His Ambition and Success.

29

Charlemagne. So much importance did he attach to the new title-so much did he regard as underlying its adoption that he commanded all his subjects above twelve to renew their oaths of allegiance to his person

years of age and dynasty.

The extension of his kingdom towards Bohemia; the consolidation and protection of its eastern boundary; the fortification of the coast-line of his extensive dominions, so as to enable him to repel the invasions of the Normans and Danes; and the establishment of political relationships with other powers, now occupied much of his energy and thought. The general improvement and elevation of his people, the extension of commerce, the establishment of new and more equitable laws, the promotion of education, the furtherance of science, the purification of the church, and the internal regulations of his empire, also received much attention.

In the midst of all his activity, all his planning and scheming, all his exertions in the combined characters of monarch and statesman, the great grief of death broke into his family. In 810, his son Pepin, King of Italy, died, and in 811, his other son Charles, who was his constant confidant and assistant in all his manifold undertakings, and who had thus become the centre of many hopes, died also; leaving of his legitimate sons only Louis, surnamed Le Debonnaire, the weakest and least promising, alive: his eldest son being, as we have said, immured within monastic walls.

Charlemagne, in his prime, was of kingly presence. His iron cuirass shielded a capacious chest, and brawny arms swung from his broad shoulders. His stalwart frame was surmounted by a round head, whose iron-grey locks bore the mark of his helmet. His cheerful face was lit up by full bright eyes; and his features, though worn with war and

care, were knit together by a stern will when occasion required; while his shrill voice could employ the whole variety of intonation in which love, friendship, and sovereignty can be expressed. He was capable of intense emotion,bursts of grief and fits of passion. His temper was readily chafed, but his will was not easily changed by obstacles. Even the habit of empire aided the impression of kingliness which his presence produced. But the inroads of death, the effects of time, the hidden workings of disease, the undermining influences of care, and a growing sense of loneliness, began to disorganise the sinewy body and to weaken the strong mind of Charlemagne. Feeling made him realise the feebleness of flesh, and the untrustworthiness of life. Hence, in 813, feeling the gradual on-creeping of senility, he named Louis his colleague in the Empire, and nominated his grandson Bernard, King of Italy. On the Sabbath in which he called his son Louis to the co-emperorship, he publicly exhorted him, in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, regarding the duties of a good sovereign, conjured him to love his people, and to labour and pray for their welfare and advancement; at the same time showing his independence of the pontifical power, by commanding Louis to take the crown from the altar, and place it on his own head. Thereafter Charlemagne presented the self-crowned Louis to the Franks as their future Emperor. The act of the venerable old man received the unanimous sanction of the public voice.

After the part he took in the magnificent spectacle of the coronation of his son, Charlemagne retired from the public performance of the duties of sovereignty, fixing his residence at Aix-la-Chapelle. Not long thereafter he was seized with pleurisy. He had never before been subjected to illness,

His Illness and Death.

31

and had a contemptuous distrust of drugs. He rejected medical aid, and his body, now weakened by age and exertion, succumbed to the power of disease. On the 28th of January 814, he felt the certain premonitions of death. Raising his right hand with characteristic energy and impetuosity, despite of emaciation and exhaustion, he piously crossed himself on the forehead, the chest, and the feet; then stretching himself out, clasping his arms over his breast, and closing his own eyes, he murmured, "Now, Lord, into Thy hands I commit my spirit ;" and with this semi-sighed prayer, he yielded himself up to the conqueror of all, even the greatest of men-Death. On that very day, his body being thoroughly cleansed, laid out, and embalmed, he was carried, amid lamentation and tears, to the vault of the church of Aix-la-Chapelle, and there, being dressed in his imperial robes, having a piece of the original (?) cross of Christ placed on his head, an open Bible on his knee, and his sceptre and shield at his feet, he was put in a marble chair. The vault was then completely filled with frankincence, balms, spices, and costly scent-giving herbs and gums, closed, and sealed up. Over this sepulchre an arch was erected, which bore these words as an inscription :-" Here repose the mortal remains of Charles, the great and orthodox Emperor, who gloriously enlarged, and for forty-seven years happily governed, the Empire of the Franks."

CHAPTER IV.

THE CAUSES AND RESULTS OF EVENTS.

NCIENT civilisation was wanting in spirituality-religiousness. It attained its acmé when the Ro

man Empire had concentrated under its own dominion the whole culture of the ages, and had developed to their utmost all those principles of government which operate by external pressure on the subject, and derive their authority from force rather than conviction. Modern civilisation is altogether distinct, especially in its primal element, viz., Christian culture. The former made men fear, reverence, and obey, the might and majesty of law; the latter makes man "a law unto himself." There is therefore a vigour, dignity, and spontaneity in modern national life, which was completely wanting in earlier states of citizenship. The one vital defect of ancient times being supplied, there arose also a necessity for amalgamating and intertexturing the civic life of former ages with the religiousness and conscientiousness of the new culture. Fortunately for humanity, the realm of antique culture was under one sovereignty, so that at once the possibility and the practicability of proselytism was provided for. Apostolic zeal and Christian energy carried the new thought-seed of the gospel widely and freely through

His Work and Mission.

33

the length and breadth of civilised society. At first, like all new truths, it assumed the destructive form, and entered into contest with the old and the effete. Conservatism rose in arms, resisted, persecuted, and-failed. Antagonism developed the strength of the new principles of action and life, and proselytism was exchanged for predominance. That which had been foreign, even alien, attained mastery, and by an intricate and singular concourse of circumstances, exchanged the prison-houses, persecution, and contempt, of its early years, for might, dominion, and homage. So far the work seemed to speed well, and to promise a favourable issue. But whosoever shall look narrowly into the causes of these eventful phenomena, will not fail to observe that this also became an external and authoritative power, instead of an inward, personally effective, moral influence, and therefore could not then, and so manifested, fulfil all the purposes of God. It was needful that a spiritual empire should arise, not seated in Constantinople or Rome only, but in each human soul. This grand theocratic republic, it seems, could not advisably assert itself until all possible forms of incorporation with, or imitation of, past forms of polity had been attempted. Hence there arose a need-be for the Christian empire of Constantine, and the Gregorian attempt to establish a ruling Papacy. And not these only, but, as we believe, the bold and gorgeous monotheistic imposture of Mahomet, whose mission, among other mightier issues, it was, to exhibit the power of the sword to subjugate without subduing, to vanquish without convincing, to compel outward conformity without a reform of the inner life, and yet, by dint of continuous training, to evolve habit and educe faith. All these spiritualising forces being arrayed upon the field of history, what mode of Christian statecraft was possible be