Some writers have sought to represent Charlemagne as a royal sage, a
pacific prince, who only took up arms in self-defense. Truth compels a
more faithful though less flattering portraiture. He had no invasion to
dread. The Saracens were scattered, the Avars (Bavarians) weakened, and
the Saxons impotent to carry on any serious war beyond their forests and
marshes. If he led the Franks beyond their own frontiers, it was that
he had, like so many other monarchs, the ambition of reigning over more
nations, and of leaving a high-sounding name to posterity. All that he
attempted beyond the Pyrenees proved abortive. It would have been of
greater value had he subdued the Bretons, so far as to have made them
sooner enter French nationality, instead of contenting himself with a
precarious submission. The conquest of the Lombard kingdom profited
neither France nor Italy, but only the Pope, whose political position it
raised, and whose independence it secured for the future. The country
for which those long wars had the happiest result, was that one which
had suffered most from them, Germany. Before Charlemagne, Almayne was
still Germany—that is to say, a shapeless chaos of pagan or Christian
tribes, but all barbarian, enemies of one another, united by no single
tie. There were Franks, Saxons, Thuringians, and Bavarians. After him
there was a German people, and there will be a kingdom of Germany. It was
great glory for him to have created a people—a glory which few conquerors
have acquired; for they destroy much more than they found. His reign
lasted forty-four years, and may be summed up as an immense and glorious
effort to bring under subjection the barbarian world and all that which
survived the Roman civilization; to put an end to the chaos born of
invasion, and to found a settled state of society in which the authority
of the emperor, closely united to that of the Pope, should maintain order
alike in Church and State—a very difficult problem, which it was given
Charlemagne to solve, but of which all the difficulties did not become
apparent until after his death. The work of Charlemagne, in fact, did
not last. The name of this powerful though rude genius is not the less
surrounded with a lasting glory; and it has remained in the memory of
nations with that of three or four other great men who have done, if not
always the greatest amount of good, at least have made the most noise
in the world. As to Charlemagne, the amount of good accomplished very
far surpasses that which was only vain renown and sterile ambition. He
created modern Germany; and if that chain of nations, the links of which
he had sought to rivet, broke, his great image loomed over the feudal
times as the genius of order, continually inviting the dispersed races to
emerge from chaos, and seek union and peace under the sway of a strong
and renowned chief.
Charlemagne died, January 28, 814, in his seventy-second year, and was
buried at Aix-la-Chapelle, in a church which he had built there after
his Italian conquests, in the Lombard style. Eginhard, his secretary and
friend, who wrote his life, tells us that he was considerably above six
feet in height, and well proportioned in all respects, excepting that
his neck was somewhat too short and thick. His imperial crown, which is
still preserved at Vienna, would fit only the head of a giant. His air
was dignified, but at the same time his manners were social. Charlemagne
had no fewer than five wives; of his four sons, only one survived him,
Louis, the youngest and most incapable, who succeeded him on the imperial
throne.[H]
[To be continued.]
[A] Lewis.
[B] Lewis.
[C] Taylor.
[D] Lewis.
[E] Menzies.
[F] Menzies.
[G] Lewis.
[H] Menzies.