeux, Evreux, Nantes, and Beauvais, some of
them more than once, met the fate of Saintes, Limoges, and Bordeaux. The
monasteries and churches, wherein they hoped to find treasures, were the
favorite objects of the Nortlimen’s enterprises; in particular, they
plundered, at the gates of Paris, the abbey of St. Germain des Pres and
that of St. Denis, whence they carried off the abbot, who could not
purchase his freedom, save by a heavy ransom. They penetrated more than
once into Paris itself, and subjected many of its quarters to
contributions or pillage. The populations grew into the habit of
suffering and fleeing; and the local lords, and even the kings, made
arrangement sometimes with the pirates either for saving the royal
domains from the ravages, or for having their own share therein. In 850,
Pepin, king of Aquitaine, and brother of Charles the Bald, came to an
understanding with the Northmen who had ascended the Garonne, and were
threatening Toulouse. “They arrived under his guidance,” says M.
Fauriel, “they laid siege to it, took it and plundered it, not halfwise,
not hastily, as folks who feared to be surprised, but leisurely, with all
security, by virtue of a treaty of alliance with one of the kings of the
country.” Throughout Aquitaine there was but one cry of indignation
against Pepin, and the popularity of Charles was increased in proportion
to all the horror inspired by the ineffable misdeed of his adversary.
Charles the Bald himself, if he did not ally himself, as Pepin did, with
the invaders, took scarce any interest in the fate of the populations,
and scarcely more trouble to protect them, for Hincmar, archbishop of
Rheims, wrote to him in 859, “Many folks say that you are incessantly
repeating that it is not for you to mix yourself up with these
depredations and robberies, and that every one has but to defend himself
as best he may.”
It were tedious to relate or even to enumerate all these incursions of
the Northmen, with their monotonous incidents. When their frequency and
their general character have been notified, all has been done that is due
to them from history. However, there are three on which it may be worth
while to dwell particularly, by reason of their grave historical
consequences, as well as of the dramatic details which have been
transmitted to us about them.
In the middle and during the last half of the ninth century, a chief of
the Northmen, named Hastenc or Hastings, appeared several times over on
the coasts and in the rivers of France, with numerous vessels and a
following. He had also with him, say the chronicles, a young Norwegian
or Danish prince, Bieern, called Ironsides, whom he had educated, and who
had preferred sharing the fortunes of his governor to living quietly with
the king, his father. After several expeditions into Western France,
Hastings became the theme of terrible, and very probably fabulous
stories. He extended his cruises, they say, to the Mediterranean, and,
having arrived at the coasts of Tuscany, within sight of a city which in
his ignorance he took for Rome, he resolved to pillage it; but, not
feeling strong enough to attack it by assault, he sent to the bishop to
say he was very ill, felt a wish to become a Christian, and begged to be
baptized. Some days afterwards, his comrades spread a report that he was
dead, and claimed for him the honors of a solemn burial. The bishop
consented; the coffin of Hastings was carried into the church, attended
by a large number of his followers, without visible weapons; but, in the
middle of the ceremony, Hastings suddenly leaped up, sword in hand, from
his coffin; his followers displayed the weapons they had concealed,
closed the doors, slew the priests, pillaged the ecclesiastical
treasures, and re-embarked before the very eyes of the stupefied
population, to go and resume, on the coasts of France, their incursions
and their ravages.
Whether they were true or false, these rumors of bold artifices and
distant expeditions on the part of Hastings aggravated the dismay
inspired by his appearance. He penetrated into the interior of the
country in Poitou, Anjou, Brittany, and along the Seine; pillaged the
monasteries of Jumieges, St. Vaudrille, and St. Evroul; took possession
of Chartres, and appeared before Paris, where Charles the Bald,
intrenched at St. Denis, was deliberating with his prelates and barons as
to how he might resist the Northmen or treat with them. The chronicle
says that the barons advised resistance, but that the king preferred
negotiation, and “sent the Abbot of St. Denis, the which was an exceeding
wise man,” to Hastings, who, “after long parley, and by reason of large
gifts and promises,” consented to stop his cruisings, to become a
Christian, and to settle in the count-ship of Chartres, “which the king
gave him as an hereditary possession, with all its appurtenances.”
According to other accounts, it was only some years later, under the
young king Louis III., grandson of Charles the Bald, that Hastings was
induced, either by reverses or by payment of money, to cease from his
piracies, and accept in recompense the countship of Chartres. Whatever
may have been the date, he was, it is believed, the first chieftain of
the Northmen who renounced a life of adventure and plunder, to become, in
France, a great landed proprietor and a count of the king’s. Prince
Bieern then separated from his governor, and put again to sea, “laden
with so rich a booty that he could never feel any want of wealth; but a
tempest swallowed up a great part of his fleet, and cast him upon the
coasts of Friesland, where he died soon after, for which Hastings was
exceeding sorry.”
A greater chieftain of the Northmen than Hastings was soon to follow his
example, and found Normandy in France; but before Rolf, that is, Rollo,
came and gave the name of his race to a French province, the piratical.
Northmen were again to attempt a greater blow against France, and to
suffer a great reverse.
In November, 885, under the reign of Charles the Fat, after having, for
more than forty years, irregularly ravaged France, they resolved to unite
their forces in order at length to obtain possession of Paris, whose
outskirts they had so often pillaged without having been able to enter
the heart of the place, in the Ile de la Cite, which had originally been
and still was the real Paris. Two bodies of troops were set in motion;
one, under the command of Rollo, who was already famous amongst his
comrades, marched on Rouen; the other went right up the course of the
Seine, under the orders of Siegfried, whom the Northmen called their
king. Rollo took Rouen, and pushed on at once for Paris. Duke Renaud,
general of the Gallo-Frankish troops, went to encounter him on the banks
of the Eure, and sent to him, to sound his intentions, Hastings, the
newly-made count of Chartres. “Valiant warriors,” said Hastings to
Rollo, “whence come ye? What seek ye here? What is the name of your
lord and master? Tell us this; for we be sent unto you by the king of
the Franks.” “We be Danes,” answered Rollo, “and all be equally masters
amongst us. We be come to drive out the inhabitants of this land, and to
subject it as our own country. But who art thou, thou who speakest so
glibly?” “Ye have sometime heard tell of one Hastings, who, issuing
forth from amongst you, came hither with much shipping and made desert a
great part of the kingdom of the Franks?” “Yes,” said Rollo, “we have
heard tell of him; Hastings began well and ended ill.” “Will ye yield
you to King Charles?” asked Hastings. “We yield,” was the answer, “to
none; all that we shall take by our arms we will keep as our right. Go
and tell this, if thou wilt, to the king, whose envoy thou boastest to
be.” Hastings returned to the Gallo-Frankish army, and Rollo prepared to
march on Paris. Hastings had gone back somewhat troubled in mind. Now
there was amongst the Franks one Count Tetbold (Thibault), who greatly
coveted the countship of Chartres, and he said to Hastings, “Why
slumberest thou softly? Knowest thou not that King Charles doth purpose
thy death by cause of all the Christian blood that thou didst aforetime
unjustly shed? Bethink thee of all the evil thou hast done him, by
reason whereof he purposeth to drive thee from his land. Take heed to
thyself that thou be not smitten unawares.” Hastings, dismayed, at once
sold to Tetbold the town of Chartres, and, removing all that belonged to
him, departed to go and resume, for all that appears, his old course of
life.
[Illustration: PARIS BESIEGED BY THE NORMANS----259]
On the 25th of November, 885, all the forces of the North-men formed a
junction before Paris; seven hundred huge barks covered two leagues of
the Seine, bringing, it is said, more than thirty thousand men. The
chieftains were astonished at sight of the new fortifications of the
city, a double wall of circumvallation, the bridges crowned with towers,
and in the environs the ramparts of the abbeys of St. Denis and St.
Germain solidly rebuilt. Siegfried hesitated to attack a town so well
defended. He demanded to enter alone and have an interview with the
bishop, Gozlin. “Take pity on thyself and thy flock,” said he to him;
“let us but pass through this city; we will in no wise touch the town; we
will do our best to preserve for thee and Count Eudes, all your
possessions.” “This city,” replied the bishop, “hath been confided unto
us by the Emperor Charles, king and ruler, under God, of the powers of
the earth. He hath confided it unto us not that it should cause the ruin
but the salvation of the kingdom. If peradventure these walls had been
confided to thy keeping, as they have been to mine, wouldst thou do as
thou biddest me?” “If ever I do so,” answered Siegfried, “may my head be
condemned to fall by the sword and serve as food to the dogs! But if
thou yield not to our prayers, so soon as the sun shall commence his
course, our armies will launch upon thee their poisoned arrows; and when
the sun shall end his course, they will give thee over to all the horrors
of famine; and this will they do from year to year.” The bishop,
however, persisted, without further discussion; being as certain of Count
Eudes as he was of himself. Eudes, who was young and but recently made
count of Paris, was the eldest son of Robert the Strong, count of Anjou,
of the same line as Charlemagne, and but lately slain in battle against
the Northmen. Paris had for defenders two heroes, one of the Church and
the other of the Empire: the faith of the Christian and the fealty of the
vassal; the conscientiousness of the priest and the honor of the warrior.
[Illustration: The Barks of the Northmen before Paris----260]
The siege lasted thirteen months, whiles pushed vigorously forward with
eight several assaults, whiles maintained by close investment, and with
all the alternations of success and reverse, all the intermixture of
brilliant daring and obscure sufferings, that can occur when the
assailants are determined and the defenders devoted. Not only a
contemporary but an eye-witness, Abbo, a monk of St. Germain des Pres,
has recounted the details in a long poem, wherein the writer, devoid of
talent, adds nothing to the simple representation of events; it is
history itself which gives to Abbo’s poem a high degree of interest. We
do not possess, in reference to these continual struggles of the Northmen
with the Gallo-Frankish populations, any other document which is equally
precise and complete, or which could make us so well acquainted with all
the incidents, all the phases of this irregular warfare between two
peoples, one without a government, the other without a country. The
bishop, Gozlin, died during the siege. Count Eudes quitted Paris for a
time to go and beg aid of the emperor; but the Parisians soon saw him
reappear on the heights of Montmartre with three battalions of troops,
and he re-entered the town, spurring on his horse and striking light and
left with his battle-axe through the ranks of the dumfounded besiegers.
The struggle was prolonged throughout the summer; and when, in November,
886, Charles the Fat at last appeared before Paris, “with a large army of
all nations,” it was to purchase the retreat of the Northmen at the cost
of a heavy ransom, and by allowing them to go and winter in Burgundy,
“whereof the inhabitants obeyed not the emperor.”
Some months afterwards, in 887, Charles the Fat was deposed, at a diet
held on the banks of the Rhine, by the grandees of Germanic France; and
Arnulf, a natural son of Carloman, the brother of Louis III., was
proclaimed emperor in his stead. At the same time Count Eudes, the
gallant defender of Paris, was elected king at Compiegne and crowned by
the Archbishop of Sens. Guy, duke of Spoleto, descended from Charlemagne
in the female line, hastened to France and was declared king at Langres
by the bishop of that town, but returned with precipitation to Italy,
seeing no chance of maintaining himself in his French kingship.
Elsewhere, Boso, duke of Arles, became king of Provence, and the
Burgundian Count Rodolph had himself crowned at St. Maurice, in the
Valais, king of transjuran Burgundy. There was still in France a
legitimate Carlovingian, a son of Louis the Stutterer, who was hereafter
to become Charles the Simple; but being only a child, he had been
rejected or completely forgotten, and, in the interval that was to elapse
ere his time should arrive, kings were being made in all directions.
[Illustration: Count Eudes re-entering Paris right through the Besiegers-
---262]
In the midst of this confusion, the Northmen, though they kept at a
distance from Paris, pursued in Western France their cruising and
plundering. In Rollo they had a chieftain far superior to his vagabond
predecessors. Though he still led the same life that they had, he
displayed therein other faculties, other inclinations, other views. In
his youth he had made an expedition to England, and had there contracted
a real friendship with the wise King Alfred the Great. During a campaign
in Friesland he had taken prisoner Rainier, count of Hainault; and
Alberade, countess of Brabant, made a request to Rollo for her husband’s
release, offering in return to set free twelve captains of the Northmen,
her prisoners, and to give up all the gold she possessed. Rollo took
only half the gold, and restored to the countess her husband. When, in
885, he became master of Rouen, instead of devastating the city, after
the fashion of his kind, he respected the buildings, had the walls
repaired, and humored the inhabitants. In spite of his violent and
extortionate practices where he met with obstinate resistance, there were
to be discerned in him symptoms of more noble sentiments and of an
instinctive leaning towards order, civilization, and government. After
the deposition of Charles the Fat and during the reign of Eudes, a lively
struggle was maintained between the Frankish king and the chieftain of
the Northmen, who had neither of them forgotten their early encounters.
They strove, one against the other, with varied fortunes; Eudes succeeded
in beating the Northmen at Montfaucon, but was beaten in Vermandois by
another band, commanded, it is said, by the veteran Hastings, sometime
count of Chartres. Rollo, too, had his share at one time of success, at
another of reverse; but he made himself master of several important
towns, showed a disposition to treat the quiet populations gently, and
made a fresh trip to England, during which he renewed friendly relations
with her king, Athelstan, the successor of Alfred the Great. He thus
became, from day to day, more reputable as well as more formidable in
France, insomuch that Eudes himself was obliged to have recourse, in
dealing with him, to negotiations and presents. When, in 898, Eudes was
dead, and Charles the Simple, at hardly nineteen years of age, had been
recognized sole king of France, the ascendency of Rollo became such that
the necessity of treating with him was clear. In 911, Charles, by the
advice of his councillors, and, amongst them, of Robert, brother of the
late king, Eudes, who had himself become count of Paris and duke of
France, sent to the chieftain of the Northmen Franco, archbishop of
Rouen, with orders to offer him the cession of a considerable portion of
Neustria and the hand of his young daughter Giscle, on condition that he
became a Christian and acknowledged himself the king’s vassal. Rollo, by
the advice of his comrades, received these overtures with a good grace,
and agreed to a truce for three months, during which they might treat
about peace. On the day fixed, Charles accompanied by Duke Robert, and
Rollo, surrounded by his warriors, repaired to St. Clair-sur-Epte, on the
opposite banks of the river, and exchanged numerous messages. Charles
offered Rollo Flanders, which the Northman refused, considering it too
swampy; as to the maritime portion of Neustria, he would not be contented
with it; it was, he said, covered with forests, and had become quite a
stranger to the plough-share by reason of the Northmen’s incessant
incursions; he demanded the addition of territories taken from Brittany,
and that the princes of that province, Berenger and Alan, lords,
respectively, of Redon and Del, should take the oath of fidelity to him.
When matters had been arranged on this basis, “the bishops told Rollo
that he who received such a gift as the duchy of Normandy was bound to
kiss the king’s foot. ‘Never,’ quoth Rollo, ‘will I bend the knee before
the knees of any, and I will kiss the foot of none.’ At the solicitation
of the Franks he then ordered one of his warriors to kiss the king’s
foot. The Northman, remaining bolt upright, took hold of the king’s
foot, raised it to his mouth, and so made the king fall backward, which
caused great bursts of laughter and much disturbance amongst the throng.
Then the king and all the grandees who were about him, prelates, abbots,
dukes, and counts, swore, in the name of the Catholic faith, that they
would protect the patrician Rollo in his life, his members, and his folk,
and would guarantee to him the possession of the aforesaid land, to him
and his descendants forever. After which the king, well satisfied,
returned to his domains; and Rollo departed with Duke Robert for the town
of Rouen.”
The dignity of Charles the Simple had no reason to be well satisfied; but
the great political question which, a century before, caused Charlemagne
such lively anxiety, was solved; the most dangerous, the most incessantly
renewed of all foreign invasions, those of the Northmen, ceased to
threaten France. The vagabond pirates had a country to cultivate and
defend; the Northmen were becoming French.
No such transformation was near taking place in the case of the invasions
of the Saracens in Southern Gaul; they continued to infest Aquitania,
Septimania, and Provence; their robber-hordes appeared frequently on the
coasts of the Mediterranean and the banks of the Rhone, at Aigues-Mortes,
at Marseilles, at Arles, and in Camargue; they sometimes penetrated into
Dauphine, Rouergue, Limousin, and Saintonge. The author of this history
saw, at the commencement of the present century, in the mountains of the
Cevennes, the ruins of the towers built, a thousand years ago, by the
inhabitants of those rugged countries, to put their families and their
flocks under shelter from the incursions of the Saracens. But these
incursions were of short duration, and most frequently undertaken by
plunderers few in number, who retreated precipitately with their booty.
Africa was not, as Asia was, an inexhaustible source of nations burning
to push onward, one upon another, to go wandering and settling elsewhere.
The people of the north move willingly towards the south, where living is
easier and pleasanter; but the people of the south are not much disposed
to migrate to the north, with its soil so hard to cultivate, and its
leaden skies, and into the midst of its fogs and frosts. After a course
of plundering in Aquitania or in Provence, the Arabs of Spain and of
Africa were eager to recross the Pyrenees or the Mediterranean, and
regain their own lovely climate, and their life of easefulness that never
palled. Furthermore, between Christians and Mussulmans the religious
antipathy was profound. The Christian missionaries were not much given
to carrying their pious zeal into the home of the Mussulman; and the
Mussulmans were far less disposed than the pagans to become Christians.
To preserve their conquests, the Arabs of Spain had to struggle against
the refugee Goths in the Asturias; and Charlemagne, by extending those of
the Franks to the Ebro, had given the Christian Goths a powerful alliance
against the Spanish Mussulmans. For all these reasons, the invasions of
the Saracens in the south of France did not threaten, as those of the
Northmen did in the north, the security of the Gallo-Frankish monarchy,
and the Gallo-Roman populations of the south were able to defend their
national independence at the same time against the Saracens and the
Franks. They did so successfully in the ninth and tenth centuries; and
the French monarchy, which was being founded between the Loire and the
Rhine, had thus for some time a breach in it, without ever suffering
serious displacement.
A new people, the Hungarians, which was the only name then given to the
Magyars, appeared at this epoch, for the first time, amongst the
devastators of Western Europe. From 910 to 954, as a consequence of
movements and wars on the Danube, Hungarian hordes, after scouring
Central Germany, penetrated into Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne, Burgundy,
Berry, Dauphine, Provence, and even Aquitaine; but this inundation was
transitory, and if the populations of those countries had much to suffer
from it, the Gallo-Frankish dominion, in spite of inward disorder and the
feebleness of the latter Carlovingians, was not seriously endangered
thereby.
And so the first of Charlemagne’s grand designs, the territorial security
of the Gallo-Frankish and Christian dominion, was accomplished. In the
east and the north, the Germanic and Asiatic populations, which had so
long upset it, were partly arrested at its frontiers, partly incorporated
regularly in its midst. In the south, the Mussulman populations which,
in the eighth century, had appeared so near overwhelming it, were
powerless to deal it any heavy blow. Substantially France was founded.
But what had become of Charlemagne’s second grand design, the
resuscitation of the Roman empire at the hands of the barbarians
that had conquered it and become Christians?
Let us leave Louis the Debonnair his traditional name, although it is not
an exact rendering of that which was given him by his contemporaries.
They called him Louis the Pious. And so indeed he was, sincerely and
even scrupulously pious; but he was still more weak than pious, as weak
in heart and character as in mind, as destitute of ruling ideas as of
strength of will; fluctuating at the mercy of transitory impressions, or
surrounding influences, or positional embarrassments. The name of
Debonnair is suited to him; it expresses his moral worth and his
political incapacity, both at once.
As king of Aquitania, in the time of Charlemagne, Louis made himself
esteemed and loved; his justice, his suavity, his probity, and his piety
were pleasing to the people, and his weaknesses disappeared under the
strong hand of his father. When he became emperor, he began his reign by
a reaction against the excesses, real or supposed, of the preceding
reign. Charlemagne’s morals were far from regular, and he troubled
himself but little about the license prevailing in his family or his
palace. At a distance he ruled with a tight and a heavy hand. Louis
established at his court, for his sisters as well as his servants,
austere regulations. He restored to the subjugated Saxons certain of the
rights of which Charlemagne had deprived them. He sent out everywhere
his commissioners (_missi dominici_) with orders to listen to complaints
and redress grievances, and to mitigate his father’s rule, which was
rigorous in its application, and yet insufficient to repress disturbance,
notwithstanding its preventive purpose and its watchful supervision.
Almost simultaneously with his accession, Louis committed an act more
serious and compromising. He had, by his wife Hermengarde, three sons,
Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis, aged respectively nineteen, eleven, and
eight. In 817 Louis summoned at Aix-la-Chapelle the general assembly of
his dominions; and there, whilst declaring that “neither to those who
were wisely-minded, nor to himself, did it appear expedient to break up,
for the love he bare his sons and by the will of man, the unity of the
empire, preserved by God himself,” he had resolved to share with his
eldest son, Lothaire, the imperial throne. Lothaire was in fact crowned
emperor; and his two brothers, Pepin and Louis, were crowned king, “in
order that they might reign, after their father’s death and under their
brother and lord, Lothaire, to wit: Pepin, over Aquitaine and a great
part of Southern Gaul and of Burgundy; Louis, beyond the Rhine, over
Bavaria and the divers peoplets in the east of Germany.” The rest of
Gaul and of Germany, as well as the kingdom of Italy, was to belong to
Lothaire, emperor and head of the Frankish monarchy, to whom his brothers
would have to repair year by year to come to an understanding with him
and receive his instructions. The last-named kingdom, the most
considerable of the three, remained under the direct government of Louis
the Debonnair, and at the same time of his son Lothaire, sharing the
title of emperor. The two other sons, Pepin and Louis, entered,
notwithstanding their childhood, upon immediate possession, the one of
Aquitaine and the other of Bavaria, under the superior authority of their
father and their brother, the joint emperors.
Charlemagne had vigorously maintained the unity of the empire, for all
that he had delegated to two of his sons, Pepin and Louis, the government
of Italy and Aquitaine, with the title of king. Louis the Debonnair,
whilst regulating beforehand the division of his dominion, likewise
desired, as he said, to maintain the unity of the empire. But he forgot
that he was no Charlemagne.
It was not long before numerous mournful experiences showed to what
extent the unity of the empire required personal superiority in the
emperor, and how rapid would be the decay of the fabric when there
remained nothing but the title of the founder.
In 816 Pope Stephen IV. came to France to consecrate Louis the Debonnair
emperor. Many a time already the Popes had rendered the Frankish kings
this service and honor. The Franks had been proud to see their king,
Charlemagne, protecting Adrian I. against the Lombards; then crowned
emperor at Rome by Leo III., and then having his two sons, Pepin and
Louis, crowned at Rome, by the same Pope, kings respectively of Italy and
of Aquitaine. On these different occasions, Charlemagne, whilst
testifying the most profound respect for the Pope, had, in his relations
with him, always taken care to preserve, together with his political
greatness, all his personal dignity. But when, in 816, the Franks saw
Louis the Pious not only go out of Rheims to meet Stephen IV., but
prostrate himself, from head to foot, and rise only when the Pope held
out a hand to him, the spectators felt saddened and humiliated at the
sight of their emperor in the posture of a penitent monk.
Several insurrections burst out in the empire; the first amongst the
Basques of Aquitaine; the next in Italy, where Bernard, son of Pepin,
having, after his father’s death, become king in 812, with the consent of
his grandfather Charlemagne, could not quietly see his kingdom pass into
the hands of his cousin Lothaire at the orders of his uncle Louis. These
two attempts were easily repressed, but the third was more serious. It
took place in Brittany, amongst those populations of Armorica who were
still buried in their woods, and were excessively jealous of their
independence. In 818 they took for king one of their principal
chieftains, named Morvan; and, not confining themselves to a refusal of
all tribute to the king of the Franks, they renewed their ravages upon
the Frankish territories bordering on their frontier. Louis was at that
time holding a general assembly of his dominions at Aix-la-Chapelle; and
Count Lantbert, commandant of the marches of Brittany, came and reported
to him what was going on. A Frankish monk, named Ditcar, happened to be
at the assembly: he was a man of piety and sense, a friend of peace, and,
moreover, with some knowledge of the Breton king Morvan, as his monastery
had property in the neighborhood. Him the emperor commissioned to convey
to the king his grievances and his demands. After some days’ journey the
monk passed the frontier, and arrived at a vast space enclosed on one
side by a noble river, and on all the others by forests and swamps,
hedges and ditches. In the middle of this space was a large dwelling,
which was Morvan’s. Ditcar found it full of warriors, the king having,
no doubt, some expedition on hand. The monk announced himself as a
messenger from the emperor of the Franks. The style of announcement
caused some confusion, at first, to the Briton, who, however, hasted to
conceal his emotion under an air of good-will and joyousness, to impose
upon his comrades. The latter were got rid of; and the king remained
alone with the monk, who explained the object of his mission. He
descanted upon the power of the Emperor Lotus, recounted his complaints,
and warned the Briton, kindly and in a private capacity, of the danger of
his situation, a danger so much the greater in that he and his people
would meet with the less consideration, seeing that they kept up the
religion of their Pagan forefathers. Morvan gave attentive ear to this
sermon, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his foot tapping it from
time to time. Ditcar thought he had succeeded; but an incident
supervened. It was the hour when Morvan’s wife was accustomed to come
and look for him ere they retired to the nuptial couch. She appeared,
eager to know who the stranger was, what he had come for, what he had
said, what answer he had received. She preluded her questions with
oglings and caresses; she kissed the knees, the hands, the beard, and the
face of the king, testifying her desire to be alone with him. “O king
and glory of the mighty Britons, dear spouse of mine, what tidings
bringeth this stranger? Is it peace, or is it war?” “This stranger,”
answered Morvan with a smile, “is an envoy of the Franks; but bring he
peace or bring he war, is the affair of men alone; as for thee, content
thee with thy woman’s duties.” Thereupon Ditcar, perceiving that he was
countered, said to Morvan, “Sir king, ‘tis time that I return; tell me
what answer I am to take back to my sovereign.” “Leave me this night to
take thought thereon,” replied the Breton chief, with a wavering air.
When the morning came, Ditcar presented himself once more to Morvan, whom
he found up, but still half-drunk, and full of very different sentiments
from those of the night before. It required some effort, stupefied and
tottering as he was with the effects of wine and the pleasures of the
night, to say to Ditcar, “Go back to thy king, and tell him from me that
my land was never his, and that I owe him nought of tribute or
submission. Let him reign over the Franks; as for me, I reign over the
Britons. If he will bring war on me, he will find me ready to pay him
back.”
The monk returned to Louis the Debonnair, and rendered account of his
mission. War was resolved upon; and the emperor collected his troops,
Allemannians, Saxons, Thuringians, Burgundians, and Aquitanians, without
counting Franks or Gallo-Romans. They began their march, moving upon
Vannes; Louis was at their head, and the empress accompanied him, but he
left her, already ill and fatigued, at Angers. The Franks entered the
country of the Britons, searched the woods and morasses, found no armed
men in the open country, but encountered them in scattered and scanty
companies, at the entrance of all the defiles, on the heights commanding
pathways, and wherever men could hide themselves and await the moment for
appearing unexpectedly. The Franks heard them, from amidst the heather
and the brushwood, uttering shrill cries, to give warning one to another,
or to alarm the enemy. The Franks advanced cautiously, and at last
arrived at the entrance of the thick wood which surrounded Morvan’s
abode. He had not yet set out with the pick of the warriors he had about
him; but, at the approach of the Franks, he summoned his wife and his
domestics, and said to them, “Defend ye well this house and these woods;
as for me, I am going to march forward to collect my people; after which
to return, but not without booty and spoils.” He put on his armor, took
a javelin in each hand, and mounted his horse. “Thou seest,” said he to
his wife, “these javelins I brandish: I will bring them back to thee this
very day dyed with the blood of Franks. Farewell.” Setting out he
pierced, followed by his men, through the thickness of the forest, and
advanced to meet the Franks.
The battle began. The large numbers of the Franks, who covered the
ground for some distance, dismayed the Britons, and many of them fled,
seeking where they might hide themselves. Morvan, beside himself with
rage, and at the head of his most devoted followers, rushed down upon the
Franks as if to demolish them at a single stroke; and many fell beneath
his blows. He singled out a warrior of inferior grade, towards whom he
made at a gallop, and, insulting him by word of mouth, after the ancient
fashion of the Celtic warriors, cried, “Frank, I am going to give thee my
first present, a present which I have been keeping for thee a long while,
and which I hope thou wilt bear in mind;” and launched at him a javelin,
which the other received on his shield. “Proud Briton,” replied the
Frank, “I have received thy present, and I am going to give thee mine.”
He dug both spurs into his horse’s sides, and galloped down upon Morvan,
who, clad though he was in a coat of mail, fell pierced by the thrust of
a lance. The Frank had but time to dismount and cut off his head, when
he fell himself, mortally wounded by one of Morvan’s young warriors, but
not without having, in his turn, dealt the other his death-blow.
It spreads on all sides that Morvan is dead; and the Franks come
thronging to the scene of the encounter. There is picked up and passed
from hand to hand a head all bloody and fearfully disfigured. Ditcar the
monk is called to see it, and to say whether it is that of Morvan; but he
has to wash the mass of disfigurement, and to partially adjust the hair,
before he can pronounce that it is really Morvan’s. There is then no
more doubt; resistance is now impossible; the widow, the family, and the
servants of Morvan arrive, are brought before Louis the Debonnair, accept
all the conditions imposed upon them, and the Franks withdraw with the
boast that Brittany is henceforth their tributary. (_Faits et testes de
Louis le Picux,_ a poem by Ermold le Noir, in M. Guizot’s _Collection des
Memoires relatifs L’Histoire de France,_ t. iv., p. 1-113.--Fauriel,
_Histoire de la Gaule,_ etc., t. iv., p. 77-88.)
[Illustration: Ditcar the Monk recognizing the Head of Morvan----273]
On arriving at Angers, Louis found the Empress Hermengarde dying; and two
days afterwards she was dead. He had a tender heart, which was not proof
against sorrow; and he testified a desire to abdicate and turn monk. But
he was dissuaded from his purpose; for it was easy to influence his
resolutions. A little later, he was advised to marry again, and he
yielded. Several princesses were introduced; and he chose Judith of
Bavaria, daughter of Count Welf (Guelf), a family already powerful and in
later times celebrated. Judith was young, beautiful, witty, ambitious,
and skilled in the art of making the gift of pleasing subserve the
passion for ruling. Louis, during his expedition into Brittany, had just
witnessed the fatal result of a woman’s empire over her husband; he was
destined himself to offer a more striking and more long-lived example of
it. In 823, he had, by his new empress Judith, a son, whom he called
Charles, and who was hereafter to be known as Charles the Bald. This son
became his mother’s ruling, if not exclusive, passion, and the source of
his father’s woes. His birth could not fail to cause ill-temper and
mistrust in Louis’s three sons by Hermengarde, who were already kings.
They had but a short time previously received the first proof of their
father’s weakness. In 822, Louis, repenting of his severity towards his
nephew, Bernard of Italy, whose eyes he had caused to be put out as a
punishment for rebellion, and who had died in consequence, considered
himself bound to perform at Attigny, in the church and before the people,
a solemn act of penance; which was creditable to his honesty and piety,
but the details left upon the minds of the beholders an impression
unfavorable to the emperor’s dignity and authority. In 829, during an
assembly held at Worms, he, yielding to his wife’s entreaties and
doubtless also to his own yearnings towards his youngest son, set at
nought the solemn act whereby, in 817, he had shared his dominions
amongst his three elder sons; and took away from two of them, in Burgundy
and Allemannia, some of the territories he had assigned to them, and gave
them to the boy Charles for his share. Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis
thereupon revolted. Court rivalries were added to family differences.
The emperor had summoned to his side a young Southron, Bernard by name,
duke of Septimania and son of Count William of Toulouse, who had
gallantly fought the Saracens. He made him his chief chamberlain and his
favorite counsellor. Bernard was bold, ambitious, vain, imperious, and
restless. He removed his rivals from court, and put in their places his
own creatures. He was accused not only of abusing the emperor’s favor,
but even of carrying on a guilty intrigue with the Empress Judith. There
grew up against him, and, by consequence, against the emperor, the
empress, and their youngest son a powerful opposition, in which certain
ecclesiastics, and, amongst them, Wala, abbot of Corbie, cousin-german
and but lately one of the privy counsellors of Charlemagne, joined
eagerly. Some had at heart the unity of the empire, which Louis was
breaking up more and more; others were concerned for the spiritual
interests of the Church which Louis, in spite of his piety and by reason
of his weakness, often permitted to be attacked. Thus strengthened, the
conspirators considered themselves certain of success. They had the
empress Judith carried off and shut up in the convent of St. Radegonde at
Poitiers; and Louis in person came to deliver himself up to them at
Compiegne, where they were assembled. There they passed a decree to the
effect that the power and title of emperor were transferred from Louis to
Lothaire, his eldest son; that the act whereby a share of the empire had
but lately beer assigned to Charles was annulled; and that the act of
817, which had regulated the partition of Louis’s dominions after his
death, was once more in force. But soon there was a burst of reaction in
favor of the emperor; Lothaire’s two brothers, jealous of his late
elevation, made overtures to their father; the ecclesiastics were a
little ashamed at being mixed up in a revolt; the people felt pity for
the poor, honest emperor; and a general assembly, meeting at Nimeguen,
abolished the acts of Compiegne, and restored to Louis his title and his
power. But it was not long before there was revolt again, originating
this time with Pepin, king of Aquitaine. Louis fought him, and gave
Aquitaine to Charles the Bald. The alliance between the three sons of
Hermengarde was at once renewed; they raised an army; the emperor marched
against them with his; and the two hosts met between Colmar and Bale, in
a place called le Champ rouge (the field of red). Negotiations were set
on foot; and Louis was called upon to leave his wife Judith and his son
Charles, and put himself under the guardianship of his elder sons. He
refused; but, just when the conflict was about to commence, desertion
took place in Louis’s army; most of the prelates, laics, and men-at-arms
who had accompanied him passed over to the camp of Lothaire; and the
field of red became the field of falsehood (_le Champ du mensonge_).
Louis, left almost alone, ordered his attendants to withdraw, “being
unwilling,” he said, “that any one of them should lose life or limb on
his account,” and surrendered to his sons. They received him with great
demonstrations of respect, but without relinquishing the prosecution of
their enterprise. Lothaire hastily collected an assembly, which
proclaimed him emperor, with the addition of divers territories to the
kingdoms of Aquitaine and Bavaria: and, three months afterwards, another
assembly, meeting at Compiegne, declared the Emperor Louis to have
forfeited the crown, “for having, by his faults and incapacity, suffered
to sink so sadly low the empire which had been raised to grandeur and
brought into unity by Charlemagne and his predecessors.” Louis submitted
to this decision; himself read out aloud, in the church of St. Medard at
Soissons, but not quite unresistingly, a confession, in eight articles,
of his faults, and, laying his baldric upon the altar, stripped off his
royal robe, and received from the hands of Ebbo, archbishop of Rheims,
the gray vestment of a penitent.
Lothaire considered his father dethroned for good, and himself henceforth
sole emperor; but he was mistaken. For six years longer the scenes which
have just been described kept repeating themselves again and again;
rivalries and secret plots began once more between the three victorious
brothers and their partisans; popular feeling revived in favor of Louis;
a large portion of the clergy shared it; several counts of Neustria and
Burgundy appeared in arms in the name of the deposed emperor; and the
seductive and able Judith came afresh upon the scene, and gained over to
the cause of her husband and her son a multitude of friends. In 834, two
assemblies, one meeting at St. Denis and the other at Thionville,
annulled all the acts of the assembly of Compiegne, and for the third
time put Louis in possession of the imperial title and power. He
displayed no violence in his use of it; but he was growing more and more
irresolute and weak, when, in 838, the second of his rebellious sons,
Pepin, king of Aquitaine, died suddenly. Louis, ever under the sway of
Judith, speedily convoked at Worms, in 839, once more and for the last
time, a general assembly, whereat, leaving his son Louis of Bavaria
reduced to his kingdom in Eastern Europe, he divided the rest of his
dominions into two nearly equal parts, separated by the course of the
Meuse and the Rhone. Between these two parts he left the choice to
Lothaire, who took the eastern portion, promising at the same time to
guarantee the western portion to his younger brother Charles. Louis the
Germanic protested against this partition, and took up arms to resist it.
His father, the emperor, set himself in motion towards the Rhine, to
reduce him to submission; but, on arriving close to Mayence, he caught a
violent fever, and died on the 20th of June, 840, at the castle of
Ingelheim, on a little island in the river. His last acts were a fresh
proof of his goodness towards even his rebellious sons, and of his
solicitude for his last-born. He sent to Louis the Germanic his pardon,
and to Lothaire the golden crown and sword, at the same time bidding him
fulfil his father’s wishes on behalf of Charles and Judith.
There is no telling whether, in the credulousness of his good nature,
Louis had, at his dying hour, any great confidence in the appeal he made
to his son Lothaire, and in the impression which would be produced on his
other son, Louis of Bavaria, by the pardon bestowed. The prayers of the
dying are of little avail against violent passions and barbaric manners.
Scarcely was Louis the Debonnair dead, when Lothaire was already
conspiring against young Charles, and was in secret alliance, for his
despoilment, with Pepin II., the late king of Aquitaine’s son, who had
taken up arms for the purpose of seizing his father’s kingdom, in the
possession of which his grandfather Louis had not been pleased to confirm
him. Charles suddenly learned that his mother Judith was on the point of
being besieged in Poitiers by the Aquitanians; and, in spite of the
friendly protestations sent to him by Lothaire, it was not long before he
discovered the plot formed against him. He was not wanting in shrewdness
or energy; and, having first provided for his mother’s safety, he set
about forming an alliance, in the cause of their common interests, with
his other brother, Louis the Germanic, who was equally in danger from the
ambition of Lothaire. The historians of the period do not say what
negotiator was employed by Charles on this distant and delicate mission;
but several circumstances indicate that the Empress Judith herself
undertook it; that she went in quest of the king of Bavaria; and that it
was she who, with her accustomed grace and address, determined him to
make common cause with his younger against their eldest brother. Divers
incidents retarded for a whole year the outburst of this family plot, and
of the war of which it was the precursor. The position of the young King
Charles appeared for some time a very bad one; but “certain chieftains,”
says the historian Nithard, “faithful to his mother and to him, and
having nothing more to lose than life or limb, chose rather to die
gloriously than to betray their king.” The arrival of Louis the Germanic
with his troops helped to swell the forces and increase the confidence of
Charles; and it was on the 21st of June, 841, exactly a year after the
death of Louis the Debonnair, that the two armies, that of Lothaire and
Pepin on the one side, and that of Charles the Bald and Louis the
Germanic on the other, stood face to face in the neighborhood of the
village of Fontenailles, six leagues from Auxerre, on the rivulet of
Audries. Never, according to such evidence as is forthcoming, since the
battle on the plains of Chalons against the Huns, and that of Poitiers
against the Saracens, had so great masses of men been engaged. “There
would be nothing untruthlike,” says that scrupulous authority, M.
Fauriel, “in putting the whole number of combatants at three hundred
thousand; and there is nothing to show that either of the two armies was
much less numerous than the other.” However that may be, the leaders
hesitated for four days to come to blows; and whilst they were
hesitating, the old favorite not only of Louis the Debonnair, but also,
according to several chroniclers, of the Empress Judith, held himself
aloof with his troops in the vicinity, having made equal promise of
assistance to both sides, and waiting, to govern his decision, for the
prospect afforded by the first conflict. The battle began on the 25th of
June, at daybreak, and was at first in favor of Lothaire; but the troops
of Charles the Bald recovered the advantage which had been lost by Louis
the Germanic, and the action was soon nothing but a terribly simple scene
of carnage between enormous masses of men, charging hand to hand, again
and again, with a front extending over a couple of leagues. Before
midday the slaughter, the plunder, the spoliation of the dead--all was
over; the victory of Charles and Louis was complete the victors had
retired to their camp, and there remained nothing on the field of battle
but corpses in thick heaps or a long line, according as they had fallen
in the disorder of flight or steadily fighting in their ranks. . . .
“Accursed be this day!” cries Angilbert, one of Lothaire’s officers, in
rough Latin verse; “be it unnumbered in the return of the year, but wiped
out of all remembrance! Be it unlit by the light of the sun! Be it
without either dawn or twilight! Accursed, also, be this night, this
awful night in which fell the brave, the most expert in battle! Eye
ne’er hath seen more fearful slaughter: in streams of blood fell
Christian men; the linen vestments of the dead did whiten the champaign
even as it is whitened by the birds of autumn!”
In spite of this battle, which appeared a decisive one, Lothaire made
zealous efforts to continue the struggle; he scoured the countries
wherein he hoped to find partisans: to the Saxons he promised the
unrestricted re-establishment of their pagan worship, and several of the
Saxon tribes responded to his appeal. Louis the Germanic and Charles the
Bald, having information of these preliminaries, resolved to solemnly
renew their alliance; and, seven months after their victory at
Fontenailles, in February, 842, they repaired both of them, each with his
army, to Argentaria, on the right bank of the Rhine, between Bale and
Strasbourg, and there, at an open-air meeting, Louis first, addressing
the chieftains about him in the German tongue, said, “Ye all know how
often, since our father’s death, Lothaire hath attacked us, in order to
destroy us, this my brother and me. Having never been able, as brothers
and Christians, or in any just way, to obtain peace from him, we were
constrained to appeal to the judgment of God. Lothaire was beaten and
retired, whither he could, with his following; for we, restrained by
paternal affection and moved with compassion for Christian people, were
unwilling to pursue them to extermination. Neither then nor aforetime
did we demand ought else save that each of us should be maintained in his
rights. But he, rebelling against the judgment of God, ceaseth not to
attack us as enemies, this my brother and me; and he destroyeth our
peoples with fire and pillage and the sword. That is the cause which
hath united us afresh; and, as we trove that ye doubt the soundness of
our alliance and our fraternal union, we have resolved to bind ourselves
afresh by this oath in your presence, being led thereto by no prompting
of wicked covetousness, but only that we may secure our common advantage
in case that, by your aid, God should cause us to obtain peace. If,
then, I violate--which God forbid--this oath that I am about to take to
my brother, I hold you all quit of submission to me and of the faith ye
have sworn to me.”
Charles repeated this speech, word for word, to his own troops, in the
Romance language, in that idiom derived from a mixture of Latin and of
the tongues of ancient Gaul, and spoken, thenceforth, with varieties of
dialect and pronunciation, in nearly all parts of Frankish Gaul. After
this address, Louis pronounced and Charles repeated after him, each in
his own tongue, the oath couched in these terms: “For the love of God,
for the Christian people, and for our common weal, from this day forth
and so long as God shall grant me power and knowledge, I will defend this
my brother, and will be an aid to him in everything, as one ought to
defend his brother, provided that he do likewise unto me; and I will
never make with Lothaire any covenant which may be, to my knowledge, to
the damage of this my brother.”
When the two brothers had thus sworn, the two armies, officers and men,
took, in their turn, a similar oath, going bail, in a mass, for the
engagements of their kings. Then they took up their quarters, all of
them, for some time, between Worms and Mayence, and followed up their
political proceeding with military fetes, precursors of the knightly
tournaments of the middle ages. “A place of meeting was fixed,” says the
contemporary historian Nithard, “at a spot suitable for this kind of
exercises. Here were drawn up, on one side, a certain number of
combatants, Saxons, Vasconians, Austrasians, or Britons; there were
ranged, on the opposite side, an equal number of warriors, and the two
divisions advanced, each against the other, as if to attack. One of
them, with their bucklers at their backs, took to flight, as if to seek,
in the main body, shelter against those who were pursuing them; then
suddenly, facing about, they dashed out in pursuit of those before whom
they had just been flying. This sport lasted until the two kings,
appearing with all the youth of their suites, rode up at a gallop,
brandishing their spears and chasing first one lot and then the other It
was a fine sight to see so much temper amongst so many valiant folks, for
great as were the number and the mixture of different nationalities, no
one was insulted or maltreated, though the contrary is often the case
amongst men in small numbers and known one to another.”
After four or five months of tentative measures or of incidents which
taught both parties that they could not, either of them, hope to
completely destroy their opponents, the two allied brothers received at
Verdun, whither they had repaired to concert their next movement, a
messenger from Lothaire, with peaceful proposals which they were
unwilling to reject. The principal was that, with the exception of
Italy, Aquitaine, and Bavaria, to be secured without dispute to their
then possessors, the Frankish empire should be divided into three
portions, that the arbiters elected to preside over the partition should
swear to make it as equal as possible, and that Lothaire should have his
choice, with the title of Emperor. About mid June, 842, the three
brothers met on an island of the Saone, near Chalons, where they began to
discuss the questions which divided them; but it was not till more than a
year after, in August, 843, that assembling all three of them, with their
umpires, at Verdun, they at last came to an agreement about the partition
of the Frankish empire, save the three countries which it had been
beforehand agreed to except. Louis kept all the provinces of Germany of
which he was already in possession, and received besides, on the left
bank of the Rhine, the towns of Mayence, Worms, and Spire, with the
territory appertaining to them. Lothaire, for his part, had the eastern
belt of Gaul, bounded on one side by the Rhine and the Alps, on the other
by the courses of the Meuse, the Saone, and the Rhone, starting from the
confluence of the two latter rivers, and, further, the country comprised
between the Meuse and the Scheldt, together with certain countships lying
to the west of that river. To Charles fell all the rest of Gaul:
Vasconia or Biscaye, Septimania, the marches of Spain, beyond the
Pyrenees, and the other countries of Southern Gaul which had enjoyed
hitherto, under the title of the Kingdom of Aquitaine, a special
government subordinated to the general government of the empire, but
distinct from it, lost this last remnant of their Gallo-Roman
nationality, and became integral portions of Frankish Gaul, which fell by
partition to Charles the Bald, and formed one and the same kingdom under
one and the same king.
Thus fell through and disappeared, in 843, by virtue of the treaty of
Verdun, the second of Charlemagne’s grand designs, the resuscitation of
the Roman empire by means of the Frankish and Christian masters of Gaul.
The name of emperor still retained a certain value in the minds of the
people, and still remained an object of ambition to princes; but the
empire was completely abolished, and in its stead sprang up three
kingdoms, independent one of another, without any necessary connection or
relation. One of the three was thenceforth France.
In this great event are comprehended two facts; the disappearance of the
empire and the formation of the three kingdoms which took its place. The
first is easily explained. The resuscitation of the Roman empire had
been a dream of ambition and ignorance on the part of a great man, but a
barbarian. Political unity and central absolute power had been the
essential characteristics of that empire. They became introduced and
established, through a long succession of ages, on the ruins of the
splendid Roman republic, destroyed by its own dissensions, under favor of
the still great influence of the old Roman senate, though fallen from its
high estate, and beneath the guardianship of the Roman legions and
imperial pretorians. Not one of these conditions, not one of these
forces, was to be met with in the Roman world reigned over by
Charlemagne. The nation of the Franks and Charlemagne himself were but
of yesterday; the new emperor had neither ancient senate to hedge at the
same time that it obeyed him, nor old bodies of troops to support him.
Political unity and absolute power were repugnant alike to the
intellectual and the social condition, to the national manners and
personal sentiments of the victorious barbarians. The necessity of
placing their conquests beyond the reach of a new swarm of barbarians and
the personal ascendency of Charlemagne were the only things which gave
his government a momentary gleam of success in the way of unity and of
factitious despotism under the name of empire. In 814, Charlemagne had
made territorial security an accomplished fact; but the personal power he
had exercised disappeared with him. The new Gallo-Frankish community
recovered, under the mighty but gradual influence of Christianity, its
proper and natural course, producing disruption into different local
communities and bold struggles for individual liberties, either one with
another, or against whosoever tried to become their master.
As for the second fact, the formation of the three kingdoms which were
the issue of the treaty of Verdun, various explanations have been given
of it. This distribution of certain peoples of Western Europe into three
distinct and independent groups, Italians, Germans, and French, has been
attributed at one time to a diversity of histories and manners; at
another to geographical causes and to what is called the rule of natural
frontiers; and oftener still to a spirit of nationality and to
differences of language. Let none of these causes be gainsaid; they
all exercised some sort of influence, but they are all incomplete in
themselves and far too redolent of theoretical system. It is true that
Germany, France, and Italy began, at that time, to emerge from the chaos
into which they had been plunged by barbaric invasion and the conquests
of Charlemagne, and to form themselves into quite distinct nations; but
there were in each of the kingdoms of Lothaire, of Louis the Germanic,
and of Charles the Bald, populations widely differing in race, language,
manners, and geographical affinity, and it required many great events and
the lapse of many centuries to bring about the degree of national unity
they now possess. To say nothing touching the agency of individual and
independent forces, which is always considerable, although so many men of
intellect ignore it in the present day, what would have happened, had any
one of the three new kings, Lothaire, or Louis the Germanic, or Charles
the Bald, been a second Charlemagne, as Charlemagne had been a second
Charles Martel? Who can say that, in such a case, the three kingdoms
would have taken the form they took in 843?
Happily or unhappily, it was not so; none of Charlemagne’s successors was
capable of exercising on the events of his time, by virtue of his brain
and his own will, any notable influence. Not that they were all
unintelligent, or timid, or indolent. It has been seen that Louis the
Debonnair did not lack virtues and good intentions; and Charles the Bald
was clear-sighted, dexterous, and energetic; he had a taste for
information and intellectual distinction; he liked and sheltered men of
learning and letters, and to such purpose that, instead of speaking, as
under Charlemagne, of the school of the palace, people called the palace
of Charles the Bald the palace of the school. Amongst the eleven kings
who after him ascended the Carlovingian throne, several, such as Louis
III. and Carloman, and, especially, Louis the Ultramarine (d’Outremer)
and Lothaire, displayed, on several occasions, energy and courage; and
the kings elected, at this epoch, without the pale of the Carlovingian
dynasty--Eudes in 887 and Raoul in 923--gave proofs of a valor both
discreet and effectual. The Carlovingians did not, as the Merovingians
did, end in monkish retirement or shameful inactivity even the last of
them, and the only one termed sluggard, Louis V., was getting ready, when
he died, for an expedition in Spain against the Saracens. The truth is
that, mediocre or undecided or addle-pated as they may have been, they
all succumbed, internally and externally, without initiating and without
resisting, to the course of events, and that, in 987, the fall of the
Carlovingian line was the natural and easily accomplished consequence of
the new social condition which had been preparing in France under the
empire.