naire, (or the beneficent), to whom he had already confided the government of Aquitaine (814).

Charlemagne was a bright meteor in an age of darkness, and when his brilliant career was finished night closed in again. The truest claim that this emperor has upon our respect rests upon his exertions to establish order and civilisation in his extensive dominions. He summoned diets twice in the year, to discuss and arrange projects useful to the state. His decrees or capitularies still bear testimony to the wisdom of their author. He founded schools in a great number of places; ordered the monks to be assiduous in multiplying copies of ancient authors, and encouraged learned men, among whom the Saxon Alcuinus, is especially distinguished. Many churches, fortresses, towns, and harbours were constructed-not so much with elegance as with solidity.

Louis I., le Debonnaire.-The successor of Charlemagne was at least endowed with every private virtue. He made a great many reforms, sent to distant monasteries the intriguing monks who had ruled his father during the latter years of his reign, expelled from the imperial palace all persons of immoral character, his sisters and their lovers, and submitted the bishops and monks to discipline. Fully occupied as he was with matters of minor importance, he listened to the complaints of his subjects, superintended several departments of his government, and sent new inspectors into the provinces to examine into abuses and to grant justice. For a short while he appeared to be adequate to the requirements of his vast government. In opposition to the bishops, he restored to the Saxons the right of inheritance of which they had been deprived since the conquest; confirmed by an edict the rights of the Christians of the south, whom the imperial generals were despoiling, made provisions for the defence of his frontier, mediated between Danish chiefs, and caused the territories placed under the protection of the Franks to be respected. But his powers deserted him as soon as the course of events became more grave. He had divided the defence of the frontiers of the empire between his two sons. In the capitulary published at Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, he altered this partition. He associated in the empire his son Lothaire, who previously had had Bavaria, gave Aquitaine to Pepin, and Bavaria to Louis. But Charlemagne had made Bernard, the son of his eldest son, king of Italy. Bernard considered himself wronged by this new partition, claiming, as son of the eldest brother, to be associated in the empire instead of Lothaire. Being supported by several bishops, and in particular by the bishop of Orleans, who had been the most intimate counsellor of the emperor on his accession to the crown, he raised the standard of revolt. Louis marched on Italy. Bernard, abandoned by his own troops, and deceived, moreover, by the councils of the empress Hermengarde, hastened to submit. The friends of Bernard were put to death with torture, and the young prince himself condemned to lose his eyes, an operation which proved mortal.

Meanwhile, his wife having died, Louis, left to himself, commenced repenting of so much severity, and resolved to do public penance for his crimes. In a council held at Thonville, he made his appearance in a robe of sackcloth and with his head covered with ashes, and prostrating himself before the bishops, besought them to grant him absolution for

the murder of his grandson. Such an humiliating spectacle had not been witnessed since the great Theodosius (822). The people blushed for the weakness of their emperor. Already the nobles and the bishops were against him; each wanted to reign in his own province, and was eager to destroy the unity of the empire, whilst Louis appeared himself to be providing chiefs to the revolt.

Having had a son by Judith of Bavaria, daughter of count Welf, whom he had married after the death of Hermengarde, he caused the statute of Aix-la-Chapelle to be annulled for the purpose of giving to this child, called Charles, the kingdom of Germany, formed of Suabia, Switzerland, and the country of the Grisons. The sons of Hermengarde, irritated, and afraid of losing their own possessions, made war upon their father. At first they refused to march against the Britons, who had taken arms, and collectively at Valerie they demanded that Judith should be incarcerated in the monastery of St. Radégonde, at Poitiers, and her favourite, the count of Barcelona, sent into exile. They were about to decide the fate of the unfortunate Louis, whom they held prisoner in Compiègne, when Lothaire, who had as yet taken no part in the revolt, learning the resolution of the assembly, arrived. He already believed himself emperor. His brothers now hesitated. Louis then demanded that a new assembly should be held at Nimeguen; he knew that the entire of Germany was favourable to him: he was, in fact, solemnly re-established, recalled Judith, whose innocence had been proclaimed by the diet of Aix-la-Chapelle, and pardoned everybody (830).

War nevertheless again broke out in the south. The emperor crossed the Loire, deposed his son Pepin, but, suddenly deserted by his troops near Colmar, in a plain called from that circumstance the Field of Falsehood, he fell in Lothaire's power. The bishops, in an assembly at Compiègne, drew up a list of crimes to which the fallen emperor was to make confession publicly in the cathedral of Soissons, and which he consented to expiate by a new public penance.

After this opprobrious ceremonial an immense reaction set in in favour of Louis le Debonnaire, which entirely changed his fortunes. Everywhere he found partisans, and he again took arms. Lothaire fled into Italy, and the diet of Thonville restored the sovereign power to the emperor (835). Yielded up to the same influences, he was, however, destined to fall into the same errors. He made and re-made partitions, and several times superseded his children in favour of the son of Judith, Charles the Bald. Louis, reduced to his kingdom of Bavaria by the assembly of Worms, which divided the empire between Lothaire and Charles, armed his subjects, and invaded the entire right bank of the Rhine. The old emperor immediately quitted Aquitaine, where a violent insurrection had broken out. The Germanic population had remained faithful to him, and he had but to appear to drive his son back into Bavaria. But he had not time to conclude peace; he died of grief at Ingelheim, an island of the Rhine, carrying with him the unity of the empire (840.)

The empire, composed of an assemblage of populations of so many various races, could only have been maintained and strengthened by the persevering efforts of four generations of great men. Its importance bad been great. It had attached men to the soil, constituted nations, opened Germany

to the influences of christianity, founded the political power of the papacy, saved Europe from the Mussulman conquest, and collected together, for the creation of a new civilisation, the wrecks of Roman and barbarian laws. But it appeared that the dynasty of Pepin had exhausted itself in this glorious work. The successors of Charlemagne did not even attempt to stay the dissolution of this fictitious unity of the empire. Whilst new nationalities were forming, and power was being scattered in the hands of the armed nobles, this second race of kings, like the first, was becom ing extinct in inaction and sterility.

SECTION II.-DISMEMBERMENT OF THE CARLOVINGIAN

EMPIRE.

Dissensions between the Sons of Louis le Debonnaire.-Lothaire, who for twenty-three years had been associated in the imperial authority, claimed to be recognised as supreme chief of the empire; Charles the Bald was for maintaining the capitulary of Worms, which had given him the entire of western France; Louis complained of having only Bavaria; whilst the son of Pepin demanded to have Aquitaine restored to him. A furious war broke out; a war not less of the people than the princes. Louis, whom all the Germanic nations had just proclaimed as their king, and Charles the Bald, combined their forces against Lothaire, and they were joined by the king of Aquitaine. The battle, which took place at Fontenay, near Auxerre, was bloody, but not decisive (841). Lothaire was vanquished, but the victors were unable to pursue him and to follow up their victory. He returned against them. Charles the Bald and Louis of Germany then united together by means of a new treaty agreed at Strasburg, using no longer the language of the church, but the popular language used in Gaul and Germany, both people collectively guaranteeing the oath, and swearing to compel their kings to keep it towards each other (842).

Lothaire, disconcerted by this alliance, and, moreover, alarmed at the invasions of the Normans and Saracens, who had profited by the civil war, consented to lay down arms, and proposed to ratify by a treaty the separation of the nations; a final partition was agreed upon in the assembly of Verdun. Charles was king of Gaul to the Saône, the Rhône, and the Meuse, and beyond the Pyrenees to the Ebro. Louis had Germany as far as the Rhine. Lothaire united Italy with the countries lying between the dominions of his brothers. The name of New France was given to the kingdom of Charles. Pepin was obliged to renounce all claim to supremacy, and accepted Lotharingia, or Lorraine, with other districts (843).

Not long after the death of Lothaire and his children, Charles the Bald and Louis of Germany were brought in opposition to each other, both aspiring to the imperial dignity. Charles was the abler of the two, and was crowned by the pope (875). The new emperor flying from Italy on the approach of one of his nephews, died in a miserable hut, in the passage of Mount Cenis; his physician, Sedecias, is suspected of poisoning him (877).

Charles had in the outset been the man of the church. He had distri

buted the offices of royal inspectors between the laymen and the bishops, and had charged no less a personage than archbishop Hincmar to levy troops for him. The priests supported their king: they had prevented Louis of Germany, in 859, establishing himself in Neustria and Aquitaine; but they could not defend the country against its most terrible enemies, those men of the north, whose first apparition had filled Charlemagne with so much sorrow.

The Normans.-The parties who had summoned the Normans to Brittany, could not defend it against their ravages. The same Pepin who was forced to give up Aquitaine, opened the south of France to them, and they were not slow to profit by the dissensions of the successors of Charlemagne, to devastate the lands of the empire. At various periods they pillaged and burnt Toulouse, Saintes, Nimeguen, Cologne, and Aixla-Chapelle. Nothing was sacred in their eyes, and monasteries less than anything else. It was therefore found necessary to treat with these barbarians. Their chiefs obtained from the descendants of Louis le Debonnaire permission to establish themselves on several points, particularly in the country called by their name, Normandy.

The Saracens, who during the same period had infested the south, did not found any important establishments, save in Sicily.

Feudalism. These invasions had put the power of the bishops to a severe test; they were compelled to restore, at least partially, temporal power to hands capable of bearing arms. The nobles thus became invested with great preponderance. Charles the Bald had granted them, by the statute of Kiersi, the right of hereditary succession of their counties or earldoms. From that moment feudalism was established. Every duke, every count, every noble, retired to his own district. Before the end of the century, Burgundy and Provence became, like Lorraine, kingdoms; twenty-nine hereditary fiefs forming as many independent states. Society became parcelled out in a multitude of new small societies.

Formation of Nationality.-In the midst of this disorganisation, the son of Charles the Bald, Louis II. surnamed le Begue (the Stammerer), could not even retain the shadow of the power which his father had wielded. He granted duchies, earldoms, abbies, &c., without succeeding in satisfying the cupidity of his nobles. After having reigned two years, he was scarcely able to transmit the crown to his two sons, Louis III. and Carloman (879). These divided amongst each other the kingdom of their father, shorn, however, of Burgundy and French Lorraine. Louis died in 882, after a reign of three years, and Carloman did not long survive him. They left a young brother, Charles, who was too young to reign; therefore the kingdom came to Charles (surnamed the Fat), son of Louis emperor of Germany.

Five crowns added to his own, constituted an empire nearly as vast as that of Charlemagne. But he was incapable of defending it. The Normans made inroads as far as Paris. The city, which was vigorously attacked, would have been taken, if count Eudes, son of Robert the Strong, had not come to the rescue to defend it. Eudes implored the assistance of Charles the Fat. The emperor approached Montmartre with an army, and made a dastardly treaty with the invaders, giving Burgundy over to them, on condition that they should raise the siege. The nobles of Germany, highly incensed at his weakness, and assembled

at the diet of Trebur, deposed him. The French and Italians followed this example. He died in 888, in indigence, detested by all.

Count Eudes was the representative of the French and feudal party, which inclined to reject the Carlovingian race. On the deposition of Charles the Fat, he was chosen king of France. Through the terrible battle which he gave to the Normans, at Montfaucon, he consolidated his power in the southern provinces; after this he reduced a powerful league in the south. In the meanwhile, the Germans had interested themselves in behalf of a posthumous son of Louis II. (the Stammerer), Charles III. surnamed le Simple (the Simple), who found himself for the second time excluded from the throne. Eudes, in order not to prolong the war, consented to divide the kingdom with this deplorable pretender, and ceded the southern bank of the Rhine to him.

On the death of Eudes, in 898, Charles the Simple had the entire of France, but only to lose his finest province, and to add to the number of his vassals one more redoubtable than all the others. It was he who ceded to Rollo, a Norman chief, the province of Normandy (912). He thus thought to create himself a powerful support, which, however, failed him when the nobles, incited to revolt by the influence exerted over him by an obscure individual, named Haganum, conferred the crown upon Robert duke of France (brother to Eudes, the late king). He being slain in battle, was never proclaimed among the French kings. His son, Hugh le Blanc, count of Paris, nominated to the throne Raoul, or Rodolph, of Burgundy, while the count de Vernandois held Charles a prisoner in the château of Péronne, where he died (929). Until 932, the great vassals of the south and the duke of Normandy had refused their homage to the new king. At this period, however, the count of Toulouse and the prince of the Normans having made their submission, Raoul was enabled to restore peace to France.

On his death (936), Hugh refused to assume the crown, and invited from England a son of Charles the Simple, Louis IV. surnamed d'Outremer (the Stranger). Burgundy became the reward of this service. Louis, scarcely seated on the throne, grew weary of the tutelage of Hugh, against whom he formed a league. The alliance which he had formed with the emperor Otho gave the finishing stroke to the discontent of the nobles, who were opposed to the Germanic influence. Hugh count of Paris, to whom the name of Great was given, in consequence of his immense possessions, was the representative of this national opinion; he deprived the foreign faction of the support of the duke of Normandy, and immured in the city of Laon the king, who had just been defeated and taken prisoner, with sixteen of his counts. Otho the Great, emperor of Germany, liberated him. In vain, however, Louis proved himself by his bravery to be a worthy descendant of Charlemagne; he was killed by a fall from his horse at Rheins (954). With him expired the hopes of the Carlovingian race rising from the state into which it had fallen.

Louis d'Outremer left two sons, Lothaire and Charles (an infant). For the first time, in a similar case, the custom of dividing the crown among all the sons ceased, and was never revived in France afterwards. Lothaire succeeded his father, in 954. The minority of the young king exposed France to the Germanic influence, his mother being the sister of the king of Germany. The efforts which the