nate Dagobert to be condemned to death by a council of bishops. He was guilty of the crime of being the king of the freemen, that is to say, of the party allied to Ebrouin. A struggle then took place, which was marked on both sides by a series of crimes, which only terminated with the death of Ebrouin.

The successor of Ebrouin could not struggle against the growing ascendancy of the Austrasian chiefs, who continually threatened to invade western Gaul. Pepin led them on against the Neustrians. The weakened character of the Roman Franks was vanquished at Testry by the barbarian genius of the Franks of Austrasia. This victory insured the sway of the nobles over the people, and of the Austrasians over the remainder of Gaul. At the same time, the dignity of mayor, which had become hereditary, was confirmed in the race of Pepin. A great revolution had been accomplished. The degenerate race of Merovingians might still bring forth some effeminate and imbecile princes; but the advent of a new dynasty was at hand, and Roman Gaul was regenerated by the barbarous blood which flowed more freely through its veins.

III. THE CARLOVINGIANS.

SECTION I.-THE EMPIRE OF THE CARLOVINGIANS.

Pepin and Charles Martel.-Pepin D'Heristal, who had attained the end to which his race had devoted itself for five generations, undertook to complete the unity of Gaul, interrupted by so many wars. He did not, however, live to achieve it: the Neustrians even succeeded in emancipating themselves under his grandson, Theodebald, who had been his successor in the mayoralty. But the Austrasians called from the cloisters a natural son of Pepin, Charles, surnamed Martel, (the Hammer) from the force with which he hammered down the Saracens, who belonged to a race odious to the church, having stained itself with the blood of a martyr. The bastard commenced by defeating the Neustrians near Cambray: after this he marched to the aid of the inhabitants of Aquitaine, from whom the Saracens, masters of Spain, had just taken Languedoc. He exterminated the Saracens in the plains of Poitiers (732), entered Nimes, and drove away the enemy from all the strongholds which they occupied in Provence. The constant inroads of the people of Germany were not less to be dreaded. Charles Martel carried his arms to the north and to the east of Gaul, defeated the Allemandi, Bavarians, and Frisons from 718 to 739, and penetrated six times among the Saxons, without, however, being able to reduce them. As a recompense to his companions in arms, he distributed to them the spoils of the clergy, but he placed his influence at the service of pope Gregory III. when menaced by the Lombards, who had entered Ravenna. This sufficed to reconcile him with the church.

On his death (741) he bequeathed his authority to his three sons. The two eldest, Pepin, surnamed the Short, and Carloman, disposessed their brother Grippo, and imprisoned him in a convent in the forest of Ardennes. Carloman, after having aided his brother Pepin to repress the disorders of the clergy, by convoking the councils of Leptines and Soissons (743), and in defeating the Aquitanians, the Bavarians, and the Allemands, on the banks of the Rhine and the Loire (742-46), retired to a monastery, leaving Pepin entire possession of the paternal inheritance. Pepin having now no rivals to the throne but his nephews, despoiled them, caused their heads to be shaved, and thus remained in undisputed possession of the sovereignty. He governed France as a king, and was weary of reigning without a sceptre. He was beloved by the church, because he rendered it important service; the pope, ever threatened by the Lombards, stood in need of him and favoured his designs. The assembly of the nation held at Soissons, in 752, dethroned Childeric III., who was shut up in a cloister, and proclaimed Pepin as his successor.

Pepin commenced by marching against the Aquitanians, whom his

brother Grippo had urged to revolt, defeated them, and added Septimania to the crown (753). Pope Stephen II., threatened in Rome by the Lombards, came to meet him covered with ashes and sackcloth, to implore his aid. They were able to serve each other. The pope crowned Pepin a second time, and threatened with the fulmination of the church the Franks refractory to his race. In return Pepin induced, though not without difficulty, the Frank chiefs to take arms against the Lombards. He passed into Italy, forced the passage of Suza, which was valiantly defended, and went to besiege Astolphus in his own capital. After having reduced Astolphus to submission, he recrossed the Alps, when suddenly he learnt that the king of the Lombards, in violation of the treaties he had just sworn to, held the pope a prisoner in Rome, hoping to crush him before the tidings of it should reach the Franks. Again he darted upon the Lombards, whom the rapidity of his march struck with terror and drove away.

Meanwhile the frontiers of North Gaul had continued to be incessantly ravaged by the inroads of the Saxons. Pepin turned his arms against them, inflicted another defeat upon them, and then attacked Aquitaine. The Saracens had held Narbonne for nearly forty years; after a siege of seven years he again drove them beyond the Pyrenees. There still remained the duke of Aquitaine, Waïfer, who obstinately refused to recognise the sovereignty of Pepin, and who made incursions into Burgundy. A war was kindled which exposed Aquitaine to the most fearful ravages. Pepin demanded of Waïfer the restoration of the properties which he had taken from the church. Upon his refusal, Pepin crossed the Loire, burnt the provinces of Berry, Auvergne, and a portion of Aquitaine; but it was only after nine consecutive campaigns and after the death of the duke Waïfer, who fell by assassination, that he was finally enabled to take possession of the vast provinces which stretch from the south of the Loire to the Ocean and the Pyrenees (768).

Charlemagne.-War of the Lombards.-Pepin the Short died after having made a partition of his dominions between his two sons. These sons, between whom there had been strife since the death of their father, for a while combined their forces to suppress an insurrection broken out in Aquitaine. Shortly after Carloman died, and Charles had only to exclude his youthful nephews to hold undivided sway over the empire. This was the cause of a new war against the Lombards. Their king, Didier already exasperated against Charles, who, after having been married to his daughter twelve months, repudiated her and sent her back to himsided with the sons of Carloman, Charles hastened to cross the Alps, and besieged in Pavia Didier, who had not dared to hazard a battle. He was obliged to capitulate. Charles then took the king prisoner, and put an end to the Lombard domination in Italy, which had lasted more than two centuries. He gave up a portion of it to pope Adrian, who had refused to assist the enemies of the Franks, and kept the other for himself, with the title of king of the Lombards, which he added to that which he already possessed. The sons of Carloman disappeared (774).

War against the Saxons. Previous to the expedition into Italy, Charles had commenced against the Saxons that war which occupied him during the greater portion of his reign. He had taken their fortress of Ehresburg, overthrown their idols, obtained twelve hostages, and for the

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purpose of watching and finally subjugating them, removed his residence between the Meuse and the Rhine, at Aix-la-Chapelle. But whilst he was in Italy the Saxons had recommenced hostilities, destroyed his fortifications, and exterminated a portion of his garrisons. He had returned against them, and had crossed the Weser (775). The assembly of Franks at Worms had sworn to pursue the war until the Saxons had been converted to christianity. Charles defeated them; he established a new fortress on the Lippe; he had already compelled them to be baptised by thousands, and thought he had finally quelled them, when one of their chiefs, Witikind, arrived from the north with the terrible worshippers of Odin, who now for the first time entered the battle field.

Whilst an army of Franks, which had pursued the Saracens in Spain, were routed at Roncesvalles, in the Pyrenees (778), Charles, at the head of his soldiers of the north, defeated the redoubtable Saxons at Buckholz, and having advanced as far as the Elbe, occupied himself in establishing order in the country which he imagined he had conquered. He had founded eight abbeys and bishoprics and organised a whole army of priests-a complete system of religious conquest, when Witikind once more arrived from the north, surprised the generals of Charlemagne, defeated them, and disappeared. Charlemagne pursued them, burning, ravaging, and destroying all that remained of them, nearly 5,000 Saxon prisoners being beheaded in one day on the banks of the Allier (782). At Dethmold and at Osnabruck he massacred the remainder. It was only ten years afterwards that they aroused themselves, when they once more surprised the garrisons, burned the churches, slaughtered the priests, and returned in crowds to their idolatry. Charlemagne seeing that he could not subjugate the Saxons, waged against them a war of extermination, established himself upon the Weser, put Saxony to fire and sword, and carried off numbers of the inhabitants to distant provinces. He at the same time divided their country into benefices, which he distributed to his prelates, that the remnant of the Saxons might become christian as well as subject. This people was not finally reduced till (804) after thirty-two years of wars, revolts, and massacre.

The Baiern or Bavarians, under their duke Tassillo, who had married a daughter of the king of Lombardy, entered into a league with other enemies against Charlemagne; but Bavaria was added to the empire of the Franks, the duke Tassillo was tried before a diet at Ingelheim, and shut up in a monastery.

From Spain the Saracens retaliated upon the territories of the Franks the invasion they had suffered; they elected William duke of Toulouse (793), and returned into Spain with a great booty.

The officers of the church arrested the attention of the king; the council of Nice (787) had ordered the adoration of images; on the other hand, the council of Frankfort (794) condemned the practice as idolatrous, a decision that was supported by Charlemagne, and defended by him in a treatise in four books submitted to the pope, who avoided the declaration of his opinion.

In the east of Germany and Hungary wandered a people denominated the Avars, who, coming, like the Huns, originally from the distant regions of the north of Asia, devastated the countries around them by the incursions of their countless and hardy horsemen, and deposited the booty in

large fortified enclosures called rings. The memory of these camps still exists in some names of countries, as Thuringia, Lotharingia. After many unsuccessful expeditions against this people, Pepin, son of Charlemagne, at the head of an army of Lombards and Bavarians, penetrated into their domain, and drew from their ring the accumulations of many years of plunder.

Charlemagne Emperor.-Charlemagne, after so many victories and conquests, dreamt of resuscitating the Roman empire. In the year 800 he went to Rome in the alleged interest of the pope, who in the basilica of St. Peter's, at Rome, placed a crown on the head of the king, saluted him as Augustus, and raised him to the lofty station of emperor of the West. He was desirous of marrying Irene, who reigned at Constantinople, and negotiations were set on foot for that purpose; but they led to no result. Charlemagne and the successor of Irene regulated by treaty the limits of the eastern and western empires (804).

The glory of Charlemagne filled the world. The caliph of Bagdad and the emir of the Edrissites of Fez sent him ambassadors laden with presents. Being at length in the enjoyment of peace, the chief of the barbarians, surrounded by the ceremonies of the court of Byzantium, studied grammar, and learnt to write and sing in the palace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which he had caused to be ornamented with the most precious marbles of Ravenna. At the same time he promulgated or revised laws, and was engaged in organising a regular system of government, and in constituting the unity of the empire.

As Charlemagne conquered himself the greater part of his empire, he had to appoint the rulers or lords of provinces and districts; in other words, counts and dukes. He dreaded the aristocracy, which had raised his family on the ruins of the Merovingians; and his object was to prevent the great charges of the empire and the governments of provinces from becoming hereditary. He wanted to form a monarchy on the oriental plan, in which the nobles, enjoying privileges attached to their persons, not to their race, were unable to perpetuate or consolidate their power. This plan, obviously tending to despotism, was fortunately frustrated. Charlemagne's views in this respect led him to lean so much to the church, as to prefer bestowing territorial commands upon prelates rather than upon lay nobles. And the same principle governed both him and Pepin in their unaccountable generosity to the pope of Rome.

Death of Charlemagne. The last years of Charlemagne's reign were clouded by wars of little importance, but which led him to forebode great misfortunes to his descendants. Sclavonian tribes were continually making incursions on the eastern frontiers; the Normans landed in the country of the Frisons with a fleet of two hundred vessels, and showed themselves at the mouths of several rivers. Charlemagne perceived that he had not yet finished with the irruptions of people which it had been the great aim of all his wars to render impossible in future; he established two fleets, one at Boulogne, the other at Ghent, and gave orders to his son to construct two others on the Garonne and the Rhone. But his successors invited the barbarians, instead of fortifying themselves against them. Charlemagne died at Aix-la-Chapelle, in his seventy-second year, after having lost two of his sons, companions of his victories, leaving the weight of his immense empire upon Louis I., surnamed Le Debon