7. Houses were built on a level twenty feet above the pavement.

8. These houses fell into ruin and the _débris_ accumulated to its

present level, viz., forty-five feet above the pavement.

No remains of any second arch of the supposed viaduct have been found;

but three arches with a staircase to west would have sufficed to bridge

the gulf, and there does exist a colonnade in ruins in continuation of

the line of Robinson's arch. It is part of the view which places the

temple at the south-west angle, that the three other gates and roadways

mentioned by Josephus as connecting its west side with the city and

suburbs[32] should be traceable between Robinson's arch and a point 600

feet from the south-west angle. The first of these gates--apparently the

most northern--'led to the king's palace, and went to a passage over the

intermediate valley.' It is remarkable that at a distance of 600 feet

from the south-west angle we have a causeway which crosses the valley,

while from this point the western wall no longer follows the same

direction, but inclines slightly to the westward. This causeway

commences with an arch nearly as large as Robinson's, discovered by Dr.

Barclay, of the United States, measured by Captain Wilson, and known as

Wilson's arch. This arch is now found to be in a perfect condition and

elevated 120 feet above the lowest part of the valley, while the

causeway to west is a succession of vaults on vaults, and is about

eighty feet above the rock. The passage--the way to the king's

palace--has also apparently come to light in the form of a secret

tunnel, which has been traced westward for 250 feet, at which point it

is under the house of Joseph Effendi, and is used as a cistern.

Of the two intermediate gates, the southern should be by calculation 264

feet from the south-west angle of the Haram area; and at 270 feet there

is in the Haram wall an enormous lintel, which was first brought

prominently into notice in this century by Dr. Barclay, in his 'City of

the Great King.' The bottom of the lintel is five feet five inches above

the surface of the ground, and Warren has ascertained that the sill is

about thirty feet below the lintel, while the road up to it seems to

have been by a causeway raised forty-six feet above the rock. We have,

then, in the western portion of the Haram wall two bridges and one gate;

but the most persevering search has not been rewarded by the discovery

of any second gate between the two bridges. Moreover, the spring of

Wilson's arch is seven feet above that of Robinson, its pier is for the

first nineteen feet built up of rough blocks (that of Robinson's of

smooth stones), and the voussoirs are of a style said to be of the later

days of the Roman empire; though, like the more southern arch, it

appears to have had a predecessor on the same spot.

Of the new evidence furnished by the explorations, the balance seems,

after all, to tell against the south-west angle as the site of the

temple. It has already been stated that the original bed of the

Tyropoeon valley comes out through the south wall of the Haram, about

sixty feet from the south-west angle; and it is only stating the fact in

other words to say that for sixty feet the south wall is carried up the

slope of the modern Mount Zion. In the other direction, if we measure

off 600 feet from the south-west angle, to find the south-east corner of

the temple, the wall at that point rests on the highest part of Mount

Moriah, which is not cut by the south front at all. An examination of

the lithographed plan, No. 14, makes such a position seem an unlikely

one for the original wall; for it would be more like building in the

valley than on the hill, would take more material, and be destitute of

symmetry. Next, the rock-cut aqueduct running down the Tyropoeon has

one of its pools half cut through by the west wall; and the north part

of the aqueduct, roofed with flat slabs, appears to be older than the

south, which is vaulted; everything favouring the conclusion that the

aqueduct originally followed the course of the valley, and that when the

wall was built the part of the aqueduct lying outside of it was left

intact, and new lines of arched passage built to connect the older

portions. Unless, therefore, the aqueduct is of pre-Solomonian age, the

west wall was no part of Solomon's Temple at least, though it may have

been included in Herod's.

Add to all this, that the stones at the south-west angle resemble those

at the north-east, and that a temple in the south-west angle would not

face due east, and the evidence in favour of this position is by no

means conclusive.

The courses of stone in the south wall usually run from three feet six

inches to three feet nine inches in height; but between the Double Gate

and the Triple Gate there is a course described by Captain Wilson, from

five feet ten inches to six feet one inch high. Captain Warren found

that this course, with some breaks, is continued to the south-east

angle, and thence runs north along the east wall for twenty-four feet.

The length of this course in the south wall is 600 feet; and the

coincidence of this number with the measurement of the temple cloisters,

is enough to suggest that we may here have a clue, especially since,

through the rising ground under the Triple Gate, this is the first

course of stones which could be carried uninterruptedly through from

east to west. Captain Warren, following this clue, not only found, after

numerous examinations underground, that a perpendicular dropped from the

most westerly stone of this course would pretty well divide the wall

into two parts of different character, but that the rough stones to the

west of this line resemble those at the north-east angle, thus far

favouring the conclusion that these were the parts added by Herod.[33]

The Triple Gate is in the middle of this six feet course of stones, thus

agreeing with the description of Josephus, that the south front of the

temple had 'gates in its middle,' an expression which some have tried to

reconcile with the existence of the Huldah and Triple Gates, at about

equal distances from the angles and from one another, or have construed

as applying to the Huldah Gate alone, which is, however, 365 feet from

the south-west angle.

Under the Triple Gate the rock, as already stated, is highest, and

notwithstanding that the slope is greater to the east than to the west,

there would thus be an appearance of symmetry in the wall which it could

not have if standing entirely west of the Triple Gate. It is worth

notice also that at the Huldah Gate, where, on this view, the temple

would terminate to west, the wall of the city, coming up from the south,

now abuts, indicating that the south-west angle of the Haram is less

ancient than the original city wall at this part, and the city wall less

ancient than the south Haram wall east of Huldah Gate.

Again, the wall of Ophel, which commences at the south-east angle, and

thus favours the view we are considering, runs sixty feet south, then

700 feet south-west, and terminates abruptly at a point nearly due south

of Huldah Gate (see lithographic plan, No. 30), to which, it would seem

possible, its return course may have run. Even Fergusson's argument for

the south-west angle--that the south wall of the platform which now

surrounds the Mosque of Omar runs parallel to the south wall of the

Haram, at a distance of exactly 600 feet, and for a length of 600

feet--is nearly as much in favour of the south-east angle; and Lewin's

argument that Josephus's [Greek: pulas kata meson] must refer to a

double doorway, and therefore to the present Huldah Gate, is balanced by

Warren's discovery that originally the so-called Triple Gate was a

double tunnel.

It is often urged that the sub-structures known as Solomon's stables, in

the south-east corner of the Haram, are of too slight a construction to

bear the cloisters of the temple, and too modern, as well as too

slight;[34] but the floor of these vaults is on a level with the six

feet course of stones previously mentioned--above which level few stones

remain _in situ_--and any previous sub-structures would not have

survived the destruction of the east and south retaining walls. Between

the Triple Gate and the south-east angle is the postern known as the

Single Gate, with its sill on a level with the sill of the Triple Gate,

but itself of modern construction. Below this gate, and below the vaults

within the Haram, at this corner, Warren discovered a passage for

carrying into the Kedron some liquid, and yet wholly distinct from the

water channels under the Triple Gate. Underground Jerusalem so abounds

in aqueducts and passages that it would not be of much force to urge

that this channel conveyed the blood from the altar: yet the suggestion

may be set against any similar one in favour of another site.

Finally, on this point, at the south-east angle, which some had thought

to be modern, the foundations are about eighty feet beneath the surface,

the stones are _in situ_, and some of them have Phoenician masons'

marks painted and chiselled on them. That the stones are _in situ_ is

proved by the circumstance that a small depth of _débris_, which had

been shovelled away to make room for the lowest tier, still remains

close by, and has its layers _sloping inwards_. That the wall is ancient

is thought to be evidenced by the Phoenician characters, which seem

certainly to point to pre-Roman times, and possibly to the time when

Solomon engaged the workmen of Hiram, King of Tyre, to build the temple.

Still, neither is the evidence conclusive here. While the stones at the

north-east angle differ from those at the south-east, and there are

several breaks and irregularities in the masonry of the east wall,

Phoenician marks--though too much blurred to be deciphered--are found

at the north-east angle also; the south-east angle is not a right angle,

but measures 92 deg. 5 min. at the surface, and 92 deg. 25 min. at the

foundation; at 105 feet from the corner there is a break in the

character of the masonry; only the first 120 feet of wall are in the

same straight line, and then there is a bend to the north-east.

The platform, called the Haram area, is nearly on one level all over,

and near its centre is a second platform, about eighteen feet higher,

on which stands the Mosque of Omar, covering the Sakhra, or sacred rock

of the Mahometans, which measures sixty feet by fifty or fifty-five, and

is said by them to be a morsel of Paradise. Thrupp and Falconer suppose

it to be the rock or part of the rock on which stood the tower of

Antonia; Fergusson maintains it to be the Holy Sepulchre, over which

Constantine built a church, and Professor Willis identifies it with the

threshing-floor of Araunah, and therefore with the site of the temple.

As this rock is the highest point of Mount Moriah, and contains a cave

with an opening to a deeper recess which has not been explored, it was

sure thus to suggest itself as the place of the altar whence, according

to the Talmud, the blood and offal of the sacrifices were drained off to

the Kedron. As excavations have not been permitted within the sacred

area, it has not been possible to put this theory to any test; nor can

Warren's accidental discovery of souterrains along the northern edge of

the platform, and of a natural or artificial ditch crossing beyond its

north-west corner, be considered as settling the point either way. It

may be worth a thought that the summit of Moriah may have been a 'high

place' for heathen worship before it occurred to David to build a temple

for God; that on that very account it would perhaps be _avoided_ by the

builders of the temple; and that if Araunah worshipped on any high place

at all, his threshing-floor would not be on the same spot.

Captain Warren is never forward to theorise, but as a provisional

hypothesis during his earlier excavations he favoured the south-east

angle as the probable site of the temple; and now, after three or four

years of investigation, while he has come to no conclusion, he inclines

to a position nearly coincident with the Dome-of-Rock platform. As

Josephus states the stones in Solomon's Cloister--the eastern side of

the temple--to have been twenty cubits long and six cubits high, and

Warren has not found any stones of these dimensions at any point where

he has explored, he naturally thinks the cloister may be in the part he

has not explored, viz., a space of 600 feet between the Golden Gate and

the south-east angle, where a wide Mahometan cemetery makes operations

very difficult.

'Place the temple here, nearly coinciding with the

Dome-of-the Rock Platform, and it appears to suit exactly.

It has the valley to the north; it has the raised platform

of the dome of the rock, which is just about the height of

the inner court above the outer; it has the unexplored 600

feet of wall south of the Golden Gate, and overlooking the

Kedron. But it will be asked, "What about the south-east

angle, with its sub-structures and its walls, with

Phoenician characters inscribed thereon?" I think it was

Solomon's palace.'

One of the objects of the Palestine Exploration Fund is to improve our

knowledge of Jewish archæology, about which we have known next to

nothing. The discoveries in Assyria show us what may be expected; 'for

not only have we been able (says Mr. Layard) through the discoveries of

Sir Henry Rawlinson, Dr. Hincks, and others (Mr. Layard might have added

his own name), to read their written history, and trace their connection

with other nations and races, but by the aid of the sculptures we can

almost learn the details of the private and domestic life of the

Assyrian people--their dress, their arms, and their religious

ceremonies.' If similar discoveries could be made in Palestine, the

greatest light would be thrown upon the political and domestic history

of the Jews, and most important illustrations of the Holy Scriptures

would be obtained. Such discoveries are indeed considered unlikely,

since the Jewish law forbade the representation of the human form in

sculpture or painting; but the Jews did not always scrupulously observe

their law; besides which, the objection does not relate to the discovery

of pottery, glass, coins, metal work, remains of architecture, &c. It

must be confessed, indeed, that the legendary golden throne of King

Solomon, with its eagles, and lions, and doves, has not been found, and

the sceptres of the kings of Judah and Israel have not even been

searched for by the explorers; moreover, most of their labour has been

expended in uncovering massive structures, which cannot be brought home;

yet still, when Mr. Macgregor returned from Jerusalem, he brought with

him nine cases of objects incidentally lighted upon by the excavators,

and in the summer of 1869 the Society was able to open a Museum of

Palestinean Antiquities. The collection included lamps, pottery, glass,

coins, weapons, tesselated pavement, sculpture, sarcophagi, geological

specimens, and a collection of stone weights; besides photographs, and

tracings, maps, and models. Three glass lamps, of curious construction,

with several brigs of red pottery, and a cooking dish, glazed inside,

were found in the rock-cut chambers and passages leading from the

Virgin's Fountain up through the hill of Ophel. The whole of the ground

of Ophel, between the south Haram wall and the Pool of Siloam, has been

built over, and lamps of a particular type have been found there--two of

them with Greek inscriptions--and in no case has any known Arabic

pottery been found. On the other hand, at the Birket Israil--so-called

Pool of Bethesda, where Warren dug through thirty-five feet of rubbish,

and brought up a piece of the concrete bottom--the pottery is totally

different. It is in many cases highly glazed, and has patterns on it,

and when it is unglazed it has bands of red or brown, or other marks,

very similar in appearance to the specimens of pottery found at Athens

and Melos; and yet among this there came to light two pieces of glazed

jars with raised Arabic or Cufic inscriptions, one of them being the

usual invocation to Allah.

Some of the pottery found is older than the south-east portion of the

Haram wall, for on the rock there rests an accumulation of eight or ten

feet of a clay mould, which, from its slope, appears to have been cut

through for the purpose of laying the stones on a solid foundation, and

this clay abounds in pottery, broken into fragments. The rock at the

south-east angle is very soft for the first two or three feet of depth,

and at three feet to the east of the angle a hole was found scooped out

of it, one foot in diameter and one foot in depth, in which was a little

earthenware jar, standing upright, as though it had been purposely

placed there. Warren suggested at the time (February, 1869) that the

purpose may have been religious or superstitious, and that in such cases

inscriptions might be found upon the pottery, if the jars were properly

cleaned. The suggestion has borne fruit in his own experience. Among the

fragments of pottery which for a depth of about two inches covers the

rich loam overlying the rock at the south-east angle some handles of

jars were observed to have a stamp on them, and on this account some

specimens were collected. After his return to England, in 1870, Captain

Warren, getting these out, and dusting the mud off them, observed

Phoenician letters, some of which have since been read by Dr. Birch,

of the British Museum, as _lemelek Zepha_ (to the king Zepha), and which

exactly resemble those of the Moabite stone, of which all the world has

heard. The significance of this discovery will be better understood

after we have considered that of the Moabite stone itself.

The paleographical results achieved by the Palestine Exploration Fund,

when viewed by the side of the many and varied works in other

departments, may seem to be small; but Mr. Deutsch, when speaking at

Oxford,[35] was not wrong in desiring his hearers to count the latter,

but to weigh the former. In a minaret near Nablus, immured upside down,

is an inscribed slab that once belonged to a synagogue, which, though it

does not seem to have been seen by Robinson, was copied by Shultz in

1844, and published by Rödiger; and again copied by Wildenbruck, and

published by Blau. Finally, in 1860, it was copied and explained by

Rosen, whose work left that of his predecessors far behind. Yet even he

does not give all the characters, nor are they so accurately reproduced

as would seem to be absolutely necessary in the case of the oldest known

Samaritan monument; nor has he been able more than to conjecture as to

the reading of the very beginning of the tablet. A photograph, taken

under Captain Wilson, has rendered everything clear, and it turns out

that, owing to the difficulty of the position in which the decipherer is

necessarily placed, it was utterly impossible to perceive certain marks

on the stone itself which are quite clear in the photograph. The tablet

itself exhibits ten lines, the first eight of which contain the Ten

Commandments, according to the Samaritan recension, in an abbreviated

form. The ninth forms a portion of the celebrated Samaritan

interpolation after the Ten Commandments (from Deut. xxvii. 2--7; and

ix. 30)--'And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan ...

on Mount Gerizim ... _and thou shalt build there an altar unto the Lord

thy God_.' The last line contains the formula from Exodus, of frequent

use in Samaritan worship, viz., 'Arise, O Lord; return, O Lord!'[36]

Another photograph gives the famous inscription on the lintel of a

ruined synagogue at Kefr Birim, in Galilee, with greater clearness than

is represented in M. Renan's lithograph, taken from a cast, and is even

clearer than the original itself, certain blurred characters of which it

was next to impossible to distinguish on the glaring white surface. The

gist of the inscription is a prayer for 'peace upon this place and all

the places of Israel,' and an indication of the builder's name. In

addition to these, some dozens of inscriptions have been copied--in the

north of Palestine by Wilson; at Jerash and in the Lebanon by Warren;

and in the Haram area and elsewhere by Mr. E. H. Palmer. Ancient

characters have been ferreted out, and copied from the walls of Sidon;

and a seal, bearing the inscription, 'Haggai, son of Shebaniah,' and

dating as far back as the Maccabean period, has been found under the

buried pavement near the south-west corner of the Haram. The red-paint

characters at the south-east angle of the Haram were examined by Mr.

Deutsch on the spot, and pronounced to be partly letters, partly

numerals, and partly special masons' or quarry signs. Some of them were

recognisable at once as well-known Phoenician characters; others,

hitherto unknown in Phoenician epigraphy, Mr. Deutsch had the rare

satisfaction of being able to identify on absolutely undoubted antique

Phoenician structures in Syria, such as the primitive sub-structures

of the harbour at Sidon. Similar marks at the north-east angle afford

evidence that the stones of the Haram wall were shaped at the quarry,

inasmuch as the paint in one instance has run, and the trickling is

upwards with reference to the present position of the stone. Evidence to

the same effect is furnished by the marginal drafts, which, present no

appearance of pattern or design when the wall is regarded as a whole,

but only when each stone is taken by itself.

The paleographic discovery of paramount interest is that of the Moabite

stone, with a memorial inscription in what is known to scholars as the

'Phoenician' character, and belonging, there is little doubt, to the

first half of the ninth century B.C. In August, 1868, the Rev. F. A.

Klein, a Prussian clergyman, in the service of the Church Missionary

Society at Jerusalem, in the course of a journey from es-Salt to Kerak,

had the good fortune to be shown this monument at Dhibân near Arnon, the

old border of Moab. The stone was lying among the ruins, perfectly free

and exposed to view, the inscription uppermost, and was in excellent

preservation. Mr. Klein ascertained it to be one metre thirteen

centimetres in height, seventy centimetres in breadth and thirty-five in

thickness, rounded at the upper and lower corners,[37] and containing

thirty-four lines of writing. Circumstances prevented his copying more

than 'a few words from several lines at random;' and when afterwards M.

Clermont-Ganneau, of the French Consulate at Jerusalem, Captain Warren,

of the Palestine Exploration Fund, and others, interested themselves to

obtain 'squeezes,' the Arabs resented the action of foreigners,

quarrelled among themselves, and lighting a fire about the stone poured

water on it and broke it to pieces. An Arab employed by M. Ganneau, who

when the quarrel arose was engaged in taking a squeeze, tore off the wet

impression in rags, and springing on his horse managed to escape,

though not without a spear wound in his leg. Through the energy of

Captain Warren and M. Ganneau better squeezes were afterwards obtained

of the larger fragments, and at a later date the fragments themselves

came to hand, so that of 1,000 letters which it is estimated the stone

contained, 669 have been recovered.

While the materials remain imperfect, it is impossible to obtain a

complete translation of the inscription, though various attempts have

been made. M. Ganneau's second translation of June, 1870, differs widely

from that which he put forth five months previously; but then his only

copy of certain parts of the stone was certain torn rags (_lambeaux

frifés et chiffonnés_), and his method of procedure with the fragments

of the stone is thus described:--'La plus grande partie de ces morceaux,

même les plus minimes, peut être mise en place facilement, en tenant

compte de la correspondance horizontale et verticale des séries de

caractères: il suffit de procéder comme pour déterminer la position

géographique d'un point par l'intersection des lignes de longitude et de

latitude.'[38] Translations have also been attempted by Professor

Schlottman, of Halle, Professor Nöldeke, and in this country by Dr.

Neubauer; while Mr. Deutsch has consistently asked scholars and the

public to exercise patience and wait till the full materials for a

translation should come to hand. The general drift of the inscription,

however, is clear enough. It appears to be a contemporaneous record from

the Moabite point of view of 2 Kings i. 1, set up by King Mesha,

commencing with a brief record of himself and his father, commemorating

warlike successes over the Israelites, explaining how he rebuilt and

improved a number of well-known Moabite cities, and finishing apparently

with some further reference to war. The names of Israel, Omri, Chemosh,

occur up and down, and the monarch seems to have conceived himself under

the special guidance of his god, who was thought to signify his will

that this or that city should be attacked, and who was obeyed

implicitly. Historically, therefore, the monument is interesting, since

it is an unexpected record of a nation now passed away, and adds a

trifle to our knowledge.

Paleographically, the stone is of far greater value, and happily of

nearly as much value in its mutilated condition, as it would have been

if perfect. It is the very oldest Semitic lapidary record of importance

yet discovered, the most ancient specimen of the alphabetic writing

still in common use amongst us--a century and a half earlier than any

other inscription in the same Phoenician character, and three

centuries earlier than any other such inscription of any length. Its

significance in this respect is, however, only in process of being

studied, and uniformity of opinion has not yet been arrived at. The

names of the Hebrew letters are all significant of certain

objects--_aleph_, _bêth_, _gimel_, _daleth_, for instance = ox, house,

camel, door, &c.; and it has been maintained by Semitic scholars that

the letters themselves were originally slight and abridged

representations of the visible objects, the resemblance being more

clearly seen in the older Phoenician than in the later Phoenician,

the Assyrian or square character, and archaic Greek.[39] Mr. Deutsch,

who was so careful in the matter of translation, was bold to express

himself here, and to assert from the evidence of the Moabite stone that

'the more primitive the characters the _simpler_ they become; not, as

often supposed, the more complicated, as more in accordance with some

pictorial prototype.'[40] This view is controverted by Professor

Rawlinson, in the _Contemporary Review_ for August, 1870, and, as it

appears to us, successfully; for while the later characters in some

instances present a greater complication to the eye, they are far

simpler to the mind as soon as you imagine yourself engaged in writing

them and exerting the volition separately for each stroke. 'In _samech_

for instance, apparently the most complicated of the later letters, a

gradual diminution in the number of strokes may be traced from first to

last. Originally the letter was written like an early Greek _xi_--thus,

[hand printed character], with four distinct strokes; then the four were

reduced to two by changing the three horizontal bars into a zigzag,

which could be written without taking the hand from the paper, and

adding a vertical bar beneath it; finally, the vertical bar was attached

to one end of the zigzag, and thus made a continuation of it, so that a

single continuous stroke sufficed for the whole letter.... In like

manner, the original _zain_ required three distinct strokes, two

horizontal and one oblique ([hand printed character]), which were

subsequently represented by the form still in use (Z), a form producible

by a single effort, without any removal of the pen from the paper.'

And so with regard to the pictorial origin of the letters. The early

_bêth_ differs from the later solely in having a pointed head instead of

a rounded one. But the object which _bêth_ was intended to represent was

a tent, the earliest 'house' of pastoral man; and this had in primitive

times the simple triangular form, (Delta). Thus the early _bêth_ more

resembled the object than the later one. The early _daleth_ is a simple

triangle; the later has the right side of the triangle elongated, and

the other two generally rounded into one. But _daleth_, 'door,'

represented the opening of a tent, the form of which was like that of

the tent, triangular. For other instances we must refer our readers to

Professor Rawlinson's paper and the plate which accompanies it, merely

remarking in the way of adverse criticism that the square letters of the

Old Testament present a difficulty, since, while they are confessedly of

later origin, such letters as _bêth_, _gimel_, _zain_, _ain_, _kaph_,

_shin_, are less simple in the sense explained, than the older. The

Moabite stone also throws light on the question of the time at which

writing was introduced into Greece, the Greek alphabet of the earliest

inscriptions (circ. B.C. 650-500) resembling that of the Moabite stone

more closely than it does any later alphabet; so that Mr. Grote's

opinion that letters were unknown to the Greeks of Homer's time, and

Hesiod's, is in danger of being proved incorrect.

It is remarkable that a stone measuring three feet six inches in length

and with thirty-four lines of writing on it should have escaped notice

until the year 1868; but since Irby and Mangles visited Moab in 1809,

scarcely any European traveller has passed near the spot where this

monument was found; so that it has been said that the chief value of

this discovery is in the prospect it affords of future successful

exploration. It should be remembered that the Arabs are now aware of the

price Europeans are willing to pay for such relics, and would no doubt

bring others forward if they knew of any existing. Mr. E. H. Palmer, who

was in the country in the spring of 1870, is probably right in his

conclusion that above ground at least there does not exist another

Moabite stone. But there are more fishes in the sea than have ever yet

been caught; and if a few intelligent men accustomed to dealing with

lawless Arabs could be sent out to Moab to conduct excavations, they

might, if liberally supplied with money and other resources, obtain

antiquities of great value, inscriptions possibly included. Dean Stanley

points us also to 1 Sam. xv. 12, describing Saul's victory over the

Amalekites, where it is said, 'Saul came to Carmel, and behold he set

him up a place' ([Hebrew character] which is from the root [Hebrew

character], _to set_, _to put_; in the Hiphil to make to stand, and

which might be translated _pillar_ or _trophy_)--the Dean points to

this to show the possibility of even Jewish inscriptions coming to

light.

To return to the characters at the south-east angle of the Haram--on the

wall and on the handles of the jars or vases. The letters on the pottery

are like those of the Moabite stone; whence the age of the jars is

inferred to be about the same, and their origin Phoenician: the

position of the pottery shows it to be of nearly the same age as the

wall, and hence the antiquity of the wall is deduced; the wall itself

shows Phoenician marks, and so the builders are believed to have been

Phoenicians. This seems to us a little too hasty. The Moabite stone

gives us the _Moabite_ alphabet of King Mesha's time, which proves to be

identical with that of old Phoenicia. Judea was geographically as near

to Phoenicia as Moab was, and probably used the same alphabet, a

supposition confirmed by the discovery of vase handles at Jerusalem with

letters like those of the Moabite stone. It seems gratuitous to conclude

that these vases were among the contents of a museum or were ever the

property of Phoenicians, when the evidence goes to show that the

language inscribed on them was common to all the races of Western Asia.

Only for want of a better name has it been called 'Phoenician;' and

Mr. Deutsch had already suggested the term 'Cadmean,' while Sir Henry

Rawlinson had ventured the prediction that, should any early monument be

found at Jerusalem, its inscription would be in this character. The

Phoenician character was probably the only cursive character used by

the Semitic nations, and the Hebrew character, Sir Henry believes, did

not exist till after the return from the captivity. The vase handles

therefore show us the kind of letters used by the Hebrew prophets, and

the Cadmean masons' marks neither prove nor disprove the Phoenician

origin of the Haram wall; but the identity of the vase-handle letters

with those of the Moabite stone rather than with the alphabet of

Assyrian tablets and gems, or of the inscription on the tomb of

Eshmunazer (circ. B.C. 600) indicates the great antiquity both of the

pottery and the south-east Haram wall. On this point we may add that we

have compared (from the photographs) the letters of the vase-handles

with those of the Moabite stone, and find the identity very apparent in

the case of the _tau_, _shin_, _kaph_ and _mem_.

The work promised by the Fund in the departments of natural history and

geology still waits for want of means; though notes have been made on

the occurrence of basalt, trap, hot springs, &c., and among the things

sent home have been an occasional animal, a small collection of

_Coleoptera_, a book of dried flowers from Moab, and some specimens of

rock. In its zoology and botany, as well as in its human history and

arts, Palestine has felt the influence of Africa, Asia and Europe; the

heights of Lebanon and Hermon, the depths of Gennesareth and the Dead

Sea, assist to make its natural history cosmopolitan. It is curious that

the _Clarias_, a strange-looking fish of the Siluroid family, found by

Tristram in the Lake of Galilee, and in one of the fountains near its

shores, should be identical in species with a fish found in the Nile;

thus far confirming Josephus, who says that the fountain of Capharnaum in

Gennesareth produced a Nile fish, and on that account was thought to be

a vein of the river of Egypt.[41] But the words of Linnæus are almost

true to-day: 'We know more of the botany and zoology of farther India

than we do of those of Palestine.' Of the geology we are in equal

ignorance, although the depression of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea

invites attention as being the most remarkable on the face of the globe,

and constituting, in the opinion of Sir R. Murchison, the key to the

entire geology of the district. Mr. Prestwich, Mr. Tristram, and a few

other gentlemen, if sent out and supported for some years, would

probably astonish us by the results of their investigations. In

meteorology the Society has made a commencement, by sending out

instruments and publishing tabular statements of barometrical readings,

temperature, rainfall, &c., observed at Beyrout, Nazareth, Gaza, Jaffa,

and in the Lebanon. With all this work on hand, they have also begun the

exploration of the Tih--the Wilderness of the Wanderings--sending out

Mr. E. H. Palmer, a most accomplished Arabic scholar, formerly of the

Sinai Ordnance Survey, who appears to have made some discoveries, but

whose full statement is not yet before us.

We had intended to detail the difficulties under which the explorers

have done their work, but the list is too long: counting every shade,

from the laziness of the native workmen, to the whizzing of native

bullets; from the thermometer at 110 degrees to attacks of fever and

dysentery; from slips in scaling mountains, danger from falling stones,

risk of choking in narrow aqueducts and sewers--we had noted not less

than fifty instances.

We are bound to say that the Society has made a good beginning; that it

has done fully as much as could be expected under all the

circumstances, and with its inadequate funds; and that if it be not well

supported for another five years it will be to the lasting disgrace of

England. In its scientific and its religions aims, in its practical and

its unsectarian character, it suits the present age; supplying facts for

theorists, illustrating points of Scripture history, and confirming the

general truth of the Bible.

Besides the completion of the work at Jerusalem, much remains to be

done, not only in natural history and geology, but in the observation of

manners and customs, exploration at other cities, such as Jezreel,

Samaria, Hebron, Bethshan, Nazareth, and excavation of the mounds

scattered over the face of the country. There will probably never be a

better opportunity than the present: for the visit of the Prince of

Wales to the Holy Land removed some prejudices, the Turkish Government

is favourable to the enterprise, and the work is actually begun. We

conclude this review of the work of the Palestine Exploration Fund by

heartily endorsing the appeal of Mr. Deutsch at the annual meeting in

1869. 'We, as humble votaries of science, would, in the name of science,

urge you to continue that in which both religion and science may join.

And let me remind you of one thing. There are ruins enough in the City

of Sorrows. _Do not add fresh ruins._ Do not leave there broken shafts,

abandoned galleries; and let it not be told in Gath that this England,

the richest, proudest, and most Bible-loving country in the world,

undertook one of the greatest undertakings, and abandoned it--for want

of money.'

ART. V.--_The Early Sieges of Paris. Les Comtes de Paris; Histoire de

l'Avènement de la Troisième Race._ Par ERNEST MOURIN. Paris: Didier et

Cie.

_Robert der Tapfere, Markgraf von Anjou, der Stammvater des

Kapetingischen Hauses._ Von Dr. Phil. KARL VON KALCKSTEIN. Berlin:

Löwenstein.

The events of the last few months have, in a special way, drawn the

thoughts of men towards two cities which stand out among European

capitals as witnesses of the way in which the history of remote times

still has its direct bearing on things which are passing before our own

eyes. Rome and Paris now stand out, as they have stood out in so many

earlier ages, as the historic centres of a period which, there can be

no doubt, will live to all time as one of the marked periods of the

world's history. And it is not the least wonderful phænomenon of this

autumn of wonders that, while our eyes have been drawn at once to Rome

and to Paris, they have been drawn far more steadily and with far keener

interest towards Paris than they have been drawn towards Rome. We can

hardly doubt, whether we look back to the past or onwards to the future,

that the fall of the Pope's temporal power is really a greater event

than any possible result of the war between Germany and France. Yet such

is the greater immediate interest of the present struggle, such perhaps

is the instinctive attraction of mankind towards the more noisy and

brilliant triumphs of the siege and the battle-field, that the really

greater event, simply because of the ease with which it has happened,

has passed almost unnoticed in the presence of the lesser. The world has

seen the Papacy in several shapes; but the shape of a Pontiff,

spiritually infallible, but politically a subject, and the subject not

of an universal Emperor but of a mere local King, is something which the

world has not seen before. What may come of it, no man can say; but we

may be pretty sure that greater things will come of it in one way or

another, than can come out of any settlement, in whatever direction, of

conflicting French and German interests. Still, at this moment, the

present fate of Paris unavoidably draws to itself more of our thoughts

than the future fate of Rome. But it is well to keep the two cities

together before our eyes, and all the more so because the past history

and the present position of those two cities have points in common which

no other city in Europe shares with them in their fulness, which only

one other city in Europe can claim to share with them in any degree.

The history of Rome, as all the world knows, is the history of a city

which grew into an Empire. It grew in truth into a twofold, perhaps a

more than twofold Empire. Out of the village on the Palatine sprang the

Rome of the Cæsars and the Rome of the Pontiffs. From Rome came the

language, the theology, the code of law, which have had such an undying

effect on the whole European world. Amidst all changes, the city itself

has been always clothed with a kind of mysterious and superstitious

charm, and its possession has carried with it an influence which common

military and political considerations cannot always explain. And from

the Old Rome on the Tiber many of these attributes passed--some were

even heightened in passing--to the new Rome on the Bosporos. From the

days of Constantine till now, no man has ever doubted that, in the very

nature of things, Constantinople, in whatever hands, must be the seat of

empire. To Western eyes this seems mainly the result of her unrivalled

geographical situation; over large regions of the East the New Rome

wields the same magic influence which in the West has been wielded by

the Old. _The_ City,[42] the City of the Cæsars, is in Christian eyes

the one great object to be won; in Mahometan eyes it is the one great

object to be kept. By the Bosporos, as by the Tiber, it is the city

which has grown into the Empire, which has founded it, and which has

sustained it.

Now of the other capitals of Europe--the capitals of the more modern

states--one alone can claim to have been, in this way, the creator of

the state of which it is now the head. Berlin, Madrid, Stockholm,

Copenhagen, Saint Petersburg, are simply places chosen in later times,

for reasons of caprice or convenience, as administrative centres of

states which already existed. Vienna has grown from the capital of a

Duchy into the capital of something which calls itself an Empire; but

Vienna, as a city, has had nothing to do with the growth of that

so-called Empire. London may fairly claim a higher place than any of the

cities of which we have spoken. It was only by degrees, and after some

fluctuations, that London, rather than Winchester, came to be

permanently acknowledged as the capital of England. London won its rank,

partly by virtue of an unrivalled military and commercial position,

partly as the reward of the unflinching patriotism of its citizens in

the Danish wars. But London in no way formed England, or guided her

destinies. The history of London is simply that the city was found to be

the most fitting and worthy head of an already existing kingdom. But

Paris has been what London has been, and something more. Paris, like

London, earned her pre-eminence in Gaul by a gallant and successful

resistance to the Scandinavian enemy. It was the great siege of Paris in

the ninth century which made Paris the chief among the cities of Gaul,

and its Count the chief among the princes of Gaul. Its position first

marked it out for the rank of a local capital, and, through the way in

which it used its position, it grew into the capital of a kingdom. But

it did not, like London, simply grow into the capital of a kingdom

already existing. The city created first the county, and then the

kingdom, of which it was successively the head. Modern France, as

distinguished both from Roman Gaul and from the Western Kingdom of the

Karlings, grew out of this County of Paris; and of the County of Paris

the city was not merely the centre, but the life and soul. The position

of Paris in the earliest times is best marked, as in the case of all

Gaulish cities, by its place in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. It was a

city, not of the first, but of the second rank; the seat of a Bishop,

but not the seat of a Metropolitan.[43] Lutetia Parisiorum held the

usual rank of one of those head towns of Gaulish tribes which grew into

Roman cities. But it never became the centre of one of the great

ecclesiastical and civil divisions; it never reached the rank of Lyons,

Narbonne, Vienne, or Trier. Twice before the ninth century, the

discerning eye, first of a Roman and then of a Frankish master, seemed

to mark out the city of the Seine for greater things. It was the beloved

home of Julian; it was the city which Hlodwig at once fixed upon for the

seat of his new dominion. But the greatness of Paris, as the earliest

settled seat of the Frankish power, was not doomed to be lasting. Under

the descendants of Hlodwig Paris remained a seat of royalty; but, among

the fluctuations of the Merovingian kingdoms, it was only one seat of

royalty among several. It was the peer of Soissons, Orleans, and

Metz--all of them places which thus, in the new state of things, assumed

a higher importance than had belonged to them in Roman times. But, as

the Austrasian House of the Karlings grew, first as Mayors, and then as

Kings, to the lordship of the whole Frankish realm, the importance of

the cities of Western Gaul necessarily lessened. Paris reached its

utmost point of insignificance in the days of Charles the Great, whom

French legends have pictured as a French King, reigning in Paris as his

royal city. Whatever importance it had, it seems to have derived from

its neighbourhood to the revered sanctuary of St. Denis. By a strange

accident, the first King of the new house--the house with which Paris

was to wage a war of races and languages--died either in the city

itself, or in the precinct of the great monastery beyond its walls.

Pippin, returning from a successful campaign in Aquitaine, fell sick at

Saintes; from thence he was carried to Tours to implore the help of

Saint Martin, and thence to Paris to implore the help of Saint Denis. He

died at Paris, and was buried in the great minster which became the

burial-place of the next and rival line of kings.[44] But Paris was

neither the crowning-place nor the dwelling-place of his son, nor was it

the object of any special attention during his long reign. Of the two

sons of Pippin, between whom his kingdom was immediately divided, Paris

fell to the lot of Karlmann. But he chose Soissons for his

crowning-place--the place where his father had been crowned before

him.[45] Charles, crowned at Noyon, made Aachen his capital, and, in the

course of his whole reign, he visited Paris only on a single progress,

when it is incidentally mentioned among a long string of other

cities.[46]

But this time of utter neglect was, in the history of Paris, only the

darkness before the coming of the dawn. In the course of the next reign

Paris begins to play an important part, and from that time the

importance of the city steadily grew till it became what we have seen it

in our own day. The occasional visits of Lewis the Pious to the city are

dwelled on by his poetical biographer with evident delight, and with

even more than usual pomp of words.[47]. And the city was now about to

appear in its most characteristic; light. In the words of Sir Francis

Palgrave, who has sketched the early history of Paris with great power

and insight,[48] 'the City of Revolutions begins her real history by the

first French Revolution.'[49] In this particular case we do not even

grudge the premature use of the word 'French,' for the movement of which

he speaks was plainly a movement of the Romanized lands of the West

against their Teutonic master. Most likely no such feeling was

consciously present to the mind of any man; but nations and parties seek

to shape themselves unconsciously, and cities and regions learn to play

their appropriate parts, before they can give any intelligible account

of what they are doing. The Emperor was leading an expedition against

the revolted Bretons; suddenly all the disaffected spirits of the

Empire, his own sons among the foremost, gathered themselves together at

Paris.[50] They then seized Lewis himself at Compiègne, and their hated

step-mother Judith on the rock of Laon. But one part of his dominions

was still faithful to the imprisoned Cæsar; the German lands had no

share in the rebellion, and eagerly sought for the restoration of their

sovereign. In marking out the geographical divisions of feeling, the

writer of the ninth century, like those of the nineteenth, is driven, as

it were, to forestal the language of a somewhat later time. The Emperor

had no confidence in the French, but he put his trust in the German.[51]

Such was the part--a characteristic part--played by Paris in the

Revolution of 830. Four years later Paris appears playing an opposite,

yet a no less characteristic part. The Emperor Lewis, already restored

and again deposed, is held as a prisoner by his eldest son Lothar, and

is led in bonds to Paris.[52] Again the men of the East, the faithful

Germans, are in arms for their sovereign under Lewis, at that moment his

only loyal son. But by this time the city has changed sides. Lothar, for

fear of the German host, flees to the South, leaving his father at

liberty; the late captive is led by his rejoicing people to the minster

of Saint Denis, and there is girt once more with the arms of the warrior

and with the Imperial robes of the Cæsar.[53] Once then in the course of

its long history, did Paris behold the inauguration of a lawful Emperor.

But it was the re-inauguration of an Emperor whom one Parisian

revolution had overthrown, and whom another Parisian revolution had set

up again; and in the moment alike of his fall and of his restoration the

force of loyal Germany forms at one time a threatening, at another an

approving, background.

We thus see Paris, well-nigh unheard of during the reign of Charles the

Great, suddenly rise into importance under his son. Under Charles the

Bald its importance becomes greater still, and it begins to assume the

peculiar function which raised it to the head place in Gaul. The special

wretchedness of the time was fast showing the great military importance

of the site. Under the rule of the Austrasian Mayors and Kings there had

been endless wars, but they had been wars waged far away from Paris.

Above all, no hostile fleet had for ages sailed up the Seine. Lutetia

on her island must, under the Frankish power, have enjoyed for some

generations a repose almost as unbroken as she had enjoyed in the days

of the _Roman Peace_. Now all was changed. The Empire was torn in pieces

by endless civil wars, wars of brother against brother, and the fleets

of the Northmen, barely heard of in the days of Charles the Great, were

making their way up the months of all its rivers. Men now began to learn

that the island city, encompassed by the broad Seine, with its bridges

and its minsters, and the Roman palace on the left bank, was at once

among the most precious possessions and among the surest bulwarks of the

realm. It is not without significance that the one time when the Great

Charles himself visited Paris, it was in the course of a progress in

which he had been surveying the shores of the Northern Ocean.[54] He

came to Paris as a mourner and as a pilgrim, yet we may believe that

neither his grief nor his devotion hindered him from marking the

importance of the post. His eye surely marked the site as one fated to

be the main defence, if not of his whole Empire, at least of its western

portion, against the pirate-barks by which the Ocean was beginning to be

covered. And probably it was not mere accident that it was in the course

of an expedition against Brittany that Paris became the centre of the

conspiracy of 830. In a Breton war, a land war, Paris would not be of

the same pre-eminent importance as it was in the invasion of the

Northmen. Still the island stronghold would be of no small moment in

case of a Breton inroad, and in the days of Lewis the Pious a Breton

inroad was again a thing to be dreaded. Among the troubles of the next

reign the pre-eminent importance of Paris begins to stand out more and

more strongly. By the last partition under Lewis the Pious, his youngest

son, Charles the Bald, became King of a kingdom formed by the accidental

union of Neustria and Aquitaine. The kingdom so formed answered to

nothing which had been thought of in earlier divisions, but it answered

in a kind of rough way to modern France. Far smaller as a whole, it took

in districts at both ends, in Flanders and in Catalonia, which have long

ceased to be looked upon as French. But it nowhere came near to the

coveted frontier of the Rhine and the Alps. Of this kingdom it seemed at

first that Paris was at once to become the capital; no other city filled

so prominent a place in the early history of the reign of Charles the

Bald. In the very beginning of his reign we find Charles making use of

the position of the city and its bridge: to bar the progress of his

brother, the Emperor Lothar. We find him dwelling for a long time in the

city, and giving the citizens the delight of a spectacle by appearing

among them in royal pomp at the Easter festival.[55] Four years later,

the city began to appear in its other character as the great mark for

Scandinavian attack. The northern pirates were now swarming on every

sea, and the coasts of Britain, Gaul, and Germany were all alike

desolated by their harryings. But they instinctively felt that, while no

shore lay more temptingly for their objects than the shores of Northern

Gaul, there was no point either of the insular or of the continental

realm where their approach was better guarded against. The island city,

with its two bridges and its strongly fortified Roman suburb on the

mainland, blocked their path as perhaps no other stronghold in Gaul or

Britain could block it.[56] In the very year of the fight of Fontenay,

as if they had scented the mutual slaughter from afar, the Northmen had

sailed up the stream and had harried Rouen and the surrounding lands

with the sternest horrors of fire and sword.[57] Four years later they

pressed on yet further into the heart of the defenceless realm; Paris

was attacked; in strange contrast with the valour of its citizens forty

years later, no one had the heart to resist; the city was stormed and

sacked; and King Charles, finding his forces unequal to defend or to

avenge, was driven to forestal the wretched policy of Æthelred, and to

buy a momentary respite from the invaders.[58] Other attacks, other

harryings followed. One more terrible than all, in the year 857, was

specially remembered on account of the frightful havoc wrought among the

churches of the city. The church of Saint Genoveva, on the left bank of

the river--better known to modern ears as the Pantheon--was burned,

Saint Stephen's, afterwards known as Nôtre Dame, Saint Germans, and

Saint Denis, bought their deliverance only by large ransoms.[59] In the

minds of the preachers of the time the woes of Paris suggested the woes

of Jerusalem and a wail of sorrow went up from the Jeremiah of the age

for the havoc of the city and its holy places.[60]

When we remember the importance to which Paris was plainly beginning to

rise under Lewis the Pious, we may perhaps be led to think that it was

the constant attacks to which the city was exposed which hindered it

from becoming the permanent dwelling-place of royalty under Charles the

Bald. That the city held a place in his affections throughout his life

is shown by his choosing Saint Denis as the place of his burial. But it

never became the royal city of the Kings of his house. We need hardly

look on it as a mark of personal cowardice in Charles that he preferred

to fix the ordinary seat of his government in some other place than the

most exposed fortress of his kingdom. Compiègne now often appears as a

royal dwelling-place; but the home and centre of Carolingian royalty in

the Western Kingdom gradually fixed itself on a spot the most opposite

to Paris in position and feeling which the Western Kingdom could afford.

Paris and Laon were in every sense rivals; their rivalry is stamped upon

their very outward appearance. Each is a representative city. Paris,

like Châlons and Bristol, is essentially an island city; the river was

its defence against ordinary enemies, however easily that defence might

be changed into a highway for its attack in the hands of the amphibious

Northmen. But Laon is the very pride of that class of towns which out of

Gaulish hill-forts grew into Roman and mediæval cities. None stands more

proudly on its height; none has kept its ancient character so little

changed to our own day. The town still keeps itself within the walls

which fence in the hill-top, and whatever there is of suburb has grown

up at the foot, apart from the ancient city. Paris again was the home of

the new-born nationality of the Romance speech,[61] the home of the new

French nation. Laon stood near the actual German border, in a land where

German was still spoken; it was fitted in every way to be, as it proved,

the last home of a German dynasty in the West. There can be little doubt

that, by thus moving eastward, by placing themselves in this outlying

Teutonic corner of their realm, the Carolingian Kings of the West threw

away the opportunity of putting themselves at the head of the new

national movement, and of reigning as national Kings, if not of the

whole Romance-speaking population of Gaul, at least of its strictly

French portion north of the Loire.

Of such a mission we may be sure Charles the Bald and his successors

never dreamed. The chances are that those to whom that mission really

fell dreamed of it just as little. We must never forget that the

national movements of those days were for the most part instinctive and

unconscious; but they were all the more powerful and lasting for being

instinctive and unconscious. An act of Charles the Bald, one of the

ordinary grants by a King to one of his vassals, created the French

nation. The post from which the King himself shrank was entrusted to a

valiant subject, and Robert the Strong, the mightiest champion of the

land against the heathen invader, received the government of the whole

border land threatened by the Breton and the Northman.[62] We may be

sure that the thoughts of the King himself did not reach at the most

beyond satisfaction at having provided the most important post in his

realm with a worthy defender. To shield himself from the enemy by such a

barrier as was furnished by Robert's country, it was worth while to

sacrifice the direct possession even of the fair lands between the Loire

and the Seine. His dominion was a _mark_;[63] his truest title a

_marquis_. But the Mark of France, like the Mark of Brandenburg and the

Mark of Austria, was destined to great things. Robert no doubt, like the

other governors and military chiefs, who were fast growing from

magistrates into Princes, rejoiced in the prospect of becoming the

source of a dynasty, a dynasty which could not fail to take a high place

among the princes of Gaul. But he hardly dreamed of founding a line of

Kings, and a line of Kings the most lasting that the world ever saw.

Still less did he dream of founding a nation. But he did both. The

Counts who held the first place of danger and honour soon eclipsed in

men's eyes the Kings who had retired to the safer obscurity of their

eastern frontier. The city of the river became a national centre in a

way in which the city of the rock could never be. The people of the

struggling Romance speech of northern Gaul found a centre and a head in

the rising city and its gallant princes. That Robert was himself of

German descent, the son of a stranger from some of the Teutonic

provinces of the Empire,[64] mattered not a whit. From the beginning of

their historic life the Parisian Dukes and Kings have been the leaders

and representatives of the new French nationality. No royal dynasty has

ever been so thoroughly identified with the nation over which it ruled,

because no royal dynasty could be so truly said to have created the

nation. Paris, France, and the Dukes and Kings of the French are three

ideas which can never be kept asunder. A true instinct soon gave the

ruler of the new state a higher and a more significant title. The Count

of Paris was merged in the Duke of the French, and the Duke of the

French was soon to be merged in the King. The name of _Francia_, a name

whose shiftings and whose changes of meaning have perplexed both history

and politics--a name which Eastern and Western writers seem to have made

it a kind of point of honour to use in different meanings[65]--now

gradually settles down, as far as the Western Kingdom is concerned, into

the name of a territory, answering roughly to the Celtic Gaul of the

elder geography.[66] It has still to be distinguished by epithets like

_Occidentalis_ and _Latina_, from the Eastern _Francia_ of Teutonic

speech, but, in the language of Gaul, _Francia_ and _Franci_ for the

future mean the dominion and the subjects of the lord of Paris. We need

not say that the lands beyond the Rhone, the Saône, and the Maes, which

formed no part of the Western Kingdom, are not included under the name

of _Francia_. But neither are the lands held, like the French Duchy, in

fief of the common sovereign, Brittany, Flanders, Aquitaine, and the

ducal Burgundy. To these must be added Normandy, the land wrested from

the French Duchy to form the inheritance of the converted Northman.

France is still but one among the principalities of Gaul; but, like

Wessex in England, like Castile in Spain, like Prussia in Germany and

Piedmont in Italy, it was the one destined, by one means or another, to

swallow up the rest. From the grant of 861, from the foundation of the

Parisian Duchy, we may date the birth of the French state and nation.

From that day onwards France is whatever can, by fair means or foul, be

brought into obedience to Paris and her ruler.

Count Robert the Strong, the Maccabæus of the West-Frankish realm, the

patriarch of the old Capets, of the Valois, and of the Bourbons, died as

he had lived, fighting for Gaul and Christendom against the heathen

Dane.[67] But his dominion and his mission passed to a son worthy of

him--to Odo, or Eudes,[68] the second Count of his house, presently to

be the first of the Kings of Paris. In his day came the great struggle,

the mighty and fiery trial, which was to make the name of Paris and her

lord famous throughout the world. On the great siege of Paris by the

Northmen, the turning-point in the history of the city, of the Duchy,

and in truth of all Western Europe, we may fairly dwell at somewhat

greater detail than we have done on the smaller events which paved the

way for it. We must bear in mind the wretched state of all the countries

which made up the Carolingian Empire. The Northmen were sailing up every

river, and were spreading their ravages to every accessible point. Every

year in the various contemporary annals is marked by the harrying of

some fresh district, by the sack of some city, by the desecration of

some revered monastery.[69] Resistance, when there was any, was almost

wholly local; the invaders were so far from encountering the whole

force of the Empire that they never encountered the whole force of any

one of its component kingdoms. The day of Saul-court, renowned in that

effort of old Teutonic minstrelsy which may rank alongside of our own

songs of Brunanburh and Maldon,[70] the day when the young king Lewis

led the West-Frankish host to victory over the heathen,[71] stands out

well-nigh alone in the records of that unhappy time. While neither realm

was spared, while one set of invaders ravaged the banks of the Seine and

the Loire, while another more daring band sacked Aachen, Köln, and

Trier,[72] the rival Kings of the Franks were mainly intent on extending

their borders at the expense of one another. Charles the Bald was far

more eager to extend his nominal frontier to the Rhine,[73] or to come

back from Italy adorned with the Imperial titles,[74] than he was to

take any active step to drive out the common enemy of all the kindred

realms. At last the whole Empire, save the Burgundian Kingdom of Boso,

was once more joined together under Charles the Fat. Paris was again

under the nominal sovereignty of an Emperor whose authority, equally

nominal everywhere, extended also over Rome and Aachen. Precarious and

tottering as such an Empire was, the even nominal union of so many

crowns on a single head, however unfit that head was to bear their

weight, does seem to have given for the moment something like a feeling

of greater unity and thereby of greater strength. Paris, defended by its

own Count and its own Bishop, was defended by them in the name of His

Emperor, Lord of the World.[75] The sovereigns alike of East and West

were appealed to for help, and at least a show of help was sent in the

name of both parts of the Frankish realm.[76] The defence of Paris was

essentially a local defence, waged by its own citizens under the command

of their local chiefs. Still the great check which the invaders then

received came nearer to a national act on the part of the whole Frankish

Empire than anything which had happened since the death of Charles the

Great.

Our materials for the great siege are fairly abundant. Several of the

contemporary chronicles, in describing this gallant struggle, throw off

somewhat of their usual meagreness, and give an account conceived with

an unusual degree of spirit and carried out with an unusual amount of

detail.[77] And we have a yet more minute account, which, even as it is,

is of considerable value, and which, had it been a few degrees less

wearisome and unintelligible, would have been of the highest interest.

Abbo, a distinguished churchman of those times, a monk of the house of

Saint German, and not only a contemporary, but a spectator and sharer in

the defence,[78] conceived the happy idea of writing a minute narrative

of the exciting scenes which he had witnessed. But he unhappily threw

his tale into the shape of hexameters which have few rivals for

affectation and obscurity. The political biographer of Lewis the Pious

at all events writes Latin; Abbo writes in a Babylonish dialect of his

own composing, stuffed full of Greek and other out-of-the-way words, and

to parts of which he himself found it needful to attach a glossary.

Still with all this needless darkness, he gives us many details, and he

especially preserves many individual names which we should not find out

from the annalists. A fervent votary of Saint German, a loyal citizen of

Paris, a no less loyal subject of the valiant Count who, when he wrote,

had grown into a King, Abbo had every advantage which personal knowledge

and local interest could give to a narrator of the struggle. Only we

cannot help wishing that he had stooped to tell his tale, if not in his

native tongue, whether Romance or Teutonic, yet at least in the

intelligible Latin of Nithard in a past generation and of Richer in a

future one.[79]

The poet begins with a panegyric on his city, in which he may, while

dealing with such a theme, be forgiven for somewhat unduly exalting its

rank among the cities of the world.[80] Its position, the strength of

the island-fortress, connected with the mainland by its castles on

either side, is plainly set forth.[81] The defenders of the city are

clearly set before us; Odo the Count, the future King, as we are often

reminded,[82] and Gozlin the Bishop, stand forth in the front rank.

Around the two great local chiefs are gathered a secondary band of their

kinsfolk and supporters, clerical and lay. There is Odo's brother

Robert, himself to wear a crown in the city which he defended, but in

days to which the foresight of the poet did not extend. There is the

valiant Count Ragnar; there is the warlike Abbot Ebles of Saint Germans,

whose exploits are recorded with special delight by the loyal monk of

his house.[83] A crowd of lesser names are also handed down to us, names

of men who had their honourable share in the work, but with whose bare

names it is hardly needful to burthen the memories of modern readers. A

great object of attack on the part of the Northmen was the castle which

guarded the bridge on the right bank of the river, represented in after

times by the Grand Châtelet. The watchful care of the Bishop had been

diligent in strengthening this and the other defences of the city; but

the last works which were to guard this important point were not fully

finished.[84] The Danish fleet now drew near, a fleet manned, so it was

said, by more than thirty thousand warriors.[85] As in the tale of our

own Brihtnoth,[86] the invaders began with a peaceful message. The

leader of the pirates, Sigefrith, the sea-king,--a king, as the poet

tells us, without a kingdom[87]--sought an interview with Count Odo, and

demanded a peaceful passage through the city. Odo sternly answers that

the city is entrusted to his care by his lord the Emperor, and that he

will never forsake the duty which was laid upon him. The siege now

began; the Northmen strove to storm the unfinished tower. After two days

of incessant fighting, and an intervening night spent in repairing the

defences, the valour of the defenders prevailed. The Count and the

Bishop, and the Abbot who could pierce seven Danes with a single shot of

his arrow,[88] finally drove back the heathen to their ships; and

instead of the easy storm and sack which they doubtless looked for on

this, as on earlier occasions, the Northmen were driven to undertake the

siege of the city in form.[89]

One is a little surprised at the progress in the higher branches of the

art of war which had clearly been made by the enemy who now assaulted

Paris. The description of their means of attack, if not intelligible in

every detail, at least shows that the freebooters, merciless heathens as

they were, were at all events thorough masters of the engineering

science of their age.[90] But, through the whole winter of 885, all

their attempts were unavailing. The skill and valour of the defenders

were equal to those of the besiegers, and their hearts were strung by

every motive which could lead men to defend themselves to the last. But

early in the next year, in February 886, accident threw a great

advantage into the hands of the besiegers. A great flood in the Seine

swept away, or greatly damaged, the lesser bridge, the painted bridge,

that which joined the island to the fortress on the left bank of the

river.[91] That fortress and the suburb which it defended, the suburb

which contained the Roman palace and the ministers of Saint Genoveva and

Saint German, were thus cut off from the general defences of the city.

The watchful care of the Bishop strove to repair the bridge by night.

But the attempt was forestalled by the invaders; the tower was isolated

and surrounded by the enemy. The Bishop and the other defenders of the

city were left to behold, to weep, and to pray from the walls, at the

fate of their brethren whom they could no longer help.[92] The tower was

fiercely attacked; the gate did not give way till fire was brought to

help the blows of the Northmen; the defenders of the tower all perished

either by the flames or by the sword, and their bodies were hurled into

the river before the eyes of their comrades.[93] The conquerors now

destroyed the tower, and from their new vantage ground they pressed the

siege of the island city with increased vigour.

The chances of war seemed now to be turning against the besieged. The

stout heart of Bishop Gozlin at last began to fail; he saw that Paris

could no longer be defended by the arms of its citizens only. He sent a

message to Henry, the Duke of the Eastern Franks, praying him to come to

the defence of the Christian people. The Duke came; we are told that his

presence did little or nothing for the besieged city;[94] yet in the

obscure verses of the poet we seem to discern something like a night

attack on the Danish camp on the part of the Saxon Duke and his

followers.[95] But in any case the coming of the German allies did

nothing for the permanent relief of the city. They went back to their

own land; Paris was again left to its own resources, and at last the

Bishop, worn out with sorrow and illness, began to seek the usual

delusive remedy. He began to enter into negotiations with Sigefrith,

which were cut short by the prelate's death. The news was known in the

Danish camp before it was commonly known within the walls of Paris, and

the mass of the citizens first learnt from the insulting shouts of the

besiegers that their valiant Bishop was no more.[96]

The Bishop, as long as he lived, had been the centre and soul of the

whole defence, yet it would seem that, at the actual moment of his

death, his removal was a gain. We hear no more, at least on the part of

the men of Paris, of any attempts at treating with the enemy. One bitter

wail of despair from the besieged city reaches our ears, and the hero of

the second act of the siege now stands forth. The spiritual chief was

gone; the temporal chief steps into his place, and more than into his

place. Count Odo appears as cheering the hearts of the people by his

eloquence, and as leading them on to repeated combats with the

besiegers.[97] At last hunger began to tell on the strength of the

defenders; help from without was plainly needed, and this time it was to

be sought, not from any inferior chief, but from the common sovereign,

the Emperor and King of so many realms. Count Odo himself went forth on

the perilous errand; he called on the princes of the Empire for help in

the time of need, and warned the sluggish Augustus himself that, unless

help came speedily, the city would be lost for ever.[98] Long before any

troops were set in motion in any quarter for the deliverance of Paris,

the valiant Count was again within its walls, bringing again a gleam of

joy to the sad hearts of the citizens, both by the mere fact of his

presence and by the gallant exploit by which he was enabled to appear

among them. The Northmen knew of his approach, and made ready to bar his

way to the city. Before the gate of the tower on the right bank, the

tower which still guarded the northern bridge, the lines of the heathen

stood ready to receive the returning champion. Odo's horse was killed

under him, but, sword in hand, he hewed himself a path through the thick

ranks of the enemy; he made good his way to the gate, and was once more

within the walls of his own city, ready to share every danger of his

faithful people.[99]

Such a city, we may well say, deserved to become the seat of Kings, and

such a leader deserved to wear a royal crown within its walls. Eight

months of constant fighting passed away after the return of Odo before

the lord alike of Rome, of Aachen, and of Paris appeared before the city

where just now his presence was most needed. Towards the last days of

summer Duke Henry again appeared, but it was fully autumn before the

Emperor himself found his way to the banks of the Seine.[100] Duke Henry

came, with an army drawn from both the Frankish realms, Eastern and

Western.[101] With more show of prudence than he had shown at his former

coming, Henry began by reconnoitring both the city and the camp of the

enemy, to judge at what point an attack might be made with least

risk.[102] But the Northmen were too wary for him. They had surrounded

their whole camp with a network of trenches, three feet deep and one

foot wide, filled up with straw and brushwood, and made to present the

appearance of a level surface.[103] A small party only were left in

ambush. As the Duke drew near, they sprang up, hurled their javelins,

and provoked him with shouts. Henry pressed on in wrath, but he was soon

caught in the simple trap which had been laid for him; his horse fell,

and he himself was hurled to the ground. The enemy rushed upon him, slew

him, and stripped him in the sight of his army.[104] One of the

defenders of the city, the brave Count Ragnar, of whom we have already

heard, came in time only to bear off the body, at the expense of severe

wounds received in his own person.[105] The corpse of the Duke was

carried to Soissons and was buried in the Church of Saint Médard. The

army of Henry, disheartened by the loss of their chief, presently

returned to their own homes. Paris was again left to its own resources,

cheered only by such small rays of hope as might spring from the

drowning of one of the besieging leaders in the river.[106]

The news of the death of Henry was brought to the Emperor.

Notwithstanding his grief--perhaps an euphemism for his fear--he

pressed on towards Paris with his army; but even the chronicler most

favourable to him is obliged to confess that the lord of so many

nations, at the head of the host gathered from all his realms, did

nothing worthy of the Imperial majesty.[107] All in truth that the

Emperor Charles did was to patch up a treaty with the barbarians, by

virtue of which, on condition of their raising the siege of Paris, they

received a large sum as the ransom of the city, and were allowed to

ravage Burgundy without let or hindrance.[108] We are told indeed that

this step was taken because the land to be ravaged--are we to understand

the Kingdom of Boso?--was in rebellion.[109] At all events, the

Christian Emperor, the last who reigned over the whole Empire, handed

over a Christian land as a prey to pagan teeth, and left Paris without

striking a blow. Charles went straight back into Germany, and there

spent the small remnant of his reign and life in a disgraceful domestic

quarrel.[110] One act however he did which concerns our story. Hugh the

Abbot, the successor of Robert the Strong in the greater part of his

Duchy, had died during the siege. The valiant Count of Paris was now, by

Imperial grant, put in possession of all the domains which had been held

by his father.[111]

But the Count was not long to remain a mere Count; the city and its

chief were alike to receive the reward of their services in the cause of

Christendom. Presently came that strange and unexampled event by which

the last Emperor of the legitimate male stock of the Great Charles was

deposed by the common consent of all his dominions. The Empire again

split up into separate Kingdoms, ruled over by Kings of their own

choice. The choice of the Western realm fell, as it well deserved to

fall, upon the illustrious Count of Paris. The reign of Odo indeed was

not undisturbed, nor was his title undisputed. He had to struggle in the

beginning of his reign with a rival in the Italian Guy, and in latter

years he had to withstand the more formidable opposition of a rival King

of the old Imperial line. And chosen as he was by the voice of what we

may now almost venture to call the French people, hallowed as King in

the old royal seat of Compiègne by the hands of the Primate of Sens, the

Metropolitan of his own Paris,[112] Odo had still to acknowledge the

greater power and higher dignity of the Eastern King. He had to confess

himself the man of Arnulf, to receive his crown again at Arnulf's hands,

while Arnulf was not as yet a Roman Emperor, but still only a simple

King of the East Franks.[113] Still the Count had become a King; the

city which his stout heart and arm had so well defended had become a

royal city. The rank indeed both of the city and its King, was far from

being firmly fixed. A hundred years of shiftings and changings of

dynasties, of rivalry between Laon and Paris, between the Frank and the

Frenchman, had still to follow. But the great step had been taken; there

was at last a King of the French reigning in Paris. The city which by

its own great deeds had become the cradle of a nation, the centre of a

kingdom, was now placed in the foremost rank at their head. The longest

and most unbroken of the royal dynasties of Europe had now begun to

reign. And it had begun to reign, because the first man of that house

who wore a crown was called to that crown as the worthiest man in the

realm over which he ruled.

But we must go back to the enemy before Paris. By the treaty concluded

with the Emperor, they were to raise the siege, but they were left at

liberty to harry Burgundy and other lands. The citizens of Paris,

however, steadfastly refused to allow them to pass up the Seine; so the

Northmen ventured on a feat which in that age was looked on as

unparalleled.[114] They saw, we are told, that the city could not be

taken; so they carried their ships for two miles by land, and set sail

at a point of the river above the city.[115] While the Empire was

falling in pieces, while new kingdoms were arising and were being

struggled for by rival kings, the Northmen were harrying at pleasure.

Soissons was sacked;[116] after a long and vain attack on the mighty

walls of Sens, the enemy found it convenient to retire on a payment of

money.[117] Meaux also, under the valiant Count Theodberht, stood a

siege; but after the death of their defender, the citizens capitulated.

The capitulation was broken by the Northmen; the city was burned, and

the inhabitants were massacred.[118] By this time Odo was King.

Meanwhile the Northmen, after their retreat from Sens, had made another

attempt on Paris, and had been again beaten off by the valiant

citizens.[119] The King now came to what was now his royal city, and

established a fortified camp in the neighbourhood to secure it from

future attacks.[120] Yet when the Northmen once more besieged Paris in

the autumn of 889, even Odo himself had to stoop to the common means of

deliverance, The new King, the first Parisian King, bought off the

threatened attack by the payment of a Danegeld, and the pirates went

away by land and sea to ravage the Constantine peninsula, the land

which, a generation or two later, was to become the special land of the

converted Northmen.[121]

Paris was finally secured against Scandinavian attack by the

establishment of the Duchy of Normandy. By the treaty of Clair-on-Epte

in 913, Rolf Ganger, changed in French and Latin mouths into Rou and

Rollo, became the man of the King of Laon for lands which were taken

away from the dominion of the Duke of Paris. Charles the Simple, the

restored Karling, was now King; Robert, the brother of Odo, was Duke of

the French, and there can be no doubt that the tottering monarchy of

Laon gained much by the dismemberment of the Parisian Duchy and by the

establishment at the mouth of the Seine of a vassal bound by special

ties to the King himself. The foundation of the Rouen Duchy at once

secured Paris against all assaults of mere heathen pirates. France had

now a neighbour to the immediate north of her--a neighbour who shut her

off from the sea and from the mouth of her own great river--a neighbour

with whom she might have her wars, as with other neighbours--but a

neighbour who had embraced her creed, who was speedily adopting her

language and manners, and who formed, part of the same general political

system as herself. The shifting relations between France and Normandy

during the tenth and eleventh centuries form no part of our subject, but

it will be well to bear in mind that Paris was at once sheltered and

imprisoned through the Norman possession of the lower course of the

Seine.

It follows then that the next besiegers of Paris came from a different

quarter; and these next besiegers came from the quarter from which its

last besiegers have come. In the course of the tenth century, the

century of so many shifting relations between Rouen, Laon, and Paris,

while the rivalry between King and Duke sometimes broke forth and

sometimes slumbered, Paris was twice attacked or threatened by German

armies. Both the First and the Second Otto at least appeared in the near

neighbourhood of the city. In 946, the first and greatest of the name,

not yet Emperor in formal rank, but already exercising an Imperial

pre-eminence over the kingdoms into which the Frankish Empire had split

up, entered the French Duchy with two royal allies or vassals in his

train. One was the Burgundian King Conrad, Lord of the realm between

the Rhone and the Alps; the other was the nominal King of Paris and its

Duke, Lewis, alike the heir of all the Karlings and the descendant of

our own Ælfred, whose nominal reign over the Western Kingdom was

practically well nigh confined to the single fortress of Compiègne.

Among the shifting relations of the Princes of the Western Kingdom, Hugh

the Duke of the French and Richard the Duke of the Normans were now

allied against their Carolingian over-lord. He had lately been their

prisoner, and had been restored to freedom and kingship only by the

surrender of the cherished possession of his race, the hill and tower of

Laon. Otto, the mighty Lord of the Eastern realm, felt himself called on

to step in when Teutonic interests in the Western lands seemed to be at

their last gasp. The three Kings united their forces against the two

Dukes, and marched against the capitals both of France and Normandy. But

never were the details of a campaign told in a more contradictory way.

There can be little doubt that Rouen was besieged, and besieged

unsuccessfully. Thus much at least the German historian allows;[122] in

Norman lands the tale swells into a magnificent legend.[123] What

happened at Paris is still less clear. Laon, for the moment a French

possession, was besieged unsuccessfully, and Rheims successfully.[124]

Then, after a vain attempt on Senlis, the combined armies of the Kings

of Aachen, Arles, and Compiègne drew near to the banks of the Seine.

Flodoard, the canon of Rheims, the discreetest writer of his age, leaves

out all mention of Paris and its Duke; he tells us merely that the Kings

crossed the river and harried the whole land except the cities.[125] The

Saxon Widukind tells us how his King, at the head of thirty-two

legions, every man of whom wore a straw hat[126] besieged Duke Hugh in

Paris, and duly performed his devotions at the shrine of Saint

Denis.[127] From these two entries we are safe in inferring that, if

Paris was now in any strict sense besieged, it was at least not besieged

successfully. But Richer, the monk of Saint Remigius, one of the

liveliest tale-tellers of any age, is ready with one of those minute

stories which, far more than the entries of more solemn annalists, help

to bring us face to face with the men of distant times. The Kings were

drawing near to the Seine. In order that the enemy might be cut off from

all means of crossing, the Duke of the French, Hugh the Great, aware of

their approach, had bidden all vessels, great and small, to be taken

away from the right bank of the river for the space of twenty miles. But

his design was hindered by a cunning stratagem of the invaders. Ten

young men, who had made up their mind to brave every risk,[128] went in

advance of the army of the Kings, having laid aside their military garb

and provided themselves with the staves and wallets of pilgrims.

Protected by this spiritual armour, they passed unhurt and unchallenged

through the whole city of Paris, and crossed over both bridges to the

left bank of the river. There, not far from the suburb of Saint German,

dwelt a miller, who kept the mills which were turned by the waters of

the Seine.[129] He willingly received the comely youths who professed

to have crossed from the other side of the river to visit the holy

places. They repaid his hospitality with money, and moreover purchased

wine, in the consumption of which a jovial day was spent. The genial

drink opened the heart and the lips of the host, and he freely answered

the various questions of his guests. He was not only a miller; he was

also the Duke's head fisherman, and he moreover turned an occasional

penny by letting out vessels for hire. The Germans praised the kindness

which he had already shown them, which made them presume to ask for

further favours. They had still other holy places to pray at, but they

were wearied with their journey. They promised him a reward of ten

shillings--no small sum in the tenth century--if he would carry them

across to the other side. He answered that, by the Duke's orders, all

vessels were kept on the left bank to cut off all means of crossing from

the Germans. They told him that it might be done in the night without

discovery. Eager for his reward, he agreed. He received the money, and,

accompanied by a boy, his step-son, he guided them to the spot where

seventy-two ships lay moored to the river side. The boy was presently

thrown into the river, the miller was seized by the throat, and

compelled by threats of instant death to loose the ships. He obeyed, and

was presently bound and put on board one of the vessels. Each of the

Germans now entered a ship and steered it to the right bank. The whole

body then returned in one of the vessels, and each again brought across

another. By going through this process eight times, the whole

seventy-two ships were brought safely to the right bank. By daybreak the

army of the Kings had reached the river. They crossed in safety, for all

the inhabitants of the country had fled, and the Duke himself had sought

shelter at Orleans. The land was harried as far as the Loire, but of the

details of the siege of Rouen and of the siege of Paris, if any siege

there was, we hear not a word.[130]

The military results of the first German invasion of France and Normandy

were certainly not specially glorious. Laon, Senlis, Paris, and Rouen,

were, to say the least, not taken. All that was done was to take Rheims

and to ravage a large extent of open country. But, in a political point

of view, the expedition was neither unsuccessful nor unimportant. From

that time the influence of the Eastern King in the affairs of the

Western Kingdom becomes of paramount importance, and under his

protection, the King of the West Franks, King of Compiègne and soon

again to be King of Laon, holds a far higher place than before in the

face of his mighty vassals at Paris and Rouen. The next German invasion,

forty years later, found quite another state of things in the Western

Kingdom. The relations between King Lothar and Duke Hugh Capet were

wholly different from the relations which had existed between their

fathers, King Lewis and Duke Hugh the Great. No less different were the

relations between Lothar and Otto the Second from those which had

existed between their fathers, Lewis and Otto the Great. The elder Otto

had been a protector, first to his brother-in-law and then to his

nephew; the younger Otto was only a rival in the eyes of his

cousin.[131] On the other hand, it was the policy of Hugh Capet to keep

up the dignity of the Crown which he meant one day to wear, and not to

appear as an open enemy of the dynasty which he trusted quietly to

supplant. For a while then the rivalry between Laon and Paris was

hushed, and the friendship of Paris carried with it the friendship of

Rouen and Angers. Thus, while Lewis, a prince than whom none ever showed

a loftier or more gallant spirit, was hunted from one fortress or one

prison to another, his son, a man in every way his inferior, was really

able to command the forces of the whole land north of the Loire. Again

the King of Gaul looked Rhine-wards; the border land of Lotharingia

kindled the ambition of a prince who might deem himself King both of

Laon and Paris. That border land, after many times fluctuating to and

fro, had now become an acknowledged portion of the Eastern Kingdom. But

a sudden raid might win it for the King of the West, and the Duke of

Paris would be nothing loth to help to make such an addition to the

Kingdom which he meant one day to possess. The raid was made; the hosts

of the King and the Duke crossed the frontier, and burst suddenly on the

Imperial dwelling-place of Aachen. The Emperor, with his pregnant wife,

the Greek princess Theophanô, had to flee before the approach of his

cousin, and Lothar had the glory of turning the brazen eagle which his

great forefather had placed on the roof of his palace in such a

direction as no longer to be a standing menace to the western

realms.[132] As in a more recent warfare, the Gaul began with child's

play, and the German made answer in terrible earnest. The dishonour done

to their prince and his realm stirred the heart of all Germany, and

thirty thousand horsemen--implying no doubt a far larger number of

warriors of lower degree--gathered round their Emperor to defend and

avenge the violated Teutonic soil. Lothar made no attempt to defend his

immediate dominions; he fled to crave the help of his mighty vassal at

Paris.[133] The German hosts marched, seemingly without meeting any

resistance, from their own frontier to the banks of the Seine.

Everywhere the land was harried; cities were taken or surrendered, but

the pious Emperor, the Advocate of the Universal Church, everywhere

showed all due honour to the saints and their holy places.[134] In

primatial Rheims, in our own days to be the temporary home of another

German King, the German Cæsar paid his devotions at the shrine of Saint

Remigius, the saint who had received an earlier German conqueror still

into the fold of Christ.[135] At Soissons Saint Médard received equal

worship, and when the church of Saint Bathild at Chelles was burned

without the Emperor's knowledge, a large sum was devoted to its

restoration. But if the shrines of the saints were reverenced, the

palaces of the rival King were especially marked out for destruction.

Attigny was burned, and nearly equal ruin fell upon Compiègne itself.

Meanwhile the King had fled to Etampes, in the immediate territory of

the Duke, while Hugh himself was collecting his forces at Paris. At last

the German host came within sight of the ducal city. Otto now deemed

that he had done enough for vengeance. He had shown that the frontiers

of Germany were not to be invaded with impunity; he had come to Paris,

not to storm or blockade the city, but to celebrate his victorious march

with the final triumph of a pious bravado. He sent a message to the Duke

to say that on the Mount of Martyrs he would sing such a Hallelujah to

the martyrs as the Duke and people of Paris had never heard. He

performed his vow; a band of clergy were gathered together on the sacred

hill, and the German host sang their Hallelujah in the astonished ears

of the men of Paris. This done, the mission of Otto was over, and after

three days spent within sight of Paris, the Emperor turned him to depart

into his own land.[136]

Such, at least, is the tale as told by the admirers of the Imperial

devotee. In the hands of the monk of Rheims the story assumes quite

another shape, and in the hands of the panegyrist of the house of Anjou

it inevitably grows into a legend.[137] Richer tells us how the Emperor

stood for three days on the right bank of the river, while the Duke was

gathering his forces on the left; how a German Goliath challenged any

man of France to single combat, and presently fell by the dart of a

French, or perhaps Breton, David;[138] how Otto, seeing the hosts which

were gathering against him, while his own forces were daily lessening,

deemed that it was his wisest course to retreat.[139] As for the details

of the retreat, our stories are still more utterly contradictory. One

loyal French writer makes Lothar, at the head of the whole force of

France and Burgundy, chase the flying Emperor to the banks of the Maes,

whose waters swallowed up many of the fugitives.[140] The monk of Rheims

transfers the scene of the German mishap to the nearer banks of the

Aisne,[141] while the Maes is with him the scene of a friendly

conference between the two Kings, in which Lothar, distrusting his

vassals at Paris, deems it wiser to purchase the good-will of the

Emperor by the cession of all his claims upon Lotharingia.[142] The most

striking details come from the same quarter from which we get the

picture of the Hallelujah on Montmartre. The Emperor, deeming that he

had had enough of vengeance, departed on the approach of winter;[143] he

reached the Aisne and proposed to encamp on its banks. But by the advice

of Count Godfrey of Hennegau, who warned him of the dangers of a stream

specially liable to floods, he crossed with the greater part of his

army, leaving only, on the dangerous side, a small party with the

baggage.[144] It was on this party that Lothar, hastening on with a

small force, fell suddenly, while a sudden rise of the stream hindered

either attack or defence on the part of the main armies.[145] Otto then

sends a boat across with a challenge, proposing that one or the other

should allow his enemy to cross without hindrance, and that the

possession of the disputed lands should be decided by the result of the

battle which should follow.[146] 'Nay rather,' cried Count Geoffrey,

probably the famous Grisegonelle of Anjou, 'let the two Kings fight out

their differences in their own persons, and let them spare the blood of

their armies.'[147] 'Small then, it seems,' retorted Count Godfrey in

wrath, 'is the value you put upon your King. At least it shall never be

said that German warriors stood tamely by while their Emperor was

putting his life in jeopardy.'[148] At this moment, when we are looking

for some scene of exciting personal interest, the curtain suddenly

falls, and this, our most detailed narrator, turns away from the

fortunes of Emperors and Kings to occupy himself with his immediate

subject, the acts of the Bishops of Cambray.[149]

Putting all our accounts together it is hard to say whether, in a

military point of view, the expedition of Otto the Second was a success

or a failure. If his design was to take Paris, he certainly failed. If

he simply wished to avenge his own wrongs and to show that Germany could

not be insulted with impunity, he undoubtedly succeeded. In either case

the political gain was wholly on the German side. King and Duke acted

together during the campaign; but each, in its course, learned to

distrust the other, and each found it expedient to seek the friendship

of the Emperor as a check against his rival.[150] And more than all, the

Imperial rights over Lotharingia were formally acknowledged by Lothar,

and were not disputed again for some ages.[151]

This campaign of 976 has a special interest just now, as its earlier

stages read, almost word for word, like a forestalling of the events of

the present year of wonders. How far its later stages may find their

counterpart in the great warfare now going on, it is not for us to

guess. But it is a campaign which marks a stage in the history of

Europe. It is the first war that we can speak of--a war waged between

Germany and anything which has even the feeblest claim to be called an

united France. When Otto the Great marched against Paris and Rouen, he

was fighting in the cause of the King of the West Franks, the lawful

over-lord of the Dukes against whom he was fighting. When Otto the

Second marched against Paris, he was fighting against King and Dukes

alike, and King and Dukes between them had at their call all the lands

of the strictly French speech, the tongue of _oil_. Aquitaine of course,

and the other lands of the tongue of _oc_, had no part or lot in the

matter; then, as in latter times, there were no Frenchmen south of the

Loire. But if the expedition of Otto was in this sense the first German

invasion of France, it was also for a long time the last. It is not

often that Imperial armies have since that day entered French territory

at all. The armies of Otto the Fourth appeared in the thirteenth century

at Bouvines, and the armies of Charles the Fifth appeared in the

sixteenth century in Provence. But Bouvines, lying in the dominions of a

powerful and rebellious vassal, was French only by the most distant

external allegiance, and Provence, in the days of Charles the Fifth, was

still a land newly won for France, and the Imperial claims over it were

not yet wholly forgotten. Both invasions touched only remote parts of

the kingdom, and in no way threatened the capital. Since the election

of Hugh Capet made Paris for ever the head of France and of all the

vassals of the French Kingdom, the city has been besieged and taken by

pretenders, native and foreign, to the Capetian Crown, but it has never,

till our own century, been assailed by the armies of the old Teutonic

realm. The fall of the first Buonaparte was followed by a surrender of

Paris to a host which called up the memories alike of Otto of Germany

and of Henry of England. The fall of the second Buonaparte is followed

before our own eyes by the siege of Paris, the crowning point of a war

whose first stages suggest the campaign of the Second Otto, but which,

for the mighty interests, at stake, for the long endurance of besieger

and besieged, rather suggests the great siege at the hands of Sigefrith.

But all alike are witnesses to the position which the great city of the

Seine has held ever since the days of Odo. Paris is to France not merely

its greatest city, the seat of its government, the centre of its society

and literature. It is France itself; it is, as it has been so long, its

living heart and its surest bulwark. It is the city which has created

the kingdom, and on the life of the city the life of the kingdom seems

to hang. What is to be its fate? Is some wholly different position in

the face of France and of Europe to be the future doom of that memorable

city? Men will look on its possible humiliation with very different

eyes. Some may be disposed to take up the strain of the Hebrew prophet,

and to say, 'How hath the oppressor ceased, the golden city ceased!'

Others will lament the home of elegance and pleasure, and what calls

itself civilization. We will, in taking leave of Paris, old and new,

wind up with the warning, this time intelligible enough to be striking,

of her own poet--

Francia cur latitas vires, narra, peto, priscas,

Te majora triumphâsti quibus atque jugâsti

Regna tibi? Propter vitium triplexque piaclum.

Quippe supercilium, Veneris quoque feda venustas.

Ac vestis preciosæ elatio te tibi tollunt!

Afrodite adeo, saltem quo arcere parentes[152]

Haud valeas lecto, monachas Domino neque sacras;

Vel quid naturam, siquidem tibi sat mulieres,

Despicis, occurant? Agitamus fasque nefasque.

Aurea sublimem mordet tibi fibula vestem,

Efficis et calidam Tyriâ camera preciosâ.

Non præter chlamydem auratam cupis indusiari

Tegmine, decusata tuos gemmis nisi zona

Nulla fovet lumbos, aurique pedes nisi virgæ,

Non habitus humilis, non te valet abdere vestis.

Hæc facis; hæc aliæ faciunt gentes ita nullæ;

Hæc tria ni linquas, vires regnumque paternum

Omne scelus super his Christi, cujus quoque vates,

Nasci testantur bibli: fuge, Francia, ab istis!