HISTORY OF FRANCE

By M. Guizot

Volume 1 (of 6)

EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO THE PUBLISHERS. 

Every history, and especially that of France, is one vast, long drama, inwhich events are linked together according to defined laws, and in whichthe actors play parts not ready made and learned by heart, partsdepending, in fact, not only upon the accidents of their birth, but alsoupon their own ideas and their own will. There are, in the history ofpeoples, two sets of causes essentially different, and, at the same time, closely connected; the natural causes which are set over the generalcourse of events, and the unrestricted causes which are incidental. Mendo not make the whole of history it has laws of higher origin; but, inhistory, men are unrestricted agents who produce for it results andexercise over it an influence for which they are responsible. The fatedcauses and the unrestricted causes, the defined laws of events and thespontaneous actions of man's free agency--herein is the whole of history. And in the faithful reproduction of these two elements consist the truthand the moral of stories from it. 

Never was I more struck with this two-fold character of history than inmy tales to my grandchildren. When I commenced with them, they, beforehand, evinced a lively interest, and they began to listen to mewith serious good will; but when they did not well apprehend thelengthening chain of events, or when historical personages did notbecome, in their eyes, creatures real and free, worthy of sympathy orreprobation, when the drama was not developed before them with clearnessand animation, I saw their attention grow fitful and flagging; theyrequired light and life together; they wished to be illumined andexcited, instructed and amused. 

At the same time that the difficulty of satisfying this two-fold desirewas painfully felt by me, I discovered therein more means and chancesthan I had at first foreseen of succeeding in making my young audiencecomprehend the history of France in its complication and its grandeur. When Corneille observed, --

"In the well-born soul Valor ne'er lingers till due seasons roll, "--

he spoke as truly for intelligence as for valor. When once awakened andreally attentive, young minds are more earnest and more capable ofcomplete comprehension than any one would suppose. In order to explainfully to my grandchildren the connection of events and the influence ofhistorical personages, I was sometimes led into very comprehensiveconsiderations and into pretty deep studies of character. And in suchcases I was nearly always not only perfectly understood but keenlyappreciated. I put it to the proof in the sketch of Charlemagne's reignand character; and the two great objects of that great man, who succeededin one and failed in the other, received from my youthful audience themost riveted attention and the most clear comprehension. Youthful mindshave greater grasp than one is disposed to give them credit for, and, perhaps, men would do well to be as earnest in their lives as childrenare in their studies. 

In order to attain the end I had set before me, I always took care toconnect my stories or my reflections with the great events or the greatpersonages of history. When we wish to examine and describe a districtscientifically, we traverse it in all its divisions and in everydirection; we visit plains as well as mountains, villages as well ascities, the most obscure corners as well as the most famous spots; thisis the way of proceeding with the geologist, the botanist, thearcheologist, the statistician, the scholar. But when we wishparticularly to get an idea of the chief features of a country, its fixedoutlines, its general conformation, its special aspects, its great roads, we mount the heights; we place ourselves at points whence we can besttake in the totality and the physiognomy of the landscape. And so wemust proceed in history when we wish neither to reduce it to the skeletonof an abridgment nor extend it to the huge dimensions of a learned work. Great events and great men are the fixed points and the peaks of history;and it is thence that we can observe it in its totality, and follow italong its highways. In my tales to my grandchildren I sometimes lingeredover some particular anecdote which gave me an opportunity of setting ina vivid light the dominant spirit of an age or the characteristic mannersof a people; but, with rare exceptions, it is always on the great deedsand the great personages of history that I have relied for making of themin my tales what they were in reality--the centre and the focus of thelife of France. GUIZOT. 

VAL-RICHER, December, 1869. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

I. GAUL 13

II. THE GAULS OUT OF GAUL 27

III. THE ROMANS IN GAUL 48

IV. GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS CIESAR 61

V. GAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. . 83

VI. ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 111

VII. THE GERMANS IN GAUL--THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS 129

VIII. THE MEROVINGIANS 156

IX. THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. --THE PEPINS AND THE CHANGE OF DYNASTY180

X. CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS 210

XI. CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS GOVERNMENT. . 234

XII. DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS. 254

XIII. FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET 286

XIV. THE CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES 306

XV. CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS 332

XVI. THE CRUSADES, THEIR ORIGIN AND SUCCESS 372

LIST OF STEEL ENGRAVINGS, VOLUME I. 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF GUIZOT--FRONTISPIECE]

[Illustration: MAP OF ANCIENT FRANCE LYONS]

[Illustration: FROM LA CROIX ROUSSE----86]

[Illustration: BATTLE OF TOLBIACUM----144]

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF TOURS----193]

[Illustration: THE SUBMISSION OF WITTIKIND----218]

[Illustration: PARIS BESIEGED BY THE NORMANS----259]

[Illustration: NOTRE DAME----310]

[Illustration: Ideal Landscape of Ancient Gaul----13]

[Illustration: Gyptis presenting the Goblet to Euxenes----17]

[Illustration: A Tribe of Gauls on an Expedition----27]

[Illustration: The Gauls in Rome----39]

[Illustration: The Women defending the Cars----58]

[Illustration: The Roman Army invading Gaul----61]

[Illustration: Divitiacus before the Roman Senate----63]

[Illustration: Mounted Gauls----66]

[Illustration: Vercingetorix surrenders to Caesar----81]

[Illustration: Gaul subjugated by the Romans----83]

[Illustration: Eponina and Sabinus hidden in a Vault----97]

[Illustration: Christianity established in Gaul----111]

[Illustration: Druids offering Human Sacrifices----111]

[Illustration: Germans invading Gaul----129]

[Illustration: The Huns at the Battle of Chalons----135]

[Illustration: "Thus didst thou to the Vase of Soissons. "----139]

[Illustration: The Sluggard King Journeying----156]

[Illustration: "Thrust him away, or thou diest in his stead. "----160]

[Illustration: The Execution of Brunehaut----175]

[Illustration: "The Arabs had decamped silently in the night. "----195]

[Illustration: Charlemagne at the Head of his Army----212]

[Illustration: Charlemagne inflicting Baptism upon the Saxons----215]

[Illustration: A Battle between Franks and Saxons----216]

[Illustration: Death of Roland at Roncesvalles----227]

[Illustration: Charlemagne and the General Assembly----239]

[Illustration: Charlemagne presiding at the School of the Palace----246]

[Illustration: Northmen on an Expedition----254]

[Illustration: "He remained there a long while, and his eyes were filledwith tears. "----255]

[Illustration: The Barks of the Northmen before Paris----260]

[Illustration: Count Eudes re-entering Paris right through the Besiegers----262]

[Illustration: Ditcar the Monk recognizing the Head of Morvan----273]

[Illustration: Hugh Capet elected King----300]

[Illustration: "Who made thee King?"----302]

[Illustration: Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II----304]

[Illustration: Knights returning from Foray----311]

[Illustration: Knights and Peasants----312]

[Illustration: Robert had a Kindly Feeling for the Weak and Poor----313]

[Illustration: "The Accolade. "----324]

[Illustration: Normans landing on English Coast----353]

[Illustration: William the Conqueror reviewing his Army----357]

[Illustration: Edith discovers the Body of Harold----360]

[Illustration: "God willeth it!"----383]

[Illustration: The Four Leaders of the First Crusade----385]

[Illustration: Crusaders on the March----386]

[Illustration: The Assault on St. Jean d'Acre----386]

A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. 

CHAPTER I. ----GAUL. 

The Frenchman of to-day inhabits a country, long ago civilized andChristianized, where, despite of much imperfection and much socialmisery, thirty-eight millions of men live in security and peace, underlaws equal for all and efficiently upheld. There is every reason tonourish great hopes of such a country, and to wish for it more and moreof freedom, glory, and prosperity; but one must be just towards one's owntimes, and estimate at their true value advantages already acquired andprogress already accomplished. If one were suddenly carried twenty orthirty centuries backward, into the midst of that which was then calledGaul, one would not recognize France. The same mountains reared theirheads; the same plains stretched far and wide; the same rivers rolled ontheir course. There is no alteration in the physical formation of thecountry; but its aspect was very different. Instead of the fields alltrim with cultivation, and all covered with various produce, one wouldsee inaccessible morasses and vast forests, as yet uncleared, given up tothe chances of primitive vegetation, peopled with wolves and bears, andeven the _urns_, or huge wild ox, and with elks, too--a kind of beastthat one finds no longer nowadays, save in the colder regions ofnorth-eastern Europe, such as Lithuania and Courland. Then wanderedover the champaign great herds of swine, as fierce almost as wolves, tamed only so far as to know the sound of their keeper's horn. Thebetter sort of fruits and of vegetables were quite unknown; they wereimported into Gaul--the greatest part from Asia, a portion from Africaand the islands of the Mediterranean; and others, at a later period, from the New World. Cold and rough was the prevailing temperature. Nearly every winter the rivers froze sufficiently hard for the passageof cars. And three or four centuries before the Christian era, on thatvast territory comprised between the ocean, the Pyrenees, theMediterranean, the Alps, and the Rhine, lived six or seven millions ofmen a bestial life, enclosed in dwellings dark and low, the best of thembuilt of wood and clay, covered with branches or straw, made in a singleround piece, open to daylight by the door alone, and confusedly heapedtogether behind a rampart, not inartistically composed of timber, earth, and stone, which surrounded and protected what they were pleased to calla town. 

[Illustration: Ideal Landscape of Ancient Gaul----13]

Of even such towns there were scarcely any as yet, save in the mostpopulous and least uncultivated portion of Gaul; that is to say, in thesouthern and eastern regions, at the foot of the mountains of Auvergneand the Cevennes, and along the coasts of the Mediterranean. In thenorth and the west were paltry hamlets, as transferable almost as thepeople themselves; and on some islet amidst the morasses, or in somehidden recess of the forest, were huge intrenchments formed of the treesthat were felled, where the population, at the first sound of thewar-cry, ran to shelter themselves with their flocks and all theirmovables. And the war-cry was often heard: men living grossly and idlyare very prone to quarrel and fight. Gaul, moreover, was not occupied byone and the same nation, with the same traditions and the same chiefs. Tribes very different in origin, habits, and date of settlement, werecontinually disputing the territory. In the south were Iberians orAquitanians, Phoenicians and Greeks; in the north and north-west, Kymrians or Belgians; everywhere else, Gauls or Celts, the most numeroussettlers, who had the honor of giving their name to the country. Whowere the first to come, then? and what was the date of the firstsettlement? Nobody knows. Of the Greeks alone does history mark withany precision the arrival in southern Gaul. The Phoenicians precededthem by several centuries; but it is impossible to fix any exact time. The information is equally vague about the period when the Kymriansinvaded the north of Gaul. As for the Gauls and the Iberians, there isnot a word about their first entrance into the country, for they arediscovered there already at the first appearance of the country itself inthe domain of history. 

The Iberians, whom Roman writers call Aquitanians, dwelt at the foot ofthe Pyrenees, in the territory comprised between the mountains, theGaronne, and the ocean. They belonged to the race which, under the sameappellation, had peopled Spain; but by what route they came into Gaul isa problem which we cannot solve. It is much the same in tracing theorigin of every nation, for in those barbarous times men lived and diedwithout leaving any enduring memorial of their deeds and their destinies;no monuments; no writings; just a few oral traditions, perhaps, which arespeedily lost or altered. It is in proportion as they become enlightenedand civilized, that men feel the desire and discover the means ofextending their memorial far beyond their own lifetime. That is thebeginning of history, the offspring of noble and useful sentiments, whichcause the mind to dwell upon the future, and to yearn for longcontinuance; sentiments which testify to the superiority of man over allother creatures living upon our earth, which foreshadow the immortalityof the soul, and which are warrant for the progress of the human race bypreserving for the generations to come what has been done and learned bythe generations that disappear. 

By whatever route and at whatever epoch the Iberians came into thesouth-west of Gaul, they abide there still in the department of the LowerPyrenees, under the name of Basques; a people distinct from all itsneighbors in features, costume, and especially language, which resemblesnone of the present languages of Europe, contains many words which are tobe found in the names of rivers, mountains, and towns of olden Spain, andwhich presents a considerable analogy to the idioms, ancient and modern, of certain peoples of northern Africa. The Phoenicians did not leave, asthe Iberians did, in the south of France distinct and well-authenticateddescendants. They had begun about 1100 B. C. To trade there. They wentthither in search of furs, and gold and silver, which were got eitherfrom the sand of certain rivers, as for instance the Allege (in LatinAurigera), or from certain mines of the Alps, the Cevennes, and thePyrenees; they brought in exchange stuffs dyed with purple, necklaces andrings of glass, and, above all, arms and wine; a trade like that which isnowadays carried on by the civilized peoples of Europe with the savagetribes of Africa and America. For the purpose of extending and securingtheir commercial expeditions, the Phoenicians founded colonies in severalparts of Gaul, and to them is attributed the earliest origin of Nemausus(Nimes), and of Alesia, near Semur. But, at the end of three or fourcenturies, these colonies fell into decay; the trade of the Phoenicianswas withdrawn from Gaul, and the only important sign it preserved oftheir residence was a road which, starting from the eastern Pyrenees, skirted the Gallic portion of the Mediterranean, crossed the Alps by thepass of Tenda, and so united Spain, Gaul, and Italy. After thewithdrawal of the Phoenicians this road was kept up and repaired, atfirst by the Greeks of Marseilles, and subsequently by the Romans. 

As merchants and colonists, the Greeks were, in Gaul, the successors ofthe Phoenicians, and Marseilles was one of their first and mostconsiderable colonies. At the time of the Phoenicians' decay in Gaul, aGreek people, the Rhodians, had pushed their commercial enterprises to agreat distance, and, in the words of the ancient historians, held theempire of the sea. Their ancestors had, in former times, succeeded thePhoenicians in the island of Rhodes, and they likewise succeeded them inthe south of Gaul, and founded, at the mouth of the Rhone, a colonycalled Rhodanusia or Rhoda, with the same name as that which they hadalready founded on the north-east coast of Spain, and which is nowadaysthe town of Rosas, in Catalonia. But the importance of the Rhodians onthe southern coast of Gaul was short-lived. It had already sunk very lowin the year 600 B. C. , when Euxenes, a Greek trader, coming from Phocea, an Ionian town of Asia Minor, to seek his fortune, landed from a bayeastward of the Rhone. The Segobrigians, a tribe of the Gallic race, were in occupation of the neighboring country. Nann, their chief, gavethe strangers kindly welcome, and took them home with him to a greatfeast which he was giving for his daughter's marriage, who was calledGyptis, according to some, and Petta, according to other historians. Acustom which exists still in several cantons of the Basque country, andeven at the centre of France in Morvan, a mountainous district of thedepartment of the Nievre, would that the maiden should appear only at theend of the banquet, and holding in her hand a filled wine-cup, and thatthe guest to whom she should present it should become the husband of herchoice. By accident, or quite another cause, say the ancient legends, Gyptis stopped opposite Euxenes, and handed him the cup. Great was thesurprise, and, probably, anger amongst the Gauls who were present. ButNann, believing he recognized a commandment from his gods, accepted thePhocean as his son-in-law, and gave him as dowry the bay where he hadlanded, with some cantons of the territory around. Euxenes, ingratitude, gave his wife the Greek name of Aristoxena (that is, "the bestof hostesses"), sent away his ship to Phocea for colonists, and, whilstwaiting for them, laid in the centre of the bay, on a peninsula hollowedout harbor-wise, towards the south, the foundations of a town, which hecalled Massilia--thence Marseilles. 

[Illustration: Gyptis presenting the Goblet to Euxenes----17]

Scarcely a year had elapsed when Euxenes' ship arrived from Phocea, andwith it several galleys, bringing colonists full of hope, and laden withprovisions, utensils, arms, seeds, vine-cuttings, and olive-cuttings, and, moreover, a statue of Diana, which the colonists had gone to fetchfrom the celebrated temple of that goddess at Ephesus, and which herpriestess, Aristarche, accompanied to its new country. 

The activity and prosperity of Marseilles, both within and without, wererapidly developed. She carried her commerce wherever the Phoenicians andthe Rhodians had marked out a road; she repaired their forts; she took toherself their establishments; and she placed on her medals, to signifydominion, the rose, the emblem of Rhodes, beside the lion of Marseilles. But Nann, the Gallic chieftain, who had protected her infancy, died; andhis son, Conran, shared the jealousy felt by the Segobrigians and theneighboring peoplets towards the new corners. He promised and reallyresolved to destroy the new city. It was the time of the flowering ofthe vine, a season of great festivity amongst the Ionian Greeks, andMarseilles thought solely of the preparations for the feast. The housesand public places were being decorated with branches and flowers. Noguard was set; no work was done. Conran sent into the town a number ofhis men, some openly, as if to take part in the festivities, othershidden at the bottom of the cars which conveyed into Marseilles thebranches and foliage from the outskirts. He himself went and lay inambush in a neighboring glen, with seven thousand men, they say, but thenumber is probably exaggerated, and waited for his emissaries to open thegates to him during the night. But once more a woman, a near relation ofthe Gallic chieftain, was the guardian angel of the Greeks, and revealedthe plot to a young man of Marseilles, with whom she was in love. Thegates were immediately shut, and so many Segobrigians as happened to bein the town were massacred. Then, when night came on, the inhabitants, armed, went forth to surprise Conran in the ambush where he was awaitingthe moment to surprise them. And there he fell with all his men. 

Delivered as they were from this danger, the Massilians neverthelessremained in a difficult and disquieting situation. The peoplets around, in coalition against them, attacked them often, and threatened themincessantly. But whilst they were struggling against theseembarrassments, a grand disaster, happening in the very same spot whencethey had emigrated half a century before, was procuring them a greataccession of strength and the surest means of defence. In the year 542B. C. , Phocea succumbed beneath the efforts of Cyrus, King of Persia, andher inhabitants, leaving to the conqueror empty streets and desertedhouses, took to their ships in a body, to transfer their homes elsewhere. A portion of this floating population made straight for Marseilles;others stopped at Corsica, in the harbor of Alalia, another Phoceancolony. But at the end of five years they too, tired of piratical lifeand of the incessant wars they had to sustain against the Carthaginians, quitted Corsica, and went to rejoin their compatriots in Gaul. 

Thenceforward Marseilles found herself in a position to face her enemies. She extended her walls all round the bay, and her enterprises far away. She founded on the southern coast of Gaul and on the eastern coast ofSpain, permanent settlements, which are to this day towns: eastward ofthe Rhone, Hercules' harbor, Moncecus (Monaco), Niccea (Nice), Antipolis(Antibes); westward, Heraclea Cacabaria (Saint-Gilles), Agaththae(Agdevall), Emporia; (Ampurias in Catalonia), &c. , &c. In valley of theRhone, several towns of the Gauls, Cabellio were (Cavaili like on), GreekAvenio (Avignon), Arelate (Arles), for instance, colonies, so great therewas the number of travellers or established merchants who spoke Greek. With this commercial activity Marseilles united intellectual andscientific activity; her grammarians were among the first to revise andannotate the poems of Homer; and bold travellers from Marseilles, Euthymenes and Pytheas by name, cruised, one along the western coast ofAfrica beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and the other the southern andwestern coasts of Europe, from the mouth of the Tanais (Don), in theBlack Sea, to the latitudes and perhaps into the interior of the Baltic. They lived, both of them, in the second half of the fourth century B. C. , and they wrote each a Periplus, or tales of their travels, which haveunfortunately been almost entirely lost. 

But whatever may have been her intelligence and activity, a single townsituated at the extremity of Gaul and peopled with foreigners could havebut little influence over so vast a country and its inhabitants. Atfirst civilization is very hard and very slow; it requires manycenturies, many great events, and many years of toil to overcome theearly habits of a people, and cause them to exchange the pleasures, grossindeed, but accompanied with the idleness and freedom of barbarian life, for the toilful advantages of a regulated social condition. By dint offoresight, perseverance, and courage, the merchants of Marseilles and hercolonies crossed by two or three main lines the forests, morasses, andheaths through the savage tribes of Gauls, and there effected theirexchanges, but to the right and left they penetrated but a shortdistance. Even on their main lines their traces soon disappeared; and atthe commercial settlements which they established here and there theywere often far more occupied in self-defence than in spreading theirexample. Beyond a strip of land of uneven breadth, along theMediterranean, and save the space peopled towards the south-west by theIberians, the country, which received its name from the former of thetwo, was occupied by the Gauls and the Kymrians; by the Gauls in thecentre, south-east and east, in the highlands of modern France, betweenthe Alps, the Vosges, the mountains of Auvergne and the Cevennes; by theKymrians in the north, north-west, and west, in the lowlands, from thewestern boundary of the Gauls to the ocean. 

Whether the Gauls and the Kymrians were originally of the same race, orat least of races closely connected; whether they were both ancientlycomprised under the general name of Celts; and whether the Kymrians, ifthey were not of the same race as the Gauls, belonged to that of theGermans, the final conquerors of the Roman empire, are questions whichthe learned have been a long, long while discussing without deciding. The only facts which seem to be clear and certain are the following. 

The ancients for a long while applied without distinction the name ofCelts to the peoples who lived in the west and north of Europe, regardless of precise limits, language, or origin. It was a geographicaltitle applicable to a vast but ill-explored territory, rather than a realhistorical name of race or nation. And so, in the earliest times, Gauls, Germans, Bretons, and even Iberians, appear frequently confounded underthe name of Celts, peoples of Celtica. 

Little by little this name is observed to become more restricted and moreprecise. The Iberians of Spain are the first to be detached; then theGermans. In the century preceding the Christian era, the Gauls, that is, the peoples inhabiting Gaul, are alone called Celts. We begin even torecognize amongst them diversities of race, and to distinguish theIberians of Gaul, alias Aquitanians, and the Kymrians or Belgians fromthe Gauls, to whom the name of Celts is confined. Sometimes even it isto a confederation of certain Gallic tribes that the name Speciallyapplies. However it be, the Gauls appear to have been the firstinhabitants of western Europe. In the most ancient historical memorialsthey are found there, and not only in Gaul, but in Great Britain, inIreland, and in the neighboring islets. In Gaul, after a longpredominance, they commingled with other races to form the French nation. But, in this commingling numerous traces of their language, monuments, manners, and names of persons and places, survived and still exist, especially to the east and south--cast, in local customs and vernaculardialects. In Ireland, in the highlands of Scotland, in the Hebrides andthe Isle of Man, Gauls (Gaels) still live under their primitive name. There we still have the Gaelic race and tongue, free, if not from anychange, at least from absorbent fusion. 

From the seventh to the fourth century B. C. , a new population spread overGaul, not at once, but by a series of invasions, of which the twoprincipal took place at the two extremes of that epoch. They calledthemselves Kymrians or Kimrians, whence the Romans made Cimbrians, whichrecalls Cimmerii or Cimmerians, the name of a people whom the Greeksplaced on the western bank of the Black Sea and in the Cimmerianpeninsula, called to this day Crimea. During these irregular andsuccessively repeated movements of wandering populations, it oftenhappened that tribes of different races met, made terms, united, andfinished by amalgamation under one name. All the peoples thatsuccessively invaded Europe, Gauls, Kymrians, Germans, belonged at first, in Asia, whence they came, to a common stern; the diversity of theirlanguages, traditions, and manners, great as it already was at the timeof their appearance in the West, was the work of time and of the diversecircumstances in the midst of which they had lived; but there alwaysremained amongst them traces of a primitive affinity which allowed ofsudden and frequent comings, amidst their tumultuous dispersion. 

The Kymrians, who crossed the Rhine and flung themselves into northernGaul towards the middle of the fourth century B. C. , called themselvesBolg, or Belg, or Belgians, a name which indeed is given to them by Romanwriters, and which has remained that of the country they first invaded. They descended southwards, to the banks of the Seine and the Marne. There they encountered the Kymrians of former invasions, who not only hadspread over the country comprised between the Seine and the Loire, to thevery heart of the peninsula bordered by the latter river, but had crossedthe sea, and occupied a portion of the large island opposite Gaul, crowding back the Gauls, who had preceded them, upon Ireland and thehighlands of Scotland. It was from one of these tribes and itschieftain, called Pryd or Prydain, Brit or Britain, that Great Britainand Brittany in France received the name which they have kept. 

Each of these races, far from forming a single people bound to the samedestiny and under the same chieftains, split into peoplets, more or lessindependent, who foregathered or separated according to the shifts ofcircumstances, and who pursued, each on their own account and at theirown pleasure, their fortunes or their fancies. The Ibero-Aquitaniansnumbered twenty tribes; the Gauls twenty-two nations; the originalKymrians, mingled with the Gauls between the Loire and the Garonne, seventeen; and the Kymro-Belgians twenty-three. These sixty-two nationswere subdivided into several hundreds of tribes; and these pettyagglomerations were distributed amongst rival confederations or leagues, which disputed one with another the supremacy over such and such aportion of territory. Three grand leagues existed amongst the Gauls;that of the Arvernians, formed of peoplets established in the countrywhich received from them the name of Auvergne; that of the AEduans, inBurgundy, whose centre was Bibracte (Autun); and that of the Sequanians, in Franche-Comte, whose centre was Vesontio (Besancon). Amongst theKymrians of the West, the Armoric league bound together the tribes ofBrittany and lower Normandy. From these alliances, intended to grouptogether scattered forces, sprang fresh passions or interests, whichbecame so many fresh causes of discord and hostility. And, in thesedivers-agglomerations, government was everywhere almost equally irregularand powerless to maintain order or found an enduring state. Kymrians, Gauls, or Iberians were nearly equally ignorant, improvident, slaves tothe shiftings of their ideas and the sway of their passions, fond of warand idleness and rapine and feasting, of gross and savage pleasures. Allgloried in hanging from the breast-gear of their horses, or nailing tothe doors of their houses, the heads of their enemies. All sacrificedhuman victims to their gods; all tied their prisoners to trees, andburned or flogged them to death; all took pleasure in wearing upon theirheads or round their arms, and depicting upon their naked bodies, fantastic ornaments, which gave them a wild appearance. An unbridledpassion for wine and strong liquors was general amongst them: the tradersof Italy, and especially of Marseilles, brought supplies into every partof Gaul; from interval to interval there were magazines established, whither the Gauls flocked to sell for a flask of wine their furs, theirgrain, their cattle, their slaves. "It was easy, " says an ancienthistorian, "to get the Ganymede for the liquor. " Such are the essentialcharacteristics of barbaric life, as they have been and as they still areat several points of our globe, amongst people of the same grade in thescale of civilization. They existed in nearly an equal degree amongstthe different races of ancient Gaul, whose resemblance was rendered muchstronger thereby than their diversity in other respects by some of theircustoms, traditions, or ideas. 

In their case, too, there is no sign of those permanent demarcations, those rooted antipathies, and that impossibility of unity which areobservable amongst peoples whose original moral condition is really verydifferent. In Asia, Africa, and America, the English, the Dutch, theSpanish, and the French have been and are still in frequent contact withthe natives of the country--Hindoos, Malays, Negroes, and Indians; and, in spite of this contact, the races have remained widely separated onefrom another. In ancient Gaul not only did Gauls, Kymrians, and Iberianslive frequently in alliance and almost intimacy, but they actuallycommingled and cohabited without scruple on the same territory. And sowe find in the midst of the Iberians, towards the mouth of the Garonne, aGallic tribe, the Viviscan Biturigians, come from the neighborhood ofBourges, where the bulk of the nation was settled: they had been driventhither by one of the first invasions of the Kymrians, and peaceablytaken root there; Burdigaia, afterwards Bordeaux, was the chiefsettlement of this tribe, and even then a trading-place between theMediterranean and the ocean. A little farther on, towards the south, aKymrian tribe, the Bolans, lived isolated from its race, in thewaste-lands of the Iberians, extracting the resin from the pines whichgrew in that territory. To the south-west, in the country situatedbetween the Garonne, the eastern Pyrenees, the Cevennes, and the Rhone, two great tribes of Kymro-Belgians, the Bolg, Volg, Volk, or Voles, Arecomican and Tectosagian, came to settle, towards the end of the fourthcentury B. C. , in the midst of the Iberian and Gallic peoplets; andthere is nothing to show that the new comers lived worse with theirneighbors than the latter had previously lived together. 

It is evident that amongst all these peoplets, whatever may have beentheir diversity of origin, there was sufficient similitude of socialcondition and manners to make agreement a matter neither very difficultnor very long to accomplish. 

On the other hand, and as a natural consequence, it was precarious andoften of short duration: Iberian, Gallic, or Kymrian as they might be, these peoplets underwent frequent displacements, forced or voluntary, toescape from the attacks of a more powerful neighbor; to find newpasturage; in consequence of internal dissension; or, perhaps, for themere pleasure of warfare and running risks, and to be delivered from thetediousness of a monotonous life. From the earliest times to the firstcentury before the Christian era, Gaul appears a prey to this incessantand disorderly movement of the population; they change settlement andneighborhood; disappear from one point and reappear at another; cross oneanother; avoid one another; absorb and are absorbed. And the movementwas not confined within Gaul; the Gauls of every race went, sometimes invery numerous hordes, to seek far away plunder and a settlement. Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa have been in turn thetheatre of those Gallic expeditions which entailed long wars, granddisplacements of peoples, and sometimes the formation of new nations. Let us make a slight acquaintance with this outer history of the Gauls;for it is well worth while to follow them a space upon their distantwanderings. We will then return to the soil of France, and concernourselves only with what has passed within her boundaries. 

CHAPTER II. THE GAULS OUT OF GAUL. 

About three centuries B. C. Numerous hordes of Gauls crossed the Alps andpenetrated to the centre of Etruria, which is nowadays Tuscany. TheEtruscans, being then at war with Rome, proposed to take them, armed andequipped as they had come, into their own pay. "If you want our hands, "answered the Gauls, "against your enemies, the Romans, here they are atyour service--but on one condition: give us lands. "

[Illustration: A Tribe of Gauls on an Expedition----27]

A century afterwards other Gallic hordes, descending in like manner uponItaly, had commenced building houses and tilling fields along theAdriatic, on the territory where afterwards was Aquileia. The RomanSenate decreed that their settlement should be opposed, and that theyshould be summoned to give up their implements and even their arms. Notbeing in a position to resist, the Gauls sent representatives to Rome. They, being introduced into the Senate, said, "The multitude of people inGaul, the want of lands, and necessity forced us to cross the Alps toseek a home. We saw plains uncultivated and uninhabited. We settledthere without doing any one harm. . . . We ask nothing but lands. Wewill live peacefully on them under the laws of the republic. "

Again, a century later, or thereabouts, some Gallic Kymrians, mingledwith Teutons or Germans, said also to the Roman Senate, "Give us a littleland as pay, and do what you please with our hands and weapons. "

Want of room and means of subsistence have, in fact, been the principalcauses which have at all times thrust barbarous people, and especiallythe Gauls, out of their fatherland. An immense extent of country isrequired for indolent hordes who live chiefly upon the produce of thechase and of their flocks; and when there is no longer enough of forestor pasturage for the families that become too numerous, there is a swarmfrom the hive, and a search for livelihood elsewhere. The Gaulsemigrated in every direction. To find, as they said, rivers and lands, they marched from north to south, and from east to west. They crossed atone time the Rhine, at another the Alps, at another the Pyrenees. Morethan fifteen centuries B. C. They had already thrown themselves intoSpain, after many fights, no doubt, with the Iberians established betweenthe Pyrenees and the Garonne. They penetrated north-westwards to thenorthern point of the Peninsula, into the province which received fromthem and still bears the name of Galicia; south-eastwards to the southernpoint, between the river Anas (nowadays Guadiana) and the ocean, wherethey founded a Little Celtica; and centrewards and southwards fromCastile to Andalusia, where the amalgamation of two races brought aboutthe creation of a new people, that found a place in history asCeltiberians. And twelve centuries after those events, about 220 B. C. , we find the Gallic peoplet, which had planted itself in the south ofPortugal, energetically defending its independence against theneighboring Carthaginian colonies. Indortius, their chief, conquered andtaken prisoner, was beaten with rods and hung upon the cross, in thesight of his army, after having had his eyes put out by command ofHamilcar-Barca, the Carthaginian general; but a Gallic slave took care toavenge him by assassinating, some years after, at a hunting-party, Hasdrubal, son-in-law of Hamilcar, who had succeeded to the command. Theslave was put to the torture; but, indomitable in his hatred, he diedinsulting the Africans. 

A little after the Gallic invasion of Spain, and by reason perhaps ofthat very movement, in the first half of the fourteenth century B. C. , another vast horde of Gauls, who called themselves Anahra, Ambra, Ambrons, that is, "braves, " crossed the Alps, occupied northern Italy, descended even to the brink of the Tiber, and conferred the name ofAmbria or Umbria on the country where they founded their dominion. Ifancient accounts might be trusted, this dominion was glorious andflourishing, for Umbria numbered, they say, three hundred and fifty-eighttowns; but falsehood, according to the Eastern proverb, lurks by thecradle of nations. At a much later epoch, in the second century B. C. , fifteen towns of Liguria contained altogether, as we learn from Livy, buttwenty thousand souls. It is plain, then, what must really have been--even admitting their existence--the three hundred and fifty-eight townsof Umbria. However, at the end of two or three centuries, this Galliccolony succumbed beneath the superior power of the Etruscans, another setof invaders from eastern Europe, perhaps from the north of Greece, whofounded in Italy a mighty empire. The Umbrians or Ambrons were drivenout or subjugated. Nevertheless some of their peoplets, preserving theirname and manners, remained in the mountains of upper Italy, where theywere to be subsequently discovered by fresh and more celebrated Gallicinvasions. 

Those just spoken of are of such antiquity and obscurity, that we notetheir place in history without being able to say how they came to fillit. It is only with the sixth century before our era that we light uponthe really historical expeditions of the Gauls away from Gaul, those, infact, of which we may follow the course and estimate the effects. 

Towards the year 587 B. C. , almost at the very moment when the Phoceanshad just founded Marseilles, two great Gallic hordes got in motion at thesame time, and crossed, one the Rhine, the other the Alps, making one forGermany, the other for Italy. The former followed the course of theDanube and settled in Illyria, on the right bank of the river. It is toomuch, perhaps, to say that they settled; the greater part of themcontinued wandering and fighting, sometimes amalgamating with thepeoplets they encountered, sometimes chasing them and exterminating them, whilst themselves were incessantly pushed forward by fresh bands comingalso from Gaul. Thus marching and spreading, leaving here and there ontheir route, along the rivers and in the valleys of the Alps, tribes thatremained and founded peoples, the Gauls had arrived, towards the year 340B. C. , at the confines of Macedonia, at the time when Alexander, the sonof Philip, who was already famous, was advancing to the same point torestrain the ravages of the neighboring tribes, perhaps of the Gaulsthemselves. From curiosity, or a desire to make terms with Alexander, certain Gauls betook themselves to his camp. He treated them well, madethem sit at his table, took pleasure in exhibiting his magnificencebefore them, and in the midst of his carouse made his interpreter askthem what they were most afraid of. 

"We fear nought, " they answered, "unless it be the fall of heaven; but weset above everything the friendship of a man like thee. " "The Celts areproud, " said Alexander to his Macedonians; and he promised them hisfriendship. On the death of Alexander, the Gauls, as mercenaries, entered, in Europe and Asia, the service of the kings who had been hisgenerals. Ever greedy, fierce, and passionate, they were almost equallydangerous as auxiliaries and as neighbors. Antigonus, King of Macedonia, was to pay the band he had enrolled a gold piece a head. They broughttheir wives and children with them, and at the end of the campaign theyclaimed pay for their following as well as for themselves: "We werepromised, " said they, "a gold piece a head for each Gaul; and these arealso Gauls. "

Before long they tired of fighting the battles of another; their poweraccumulated; fresh hordes, in great numbers, arrived amongst them aboutthe year 281 B. C. They had before them Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, Greece, rich, but distracted and weakened by civil strife. They effectedan entrance at several points, devastating, plundering, loading theircars with booty, and dividing their prisoners into two parts; one offeredin sacrifice to their gods, the other strung up to trees and abandoned tothe _gais_ and _matars, _ or javelins and pikes of the conquerors. 

Like all barbarians, they, both for pleasure and on principle, addedinsolence to ferocity. Their Brenn, or most famous chieftain, whom theLatins and Greeks call Brennus, dragged in his train Macedonianprisoners, short, mean, and with shaven heads, and exhibiting them besideGallic warriors, tall, robust, long-haired, adorned with chains of gold, said, "This is what we are, that is what our enemies are. "

Ptolemy the Thunderbolt, King of Macedonia, received with haughtinesstheir first message requiring of him a ransom for his dominions if hewished to preserve peace. "Tell those who sent you, " he replied to theGallic deputation, "to lay down their arms and give up to me theirchieftains. I will then see what peace I can grant them. " On the returnof the deputation, the Gauls were moved to laughter. "He shall soonsee, " said they, "whether it was in his interest or our own that weoffered him peace. " And, indeed, in the first engagement, neither thefamous Macedonian phalanx, nor the elephant he rode, could save KingPtolemy; the phalanx was broken, the elephant riddled with javelins, theking himself taken, killed, and his head marched about the field ofbattle on the top of a pike. 

Macedonia was in consternation; there was a general flight from the opencountry, and the gates of the towns were closed. "The people, " says anhistorian, "cursed the folly of King Ptolemy, and invoked the names ofPhilip and Alexander, the guardian deities of their land. "

Three years later, another and a more formidable invasion came burstingupon Thessaly and Greece. It was, according to the unquestionablyexaggerated account of the ancient historians, two hundred thousandstrong, and commanded by that famous, ferocious, and insolent Brennusmentioned before. His idea was to strike a blow which shouldsimultaneously enrich the Gauls and stun the Greeks. He meant to plunderthe temple at Delphi, the most venerated place in all Greece, whitherflowed from century to century all kinds of offerings, and where, nodoubt, enormous treasure was deposited. Such was, in the opinion of theday, the sanctity of the place, that, on the rumor of the projectedprofanation, several Greeks essayed to divert the Gallic Brenn himself, by appealing to his superstitious fears; but his answer was, "The godshave no need of wealth; it is they who distribute it to men. "

All Greece was moved. The nations of the Peloponnese closed the isthmusof Corinth by a wall. Outside the isthmus, the Beeotians, Phocidians, Locrians, Megarians, and AEtolians formed a coalition under theleadership of the Athenians; and, as their ancestors had done scarcelytwo hundred years before against Xerxes and the Persians, they advancedin all haste to the pass of Thermopylae, to stop there the newbarbarians. 

And for several days they did stop them; and instead of three hundredheroes, as of yore in the case of Leonidas and his Spartans, only fortyGreeks, they say, fell in the first engagement. 'Amongst them was ayoung Athenian, Cydias by name, whose shield was hung in the temple ofZeus the savior, at Athens, with this inscription:--

 THIS SHIELD, DEDICATED TO ZEUS, IS THAT OF A VALIANT MAN, CYDIAS. IT STILL BEWAILS ITS

 YOUNG MASTER. FOR THE FIRST TIME

 HE BARE IT ON HIS LEFT ARM

 WHEN TERRIBLE ARES CRUSHED

 THE GAULS. 

But soon, just as in the case of the Persians, traitors guided Brennusand his Gauls across the mountain-paths; the position of Thermopylae wasturned; the Greek army owed its safety to the Athenian galleys; and byevening of the same day the barbarians appeared in sight of Delphi. 

Brennus would have led them at once to the assault. He showed them, toexcite them, the statues, vases, cars, monuments of every kind, ladenwith gold, which adorned the approaches of the town and of the temple:"'Tis pure gold--massive gold, " was the news he had spread in everydirection. But the very cupidity he provoked was against his plan; forthe Gauls fell out to plunder. He had to put off the assault until themorrow. The night was passed in irregularities and orgies. 

The Greeks, on the contrary, prepared with ardor for the fight. Theirenthusiasm was intense. Those barbarians, with their half-nakedness, their grossness, their ferocity, their ignorance, and their impiety, wererevolting. They committed murder and devastation like dolts. They lefttheir dead on the field, without burial. They engaged in battle withoutconsulting priest or augur. It was not only their goods, but theirfamilies, their life, the honor of their country, and the sanctuary oftheir religion, that the Greeks were defending, and they might rely onthe protection of the gods. The oracle of Apollo had answered, "I andthe white virgins will provide for this matter. " The people surroundedthe temple, and the priests supported and encouraged the people. Duringthe night small bodies of AEtolians, Amphisseans, and Phocidians arrivedone after another. Four thousand men had joined within Delphi, when theGallic bands, in the morning, began to mount the narrow and rough inclinewhich led up to the town. The Greeks rained down from above a deluge ofstones and other missiles. The Gauls recoiled, but recoveredthemselves. The besieged fell back on the nearest streets of the town, leaving open the approach to the temple, upon which the barbarians threwthemselves. The pillage of the shrines had just commenced when the skylooked threatening; a storm burst forth, the thunder echoed, the rainfell, the hail rattled. Readily taking advantage of this incident, thepriests and the augurs sallied from the temple clothed in their sacredgarments, with hair dishevelled and sparkling eyes, proclaiming theadvent of the god: "'Tis he! we saw him shoot athwart the temple's vault, which opened under his feet; and with him were two virgins, who issuedfrom the temples of Artemis and Athena. We saw them with our eyes. Weheard the twang of their bows, and the clash of their armor. " Hearingthese cries and the roar of the tempest, the Greeks dash on--the Gaulsare panic-stricken, and rush headlong down the bill. The Greeks push onin pursuit. Rumors of fresh apparitions are spread; three heroes, Hyperochus, Laodocus, and Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, have issued fromtheir tombs hard by the temple, and are thrusting at the Gauls with theirlances. The rout was speedy and general; the barbarians rushed to thecover of their camp; but the camp was attacked next morning by the Greeksfrom the town and by re-enforcements from the country places. Brennusand the picked warriors about him made a gallant resistance, but defeatwas a foregone conclusion. Brennus was wounded, and his comrades borehim off the field. The barbarian army passed the whole day in flight. During the ensuing night a new access of terror seized them they againtook to flight, and four days after the passage of Thermopylae somescattered bands, forming scarcely a third of those who had marched onDelphi, rejoined the division which had remained behind, some leaguesfrom the town, in the plains watered by the Cephissus. Brennus summonedhis comrades "Kill all the wounded and me, " said he; "burn your cars;make Cichor king; and away at full speed. " Then he called for wine, drank himself drunk, and stabbed himself. Cichor did cut the throats ofthe wounded, and traversed, flying and fighting, Thessaly and Macedonia;and on returning whence they had set out, the Gauls dispersed, some tosettle at the foot of a neighboring mountain under the command of achieftain named Bathanat or Baedhannatt, i. E. , son of the wild boar;others to march back towards their own country; the greatest part toresume the same life of incursion and adventure. But they changed thescene of operations. Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace were exhausted bypillage, and made a league to resist. About 278 B. C. The Gauls crossedthe Hellespont and passed into Asia Minor. There, at one time in the payof the kings of Bithynia, Pergamos, Cappadocia, and Syria, or of the freecommercial cities which were struggling against the kings, at anothercarrying on wars on their own account, they wandered for more than thirtyyears, divided into three great hordes, which parcelled out theterritories among themselves, overran and plundered them during the fineweather, intrenched themselves during winter in their camp of cars, or insome fortified place, sold their services to the highest bidder, changedmasters according to interest or inclination, and by their bravery becamethe terror of these effeminate populations and the arbiters of thesepetty states. 

At last both princes and people grew weary. Antiochus, King of Syria, attacked one of the three bands, --that of the Tectosagians, --conqueredit, and cantoned it in a district of Upper Phrygia. Later still, about241 B. C. , Eumenes, sovereign of Pergamos, and Attalus, his successor, drove and shut up the other two bands, the Tolistoboians and Troemians, likewise in the same region. The victories of Attalus over the Gaulsexcited veritable enthusiasm. He was celebrated as a special envoy fromZeus. He took the title of King, which his predecessors had not hithertoborne. He had his battles showily painted; and that he might triumph atthe same time both in Europe and Asia, he sent one of the pictures toAthens, where it was still to be seen three centuries afterwards, hangingupon the wall of the citadel. Forced to remain stationary, the Gallichordes became a people, --the Galatians, --and the country they occupiedwas called Galatia. They lived there some fifty years, aloof from theindigenous population of Greeks and Phrygians, whom they kept in analmost servile condition, preserving their warlike and barbarous habits, resuming sometimes their mercenary service, and becoming once more thebulwark or the terror of neighboring states. But at the beginning of thesecond century before our era, the Romans had entered Asia, in pursuit oftheir great enemy, Hannibal. They had just beaten, near Magnesia, Antiochus, King of Syria. In his army they had encountered men of loftystature, with hair light or dyed red, half naked, marching to the fightwith loud cries, and terrible at the first onset. They recognized theGauls, and resolved to destroy or subdue them. The consul, Cn. Manlius, had the duty and the honor. Attacked in their strongholds on MountOlympus and Mount Magaba, 189 B. C. , the three Gallic bands, after a shortbut stout resistance, were conquered and subjugated; and thenceforthlosing all national importance, they amalgamated little by little withthe Asiatic populations around them. From time to time they are stillseen to reappear with their primitive manners and passions. Rome humoredthem; Mithridates had them for allies in his long struggle with theRomans. He kept by him a Galatian guard; and when he sought death, andpoison failed him, it was the captain of the guard, a Gaul namedBituitus, whom he asked to run him through. That is the last historicalevent with which the Gallic name is found associated in Asia. 

Nevertheless the amalgamation of the Gauls of Galatia with the nativesalways remained very imperfect; for towards the end of the fourth centuryof the Christian era they did not speak Greek, as the latter did, buttheir national tongue, that of the Kymro-Belgians; and St. Jerometestifies that it differed very little from that which was spoken inBelgica itself, in the region of Troves. 

The Romans had good ground for keeping a watchful eye, from the time theymet them, upon the Gauls, and for dreading them particularly. At thetime when they determined to pursue them into the mountains of AsiaMinor, they were just at the close of a desperate struggle, maintainedagainst them for four hundred years, in Italy itself; "a struggle, " saysSallust, "in which it was a question not of glory, but of existence, forRome. " It was but just now remarked that at the beginning of the sixthcentury before our era, whilst, under their chieftain Sigovesus, theGallic bands whose history has occupied the last few pages were crossingthe Rhine and entering Germany, other bands, under the command ofBellovesus, were traversing the Alps and swarming into Italy. From 587to 521 B. C. Five Gallic expeditions, formed of Gallic, Kymric, andLigurian tribes, followed the same route and invaded successively the twobanks of the Po--the bottomless river, as they called it. The Etruscans, who had long before, it will be remembered, themselves wrested thatcountry from a people of Gallic origin, the Umbrians or Ambrons, couldnot make head against the new conquerors, aided, may be, by the remainsof the old population. The well-built towns, the cultivation of thecountry, the ports and canals that had been dug, nearly all these laborsof Etruscan civilization disappeared beneath the footsteps of thesebarbarous hordes that knew only how to destroy, and one of which gave itschieftain the name of Hurricane (Elitorius, Ele-Dov). Scarcely fiveEtruscan towns, Mantua and Ravenna amongst others, escaped disaster. TheGauls also founded towns, such as Mediolanum (Milan), Brixia (Brescia), Verona, Bononia (Bologna), Sena-Gallica (Sinigaglia), &c. But for a longwhile they were no more than intrenched camps, fortified places, wherethe population shut themselves up in case of necessity. "They, as ageneral rule, straggled about the country, " says Polybius, the mostcorrect and clear-sighted of the ancient historians, "sleeping on grassor straw, living on nothing but meat, busying themselves about nothingbut war and a little husbandry, and counting as riches nothing but flocksand gold, the only goods that can be carried away at pleasure and onevery occasion. "

During nearly thirty years the Gauls thus scoured not only Upper Italy, which they had almost to themselves, but all the eastern coast, and up tothe head of the peninsula, encountering along the Adriatic, and in therich and effeminate cities of Magna Graecia, Sybaris, Tarentum, Crotona, and Locri, no enemy capable of resisting them. But in the year 391 B. C. , finding themselves cooped up in their territory, a strong band of Gaulscrossed the Apennines, and went to demand from the Etruscans of Clusiumthe cession of a portion of their lands. The only answer Clusium madewas to close her gates. The Gauls formed up around the walls. Clusiumasked help from Rome, with whom, notwithstanding the rivalry between theEtruscan and Roman nations, she had lately been on good terms. TheRomans promised first their good offices with the Gauls, afterwardsmaterial support; and thus were brought face to face those two peoples, fated to continue for four centuries a struggle which was to be endedonly by the complete subjection of Gaul. 

The details of that struggle belong specially to Roman history; they havebeen transmitted to us only by Roman historians; and the Romans it waswho were left ultimately in possession of the battle-field, that is, ofItaly. It will suffice here to make known the general march of eventsand the most characteristic incidents. 

Four distinct periods may be recognized in this history; and each marks adifferent phase in the course of events, and, so to speak, an act of thedrama. During the first period, which lasted forty-two years, from 391to 349 B. C. , the Gauls carried on a war of aggression and conquestagainst Rome. Not that such had been their original design; on thecontrary, they replied, when the Romans offered intervention between themand Clusium, "We ask only for lands, of which we are in need; and Clusiumhas more than she can cultivate. Of the Romans we know very little; butwe believe them to be a brave people, since the Etruscans put themselvesunder their protection. Remain spectators of our quarrel; we will settleit before your eyes, that you may report at home how far above other menthe Gauls are in valor. "

But when they saw their pretensions repudiated and themselves treatedwith outrageous disdain, the Gauls left the siege of Clusium on the spot, and set out for Rome, not stopping for plunder, and proclaimingeverywhere on their march, "We are bound for Rome; we make war on nonebut Romans;" and when they encountered the Roman army, on the 16th ofduly, 390 B. C. , at the confluence of the Allia and the Tiber, half aday's march from Rome, they abruptly struck up their war-chant, and threwthemselves upon their enemies. It is well known how they gained the day;how they entered Rome, and found none but a few gray-beards, who, beingunable or unwilling to leave their abode, had remained seated in thevestibule on their chairs of ivory, with truncheons of ivory in theirhands, and decorated with the insignia of the public offices they hadfilled. All the people of Rome had fled, and were wandering over thecountry, or seeking a refuge amongst neighboring peoples. Only thesenate and a thousand warriors had shut themselves up in the Capitol, acitadel which commanded the city. The Gauls kept them besieged there forseven months. The circumstances of this celebrated siege are well known, though they have been a little embellished by the Roman historians. Notthat they have spoken too highly of the Romans themselves, who, in theday of their country's disaster, showed admirable courage, perseverance, and hopefulness. Pontius Cominius, who traversed the Gallic camp, swamthe Tiber, and scaled by night the heights of the Capitol, to go andcarry news to the senate; M. Manlius, who was the first, and for somemoments the only one, to hold in check, from the citadel's walls, theGauls on the point of effecting an entrance; and M. Furius Camillus, whohad been banished from Rome the preceding year, and had taken refuge inthe town of Ardea, and who instantly took the field for his country, rallied the Roman fugitives, and incessantly harassed the Gauls--are trueheroes, who have earned their weed of glory. Let no man seek to lowerthem in public esteem. Noble actions are so beautiful, and the actorsoften receive so little recompense, that we are at least bound to holdsacred the honor attached to their name. 

[Illustration: The Gauls in Rome----39]

The Roman historians have done no more than justice in extolling thesaviors of Rome. But their memory would have suffered no loss had thewhole truth been made known; and the claims of national vanity are not ofthe same weight as the duty one owes to truth. Now, it is certain thatCamillus did not gain such decisive advantages over the Gauls as theRoman accounts would lead one to believe, and that the deliverance ofRome was much less complete. On the 13th of February, 389 B. C. , theGauls, it is true, allowed their retreat to be purchased by the Romans;and they experienced, as they retired, certain checks, whereby they losta part of their booty. But twenty-three years afterwards they are foundin Latium scouring in every direction the outlying country of Rome, without the Romans daring to go out and fight them. It was only at theend of five years, in the year 361 B. C. , that, the very city beingmenaced anew, the legions marched out to meet the enemy. "Surprised atthis audacity, " says Polybius, "the Gauls fell back, but merely a fewleagues from Rome, to the environs of Tibur; and thence, for the space oftwelve years, they attacked the Roman territory, renewing the campaignevery year, often reaching the very gates of the city, and being repulsedindeed, but never farther than Tibur and its slopes. " Rome, however, madegreat efforts, every war with the Gauls was previously proclaimed atumult, which involved a levy in mass of the citizens, without anyexemption, even for old men and priests. A treasure, specially dedicatedto Gallic wars, was laid by in the Capitol, and religious denunciationsof the most awful kind hung over the head of whoever should dare to touchit, no matter what the exigency might be. To this epoch belonged thosemarvels of daring recorded in Roman tradition, those acts of heroismtinged with fable, which are met with amongst so many peoples, either intheir earliest age, or in their days of great peril. In the year 361B. C. , Titus Manlius, son of him who had saved the Capitol from the nightattack of the Gauls, and twelve years later M. Valerius, a young militarytribune, were, it will be remembered, the two Roman heroes who vanquishedin single combat the two Gallic giants who insolently defied Rome. Thegratitude towards them was general and of long duration, for twocenturies afterwards (in the year 167 B. C. ) the head of the Gaul with histongue out still appeared at Rome, above the shop of a money-changer, ona circular sign-board, called "the Kymrian shield" (scutum Cimbricum). After seventeen years' stay in Latium, the Gauls at last withdrew, andreturned to their adopted country in those lovely valleys of the Po whichalready bore the name of Cisalpine Gaul. They began to get disgustedwith a wandering life. Their population multiplied; their towns spread;their fields were better cultivated; their manners became less barbarous. For fifty years there was scarcely any trace of hostility or even contactbetween them and the Romans. But at the beginning of the third centurybefore our era, the coalition of the Samnites and Etruscans against Romewas near its climax; they eagerly pressed the Gauls to join, and thelatter assented easily. Then commenced the second period of strugglesbetween the two peoples. Rome had taken breath, and had grown much morerapidly than her rivals. Instead of shutting herself up, as heretofore, within her walls, she forthwith raised three armies, took the offensiveagainst the coalitionists, and carried the war into their territory. TheEtruscans rushed to the defence of their hearths. The two consuls, Fabius and Decius, immediately attacked the Samnites and Gauls at thefoot of the Apennines, close to Sentinum (now Sentina). The battle wasjust beginning, when a hind, pursued by a wolf from the mountains, passedin flight between the two armies, and threw herself upon the side of theGauls, who slew her; the wolf turned towards the Romans, who let him go. "Comrades, " cried a soldier, "flight and death are on the side where yousee stretched on the ground the hind of Diana; the wolf belongs to Mars;he is unwounded, and reminds us of our father and founder; we shallconquer even as he. " Nevertheless the battle went badly for the Romans;several legions were in flight, and Decius strove vainly to rally them. The memory of his father came across his mind. There was a beliefamongst the Romans that if in the midst of an unsuccessful engagement thegeneral devoted himself to the infernal gods, "panic and flight" passedforthwith to the enemies' ranks. "Why daily?" said Decius to the grandpontiff, whom he had ordered to follow him and keep at his side in theflight; "'tis given to our race to die to avert public disasters. " Hehalted, placed a javelin beneath his feet, and covering his head with afold of his robe, and supporting his chin on his right hand, repeatedafter the pontiff this sacred form of words:--

"Janus, Jupiter, our father Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, . . . Yegods in whose power are we, we and our enemies, gods Manes, ye I adore;ye I pray, ye I adjure to give strength and victory to the Roman people, the children of Quirinus, and to send confusion, panic, and death amongstthe enemies of the Roman people, the children of Quirinus. And, in thesewords for the republic of the children of Quirinus, for the army, for thelegions, and for the allies of the Roman people, I devote to the godsManes and to the grave the legions and the allies of the enemy andmyself. "

Then remounting, Decius charged into the middle of the Gauls, where hesoon fell pierced with wounds; but the Romans recovered courage andgained the day; for heroism and piety have power over the hearts of men, so that at the moment of admiration they become capable of imitation. 

During this second period Rome was more than once in danger. In the year283 B. C. The Gauls destroyed one of her armies near Aretium (Arezzo), and advanced to the Roman frontier, saying, "We are bound for Rome; theGauls know how to take it. " Seventy-two years afterwards the CisalpineGauls swore they would not put off their baldricks till they had mountedthe Capitol, and they arrived within three days' march of Rome. At everyappearance of this formidable enemy the alarm at Rome was great. Thesenate raised all its forces and summoned its allies. The peopledemanded a consultation of the Sibylline books, sacred volumes sold, itwas said, to Tarquinius Priscus by the sibyl Amalthea, and containing thesecret of the destinies of the Republic. They were actually opened inthe year 228 B. C. , and it was with terror found that the Gauls wouldtwice take possession of the soil of Rome. On the advice of the priests, there was dug within the city, in the middle of the cattle-market, a hugepit, in which two Gauls, a man and a woman, were entombed alive; for thusthey took possession of the soil of Rome, the oracle was fulfilled, andthe mishap averted. Thirteen years afterwards, on occasion of thedisaster at Cann, the same atrocity was again committed, at the sameplace and for the same cause. And by a strange contrast, there was atthe committing of this barbarous act, "which was against Roman usage, "says Livy, a secret feeling of horror, for, to appease the manes of thevictims, a sacrifice was instituted, which was celebrated every year atthe pit, in the month of November. 

In spite of sometimes urgent peril, in spite of popular alarms, Rome, during the course of this period, from 299 to 258 B. C. , maintained anincreasing ascendency over the Gauls. She always cleared them off herterritory, several times ravaged theirs, on the two banks of the Po, --called respectively Transpadan and Cispadan Gaul, and gained the majorityof the great battles she had to fight. Finally in the year 283 B. C. , theproprietor Drusus, after having ravaged the country of the Senonic Gauls, carried off the very ingots and jewels, it was said, which had been givento their ancestors as the price of their retreat. Solemn proclamationwas made that the ransom of the Capitol had returned within its walls;and, sixty years afterwards, the Consul M. Cl. Marcellus, having defeatedat Clastidium a numerous army of Gauls, and with his own hand slain theirgeneral, Virdumar, had the honor of dedicating to the temple of Jupiterthe third "grand spoils" taken since the foundation of Rome, and ofascending the Capitol, himself conveying the armor of Virdumar, for hehad got hewn an oaken trunk, round which he had arranged the helmet, tunic, and breastplate of the barbarian king. 

Nor was war Rome's only weapon against her enemies. Besides the abilityof her generals and the discipline of her legions, she had the sagacityof her Senate. The Gauls were not wanting in intelligence or dexterity, but being too free to go quietly under a master's hand, and too barbarousfor self-government, carried away, as they were, by the interest orpassion of the moment, they could not long act either in concert or withsameness of purpose. Far-sightedness and the spirit of persistence were, on the contrary, the familiar virtues of the Roman Senate. So soon asthey had penetrated Cisalpine Gaul, they labored to gain there apermanent footing, either by sowing dissension amongst the Gallicpeoplets that lived there, or by founding Roman colonies. In the year283 B. C. , several Roman families arrived, with colors flying and underthe guidance of three triumvirs or commissioners, on a territory to thenorth-east, on the borders of the Adriatic. The triumvirs had a roundhole dug, and there deposited some fruits and a handful of earth broughtfrom Roman soil; then yoking to a plough, having a copper share, a whitebull and a white heifer, they marked out by a furrow a large enclosure. The rest followed, flinging within the line the ridges thrown up by theplough. When the line was finished, the bull and the heifer weresacrificed with due pomp. It was a Roman colony come to settle at Sena, on the very site of the chief town of those Senonic Gauls who had beenconquered and driven out. Fifteen years afterwards another Roman colonywas founded at Ariminum (Rimini), on the frontier of the Bolan Gauls. Fifty years later still two others, on the two banks of the Po, Cremonaand Placentia (Plaisance). Rome had then, in the midst of her enemies, garrisons, magazines of arms and provisions, and means of supervision andcommunication. Thence proceeded at one time troops, at anotherintrigues, to carry dismay or disunion amongst the Gauls. 

Towards the close of the third century before our era, the triumph ofRome in Cisalpine Gaul seemed nigh to accomplishment, when news arrivedthat the Romans' most formidable enemy, Hannibal, meditating a passagefrom Africa into Italy by Spain and Gaul, was already at work, by hisemissaries, to insure for his enterprise the concurrence of theTransalpine and Cisalpine Gauls. The Senate ordered the envoys they hadjust then at Carthage to traverse Gaul on returning, and seek out alliesthere against Hannibal. The envoys halted amongst the Gallo-Iberianpeoplets who lived at the foot of the eastern Pyrenees. There, in themidst of the warriors assembled in arms, they charged them in the name ofthe great and powerful Roman people, not to suffer the Carthaginians topass through their territory. Tumultuous laughter arose at a requestthat appeared so strange. "You wish us, " was the answer, "to draw downwar upon ourselves to avert it from Italy, and to give our own fieldsover to devastation to save yours. We have no cause to complain of theCarthaginians or to be pleased with the Romans, or to take up arms forthe Romans and against the Carthaginians. We, on the contrary, hear thatthe Roman people drive out from their lands, in Italy, men of our nation, impose tribute upon them, and make them undergo other indignities. " Sothe envoys of Rome quitted Gaul without allies. 

Hannibal, on the other hand, did not meet with all the favor and all theenthusiasm he had anticipated. Between the Pyrenees and the Alps severalpeoplets united with him; and several showed coldness, or even hostility. In his passage of the Alps the mountain tribes harassed him incessantly. Indeed, in Cisalpine Gaul itself there was great division and hesitation;for Rome had succeeded in inspiring her partisans with confidence and herenemies with fear. Hannibal was often obliged to resort to force evenagainst the Gauls whose alliance he courted, and to ravage their lands inorder to drive them to take up arms. Nay, at the conclusion of analliance, and in the very camp of the Carthaginians, the Gauls sometimeshesitated still, and sometimes rose against Hannibal, accused him ofravaging their country, and refused to obey his orders. However, thedelights of victory and of pillage at last brought into full play theCisalpine Gauls' natural hatred of Rome. After Ticinus and Trebia, Hannibal had no more zealous and devoted troops. At the battle of LakeTrasimene he lost fifteen hundred men, nearly all Gauls; at that ofCanine he had thirty thousand of them, forming two thirds of his army;and at the moment of action they cast away their tunics and checkeredcloaks (similar to the plaids of the Gals or Scottish Highlanders), andfought naked from the belt upwards, according to their custom when theymeant to conquer or die. Of five thousand five hundred men that thevictory of Cannae cost Hannibal, four thousand were Gauls. All CisalpineGaul was moved; enthusiasm was at its height; new bands hurried off torecruit the army of the Carthaginian who, by dint of patience and genius, brought Rome within an ace of destruction, with the assistance almostentirely of the barbarians he had come to seek at her gates, and whom hehad at first found so cowed and so vacillating. 

When the day of reverses came, and Rome had recovered her ascendency, the Gauls were faithful to Hannibal; and when at length he was forced toreturn to Africa, the Gallic bands, whether from despair or attachment, followed him thither. In the year 200 B. C. , at the famous battle ofZama, which decided matters between Rome and Carthage, they again formeda third of the Carthaginian army, and showed that they were, in the wordsof Livy, "inflamed by that innate hatred towards the Romans which ispeculiar to their race. "

This was the third period of the struggle between the Gauls and theRomans in Italy. Rome, well advised by this terrible war of the dangerwith which she was ever menaced by the Cisalpine Gauls, formed theresolution of no longer restraining them, but of subduing them andconquering their territory. She spent thirty years (from 200 to 170B. C. ) in the execution of this design, proceeding by means of war, offounding Roman colonies, and of sowing dissension amongst the Gallicpeoplets. In vain did the two principal, the Boians and the Insubrians, endeavor to rouse and rally all the rest: some hesitated; some absolutelyrefused, and remained neutral. The resistance was obstinate. The Gauls, driven from their fields and their towns, established themselves, astheir ancestors had done, in the forests, whence they emerged only tofall furiously upon the Romans. And then, if the engagement wereindecisive, if any legions wavered, the Roman centurions hurled theircolors into the midst of the enemy, and the legionaries dashed on at allrisks to recover them. At Parma and Bologna, in the towns taken from theGauls, Roman colonies came at once and planted them-selves. Day by daydid Rome advance. At length, in the year 190 B. C. , the wrecks of the onehundred and twelve tribes which had formed the nation of the Boians, unable any longer to resist, and unwilling to submit, rose as one man, and departed from Italy. 

The Senate, with its usual wisdom, multiplied the number of Romancolonies in the conquered territory, treated with moderation the tribesthat submitted, and gave to Cisalpine Gaul the name of the Cisalpine orHither Gallic Province, which was afterwards changed for that of GalliaTogata or Roman Gaul. Then, declaring that nature herself had placed theAlps between Gaul and Italy as an insurmountable barrier, the Senatepronounced "a curse on whosoever should attempt to cross it. "

CHAPTER III. ----THE ROMANS IN GAUL. 

It was Rome herself that soon crossed that barrier of the Alps which shehad pronounced fixed by nature and insurmountable. Scarcely was shemistress of Cisalpine Gaul when she entered upon a quarrel with thetribes which occupied the mountain-passes. With an unsettled frontier, and between neighbors of whom one is ambitious and the other barbarian, pretexts and even causes are never wanting. It is likely that the Gallicmountaineers were not careful to abstain, they and their flocks, fromdescending upon the territory that had become Roman. The Romans, inturn, penetrated into the hamlets, carried off flocks and people, andsold them in the public markets at Cremona, at Placentia, and in alltheir colonies. 

The Gauls of the Alps demanded succor of the Transalpine Gauls, applyingto a powerful chieftain, named Cincibil, whose influence extendedthroughout the mountains. But the terror of the Roman name had reachedacross. Cincibil sent to Rome a deputation, with his brother at theirhead, to set forth the grievances of the mountaineers, and especially tocomplain of the consul Cassius, who had carried off and sold severalthousands of Gauls. Without making any concession, the Senate wasgracious. Cassius was away; he must be waited for. Meanwhile the Gaulswere well treated; Cincibil and his brother received as presents twogolden collars, five silver vases, two horses fully caparisoned, andRoman dresses for all their suite. Still nothing was done. 

Another, a greater and more decisive opportunity offered itself. Marseilles was an ally of the Romans. As the rival of Carthage, and withthe Gauls forever at her gates, she had need of Rome by sea and land. She pretended, also, to the most eminent and intimate friendship withRome. Her founder, the Phocean Euxenes, had gone to Rome, it was said, and concluded a treaty with Tarquinius Priscus. She had gone intomourning when Rome was burned by the Gauls; she had ordered a public levyto aid towards the ransom of the Capitol. Rome did not dispute theseclaims to remembrance. The friendship of Marseilles was of great use toher. In the whole course of her struggle with Carthage, and but lately, at the passage of Hannibal through Gaul, Rome had met with the best oftreatment there. She granted the Massilians a place amongst her senatorsat the festivals of the Republic, and exemption from all duty in herports. Towards the middle of the second century B. C. Marseilles was atwar with certain Gallic tribes, her neighbors, whose territory shecoveted. Two of her colonies, Nice and Antibes, were threatened. Shecalled on Rome for help. A Roman deputation went to decide the quarrel;but the Gauls refused to obey its summons, and treated it with insolence. The deputation returned with an army, succeeded in beating the refractorytribes, and gave their land to the Massilians. The same thing occurredrepeatedly with the same result. Within the space of thirty years nearlyall the tribes between the Rhone and the Var, in the country which wasafterwards Provence, were subdued and driven back amongst the mountains, with notice not to approach within a mile of the coast in general, and amile and a half of the places of disembarkation. But the Romans did notstop there. They did not mean to conquer for Marseilles alone. In theyear 123 B. C. , at some leagues to the north of the Greek city, near alittle river, then called the Coenus and nowadays the Arc, the consulC. Sextius Calvinus had noticed, during his campaign, an abundance ofthermal springs, agreeably situated amidst wood-covered hills. There heconstructed an enclosure, aqueducts, baths, houses, a town in fact, whichhe called after himself, Aquae Sextice, the modern Aix, the first Romanestablishment in Transalpine Gaul. As in the case of Cisalpine Gaul, with Roman colonies came Roman intrigue and dissensions got up andfomented amongst the Gauls. And herein Marseilles was a powerfulseconder; for she kept up communications with all the neighboring tribes, and fanned the spirit of faction. After his victories, the consulC. Sextius, seated at his tribunal, was selling his prisoners by auction, when one of them came up to him and said, "I have always liked and servedthe Romans; and for that reason I have often incurred outrage and dangerat the hands of my countrymen. " The consul had him set free, --him andhis family, --and even gave him leave to point out amongst the captivesany for whom he would like to procure the same kindness. At his requestnine hundred were released. The man's name was Crato, a Greek name, which points to a connection with Marseilles or one of her colonies. TheGauls, moreover, ran of themselves into the Roman trap. Two of theirconfederations, the AEduans, of whom mention has already been made, andthe Allobrogians, who were settled between the Alps, the Isere, and theRhone, were at war. A third confederation, the most powerful in Gaul atthis time, the Arvernians, who were rivals of the AEduans, gave theircountenance to the Allobrogians. The AEduans, with whom the Massilianshad commercial dealings, solicited through these latter the assistance ofRome. A treaty was easily concluded. The AEduans obtained from theRomans the title of friends and allies; and the Romans received from theAEduans that of brothers, which amongst the Gauls implied a sacred tie. The consul Domitius forthwith commanded the Allobrogians to respect theterritory of the allies of Rome. The Allobrogians rose up in arms andclaimed the aid of the Arvernians. But even amongst them, in the veryheart of Gaul, Rome was much dreaded; she was not to be encounteredwithout hesitation. So Bituitus, King of the Arvernians, was for tryingaccommodation. He was a powerful and wealthy chieftain. His fatherLuern used to give amongst the mountains magnificent entertainments; hehad a space of twelve square furlongs enclosed, and dispensed wine, mead, and beer from cisterns made within the enclosure; and all the Arvernianscrowded to his feasts. Bituitus displayed before the Romans his barbaricsplendor. A numerous escort, superbly clad, surrounded his ambassador;in attendance were packs of enormous hounds; and in front; went a bard, or poet, who sang, with rotte or harp in hand, the glory of Bituitus andof the Arvernian people. Disdainfully the consul received and sent backthe embassy. War broke out; the Allobrogians, with the usual confidenceand hastiness of all barbarians, attacked alone, without waiting for theArvernians, and were beaten at the confluence of the Rhone and theSorgue, a little above Avignon. The next year, 121 B. C. , the Arverniansin their turn descended from the mountains, and crossed the Rhone withall their tribes, diversely armed and clad, and ranged each about its ownchieftain. In his barbaric vanity, Bituitus marched to war with the samepomp that he had in vain displayed to obtain peace. He sat upon a carglittering with silver; he wore a plaid of striking colors; and hebrought in his train a pack of war-hounds. At the sight of the Romanlegions, few in number, iron-clad, in serried ranks that took up littlespace, he contemptuously cried, "There is not a meal for my hounds. "

The Arvernians were beaten, as the Allobrogians had been. The hounds ofBituitus were of little use to him against the elephants which the Romanshad borrowed from Asiatic usage, and which spread consternation amongstthe Gauls. The Roman historians say that the Arvernian army was twohundred thousand strong, and that one hundred and twenty thousand wereslain; but the figures are absurd, like most of those found in ancientchronicles. We know nowadays, thanks to modern civilization, which showseverything in broad daylight, and measures everything with propercaution, that only the most populous and powerful nations, and that atgreat expenditure of trouble and time, can succeed in moving armies oftwo hundred thousand men, and that no battle, however murderous it maybe, ever costs one hundred and twenty thousand lives. 

Rome treated the Arvernians with consideration; but the Allobrogians losttheir existence as a nation. The Senate declared them subject to theRoman people; and all the country comprised between the Alps, the Rhonefrom its entry into the Lake of Geneva to its mouth, and theMediterranean, was made a Roman consular province, which means that everyyear a consul must march thither with his army. In the three followingyears, indeed, the consuls extended the boundaries of the new province, on the right bank of the Rhone, to the frontier of the Pyreneessouthward. In the year 115 B. C. A colony of Roman citizens was conductedto Narbonne, a town even then of importance, in spite of the objectionsmade by certain senators who were unwilling, say the historians, so toexpose Roman citizens "to the waves of barbarism. " This was the secondcolony which went and established itself out of Italy; the first had beenfounded on the ruins of Carthage. 

Having thus completed their conquest, the Senate, to render possessionsafe and sure, decreed the occupation of the passes of the Alps whichopened Gaul to Italy. There was up to that time no communication withGaul save along the Mediterranean, by a narrow and difficult path, whichhas become in our time the beautiful route called the Corniche. Themountain tribes defended their independence with desperation; when thatof the Stumians, who occupied the pass of the maritime Alps, saw theirinability to hold their own, they cut the throats of their wives andchildren, set fire to their houses, and threw themselves into the flames. But the Senate pursued its course imperturbably. All the chief defilesof the Alps fell into its hands. The old Phoenician road, restored bythe consul Domitius, bore thenceforth his name (Via Donaitia), and lessthan sixty years after Cisalpine Gaul had been reduced to a Romanprovince, Rome possessed, in Transalpine Gaul, a second province, whithershe sent her armies, and where she established her citizens withoutobstruction. But Providence seldom allows men, even in the midst oftheir successes, to forget for long how precarious they are; and when Heis pleased to remind them, it is not by words, as the Persians remindedtheir king, but by fearful events that He gives His warnings. At thevery moment when Rome believed herself set free from Gallic invasions, and on the point of avenging herself by a course of conquest, a newinvasion, more extensive and more barbarous, came bursting upon Rome andupon Gaul at the same time, and plunged them together in the sametroubles and the same perils. 

In the year 113 B. C. There appeared to the north of the Adriatic, on theright bank of the Danube, an immense multitude of barbarians, ravagingNoricum and threatening Italy. Two nations predominated; the Kymrians orCimbrians, and the Teutons, the national name of the Germans. They camefrom afar, northward, from the Cimbrian peninsula, nowadays Jutland, andfrom the countries bordering on the Baltic which nowadays form theduchies of Holstein and Schleswig. A violent shock of earthquake, aterrible inundation, had driven them, they said, from their homes; andthose countries do indeed show traces of such events. And Cimbrians andTeutons had been for some time roaming over Germany. 

The consul Papirius Carbo, despatched in all haste to defend thefrontier, bade them, in the name of the Roman people, to withdraw. Thebarbarians modestly replied that they had no intention of settling inNoricum, and if the Romans had rights over the country, they would carrytheir arms elsewhere. The consul, who had found haughtiness succeed, thought he might also employ perfidy against the barbarians. He offeredguides to conduct them out of Noricum; and the guides misled them. Theconsul attacked them unexpectedly during the night, and was beaten. 

However, the barbarians, still fearful, did not venture into Italy. They roamed for three years along the Danube, as far as the mountains ofMacedonia and Thrace. Then retracing their steps, and marching eastward, they inundated the valleys of the Helvetic Alps, now Switzerland, havingtheir numbers swelled by other tribes, Gallic or German, who preferredjoining in pillage to undergoing it. The Ambrons, among others, a Gallicpeoplet that had taken refuge in Helvetia after the expulsion of theUmbrians by the Etruscans from Italy, joined the Cimbrians and Teutons;and in the year 110 B. C. All together entered Gaul, at first by way ofBelgica, and then, continuing their wanderings and ravages in centralGaul, they at last reached the Rhone, on the frontiers of the Romanprovince. 

There the name of Rome again arrested their progress; they applied to heranew for lands, with the offer of their services. "Rome, " answeredM. Silanus, who commanded in the province, "has neither lands to give younor services to accept from you. " He attacked them in their camp, andwas beaten. 

Three consuls, L. Cassius, C. Servilius Omepio, and Cu. Manlius, successively experienced the same fate. With the barbarians victory bredpresumption. Their chieftains met and deliberated whether they shouldnot forthwith cross into Italy, to exterminate or enslave the Romans, and make Kymrian spoken at Rome. Scaurus, a prisoner, was in the tent, loaded with fetters, during the deliberation. He was questioned aboutthe resources of his country. "Cross not the Alps, " said he; "go notinto Italy: the Romans are invincible. " In a transport of fury thechieftain of the Kymrians, Boiorix by name, fell upon the Roman, and ranhim through. Howbeit the advice of Scaurus was followed. The barbariansdid not as yet dare to decide upon invading Italy; but they freelyscoured the Roman province, meeting here with repulse, and there withre-enforcement from the peoplets who formed the inhabitants. TheTectosagian Voles, Hymrian in origin and maltreated by Rome, joined them. Then, on a sudden, whilst the Teutons and Ambrons remained in Gaul, theKymrians passed over to Spain without apparent motive, and probably as anoverswollen torrent divides, and disperses its waters in all directions. The commotion at Rome was extreme; never had so many or such wildbarbarians threatened the Republic; never had so many or such large Romanarmies been beaten in succession. There was but one man, it was said, who could avert the danger, and give Rome the ascendency. It was Marius, low-born, but already illustrious; esteemed by the Senate for his geniusas a commander and for his victories; swaying at his will the people, whosaw in him one of themselves, and admired without envying him; belovedand feared by the army for his bravery, his rigorous discipline, and hisreadiness to share their toils and dangers; stern and rugged; withouteducation, eloquence, or riches; ill-suited for shining in publicassemblies, but resolute and dexterous in action; verily made to dominatethe vigorous but unrefined multitude, whether in camp or city, partly byparticipating their feelings, partly by giving them in his own person aspecimen of the deserts and sometimes of the virtues which they esteembut do not possess. 

He was consul in Africa, where he was putting an end to the war withJugurtha. He was elected a second time consul, without interval and inhis absence, contrary to all the laws of the Republic. Scarcely had hereturned, when, on descending from the Capitol, where he had justreceived a triumph for having conquered and captured Jugurtha, he set outfor Gaul. On his arrival, instead of proceeding, as his predecessors, to attack the barbarians at once, he confined himself to organizing andinuring his troops, subjecting them to frequent marches, all kinds ofmilitary exercises, and long and hard labor. To insure supplies he madethem dig, towards the mouths of the Rhone, a large canal which formed ajunction with the river a little above Arles, and which, at its entranceinto the sea, offered good harborage for vessels. This canal, whichexisted for a long while under the name of Rossae Mariance (the dikes ofMarius), is filled up nowadays; but at its southern extremity the villageof Foz still preserves a remembrance of it. Trained in this severeschool, the soldiers acquired such a reputation for sobriety andlaborious assiduity, that they were proverbially called Marius's mules. 

He was as careful for their moral state as for their physical fitness, and labored to exalt their imaginations as well as to harden theirbodies. In that camp, and amidst those toils in which he kept themstrictly engaged, frequent sacrifices, and scrupulous care in consultingthe oracles, kept superstition at a white heat. A Syrian prophetess, named Martha, who had been sent to Marius by his wife Julia, the aunt ofJulius Caesar, was ever with him, and accompanied him at the sacredceremonies and on the march, being treated with the greatest respect, andhaving vast influence over the minds of the soldiers. 

Two years rolled on in this fashion; and yet Marius would not move. Theincreasing devastation of the country, fire, and famine, the despair andcomplaints of the inhabitants, did not shake his resolution. Nor was theconfidence he inspired both in the camp and at Rome a whit shaken: he wastwice re-elected consul, once while he was still absent, and once duringa visit he paid to Rome to give directions to his party in person. 

It was at Rome, in the year 102 B. C. , that he learned how the Kymrians, weary of Spain, had recrossed the Pyrenees, rejoined their old comrades, and had at last resolved, in concert, to invade Italy; the Kymrians fromthe north, by way of Helvetia and Noricum, the Teutons and Ambrons fromthe south, by way of the maritime Alps. They were to form a junction onthe banks of the Po, and thence march together on Rome. At this newsMarius returned forthwith to Gaul, and, without troubling himself aboutthe Kymrians, who had really put themselves in motion towards thenorth-east, he placed his camp so as to cover at one and the same timethe two Roman roads which crossed at Arles, and by one of which theAmbro-Teutons must necessarily pass to enter Italy on the south. 

They soon appeared "in immense numbers, " say the historians, "with theirhideous looks and their wild cries, " drawing up their chariots andplanting their tents in front of the Roman camp. They showered uponMarius and his soldiers continual insult and defiance. The Romans, intheir irritation, would fain have rushed out of their camp, but Mariusrestrained them. "It is no question, " said he, with his simple andconvincing common sense, "of gaining triumphs and trophies; it is aquestion of averting this storm of war and of saving Italy. " A Teutonicchieftain came one day up to the very gates of the camp, and challengedhim to fight. Marius had him informed that if he were tired of life hecould go and hang himself. As the barbarian still persisted, Marius senthim a gladiator. 

However, he made his soldiers, in regular succession, mount the ramparts, to get them familiarized with the cries, looks, arms, and movements ofthe barbarians. The most distinguished of his officers, young Sertorius, who understood and spoke Gallic well, penetrated, in the disguise of aGaul, into the camp of the Ambrons, and informed Marius of what was goingon there. 

At last the barbarians, in their impatience, having vainly attempted tostorm the Roman camp, struck their own, and put themselves in motiontowards the Alps. For six whole days, it is said, their bands weredefiling beneath the ramparts of the Romans, and crying, "Have you anymessage for your wives? We shall soon be with them. "

Marius, too, struck his camp, and followed them. They halted, both ofthem, near Aix, on the borders of the Coenus, the barbarians in thevalley, Marius on a hill which commanded it. The ardor of the Romans wasat its height; it was warm weather; there was a want of water on thehill, and the soldiers murmured. "You are men, " said Marius, pointing tothe river below, "and there is water to be bought with blood. " "Whydon't you lead us against them at once, then, " said a soldier, "whilst westill have blood in our veins?" "We must first fortify our camp, "answered Marius quietly. 

The soldiers obeyed: but the hour of battle had come, and well did Mariusknow it. It commenced on the brink of the Coenus, between some Ambronswho were bathing and some Roman slaves gone down to draw water. When thewhole horde of the Ambrons advanced to the battle, shouting their war-cryof Ambra! Ambra! a body of Gallic auxiliaries in the Roman army, and inthe first rank, heard them with great amazement; for it was their ownname and their own cry; there were tribes of Ambrons in the Alpssubjected to Rome as well as in the Helvetic Alps; and Ambra! Ambra!resounded on both sides. 

The battle lasted two days, the first against the Ambrons, the secondagainst the Teutons. Both were beaten, in spite of their savage bravery, and the equal bravery of their women, who defended, with indomitableobstinacy, the cars with which they had remained almost alone, in chargeof the children and the booty. After the women, it was necessary toexterminate the hounds who defended their masters' bodies. Here againthe figures of the historians are absurd, although they differ; the mostextravagant raise the number of barbarians slain to two hundred thousand, and that of the prisoners to eighty thousand; the most moderate stop atone hundred thousand. In any case, the carnage was great, for thebattle-field, where all these corpses rested without burial, rotting inthe sun and rain, got the name of Campi Putridi, or Fields ofPutrefaction, a name traceable even nowadays in that of Pourrires, aneighboring village. 

[Illustration: The Women defending the Cars----58]

As to the booty, the Roman army with one voice made a free gift of it toMarius; but he, remembering, perhaps, what had been lately done by thebarbarians after the defeat of the consuls Manlius and Czepio, determinedto have it all burned in honor of the gods. He had a great sacrificeprepared. The soldiers, crowned with laurel, were ranged about the pyre;their general, holding on high a blazing torch, was about to apply thelight with his own hand, when suddenly, on the very spot, whether bydesign or accident, came from Rome the news that Marius had just been forthe fifth time elected consul. In the midst of acclamations from hisarmy, and with a fresh chaplet bound upon his brow, he applied the torchin person, and completed the sacrifice. 

Were we travelling in Provence, in the neighborhood of Aix, we shouldencounter, peradventure, some peasant who, whilst pointing out to us thesummit of a lull whereon, in all probability, Marius offered, nineteenhundred and forty years ago, that glorious sacrifice, would say to us inhis native dialect, "Aqui es lou deloubre do la Vittoria:" "There is thetemple of victory. " There, indeed, was built, not far from a pyramiderected in honor of Marius, a little temple dedicated to Victory. Thither, every year, in the month of May, the population used to come andcelebrate a festival and light a bonfire, answered by other bonfires onthe neighboring heights. When Gaul became Christian, neither monumentnor festival perished; a saint took the place of the goddess, and thetemple of Victory became the church of St. Victoire. There are stillruins of it to this day; the religious procession which succeeded thepagan festival ceased only at the first outburst of the Revolution; andthe vague memory of a great national event still mingles in populartradition with the legends of the saint. 

The Ambrons and Teutons beaten, there remained the Kymrians, who, according to agreement, had repassed the Helvetic Alps and entered Italyon the north-east, by way of the Adige. Marius marched against them inJuly of the following year, 101 B. C. Ignorant of what had occurred inGaul, and possessed, as ever, with the desire of a settlement, they againsent to him a deputation, saying, "Give us lands and towns for us and ourbrethren. " "What brethren?" asked Marius. "The Teutons. " The Romanswho were about Marius began to laugh. "Let your brethren be, " saidMarius; "they have land, and will always have it; they received it fromus. " The Kymrians, perceiving the irony of his tone, burst out intothreats, telling Marius that he should suffer for it at their handsfirst, and afterwards at those of the Teutons when they arrived. "Theyare here, " rejoined Marius; "you must not depart without saluting yourbrethren;" and he had Teutobod, King of the Teutons, brought out withother captive chieftains. The envoys reported the sad news in their owncamp, and three days afterwards, July 30, a great battle took placebetween the Kymrians and the Romans in the Raudine Plains, a large tractnear Verceil. 

It were unnecessary to dwell on the details of the battle, whichresembled that of Aix; besides, fought as it was in Italy and by none butRomans, it has but little to do with a history of Gaul. It has beenmentioned only to make known the issue of that famous invasion, of whichGaul was the principal theatre. For a moment it threatened the veryexistence of the Roman Republic. The victories of Marius arrested thetorrent, but did not dry up its source. The great movement which drovefrom Asia to Europe, and from eastern to western Europe, masses of rovingpopulations, followed its course, bringing incessantly upon the Romanfrontiers new comers and new perils. A greater man than Marius, JuliusCaesar in fact, saw that to effectually resist these clouds of barbaricassailants, the country into which they poured must be conquered and madeRoman. The conquest of Gaul was the accomplishment of that idea, and thedecisive step towards the transformation of the Roman republic into aRoman empire. 

CHAPTER IV. ----GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS CAESAR. 

Historians, ancient and modern, have attributed to the Roman Senate, from the time of the establishment of the Roman province in Gaul, along-premeditated design of conquering Gaul altogether. Others have saidthat when Julius Caesar, in the year of Rome 696, (58 B C. ) got himselfappointed proconsul in Gaul, his single aim was to form for himself therean army devoted to his person, of which he might avail himself to satisfyhis ambition and make himself master of Rome. We should not be too readyto believe in these far-reaching and precise plans, conceived and settledso long beforehand, whether by a senate or a single man. Prevision andexact calculation do not count for so much in the lives of governmentsand of peoples. It is unexpected events, inevitable situations, theimperious necessities of successive epochs, which most often decide theconduct of the greatest powers and the most able politicians. It isafter the fair, when the course of facts and their consequences hasreceived full development, that, amidst their tranquil meditations, annalists and historians, in their learned way, attribute everything tosystematic plans and personal calculations on the part of the chiefactors. There is much less of combination than of momentary inspiration, derived from circumstances, in the resolutions and conduct of politicalchiefs, kings, senators, or great men. From the time that discord andcorruption had turned the Roman Republic into a bloody and tyrannicalanarchy, the Roman Senate no longer meditated grand designs, and itsmembers were preoccupied only with the question of escaping or avengingproscriptions. When Caesar procured for himself the government for fiveyears of the Gauls, the fact was, that, not desiring to be a sanguinarydictator like Scylla, or a gala chieftain like Pompey, he went and soughtabroad, for his own glory and fortune's sake, in a war of general Romaninterest, the means and chances of success which were not furnished tohim in Rome itself by the dogged and monotonous struggle of the factions. 

[Illustration: The Roman Army invading Gaul----61]

In spite of the victories of Marius, and the destruction or dispersion ofthe Teutons and Cimbrians, the whole of Gaul remained seriously disturbedand threatened. At the north-east, in Belgica, some bands of otherTeutons, who had begun to be called Germans (men of war), had passed overthe left bank of the Rhine, and were settling or wandering there withoutdefinite purpose. In eastern and central Gaul, in the valleys of theJura and Auvergne, on the banks of the Saone, the Allier, and the Doubs, the two great Gallic confederations, that of the AEduans and that of theArvernians, were disputing the preponderance, and making war one uponanother, seeking the aid, respectively, of the Romans and of the Germans. At the foot of the Alps, the little nation of Allobrogians, having fallena prey to civil dissension, had given up its independence to Rome. Evenin southern and western Gaul the populations of Agnitania were rising, vexing the Roman province, and rendering necessary, on both sides of thePyrenees, the intervention of Roman legions. Everywhere floods ofbarbaric populations were pressing upon Gaul, were carrying disgnietudeeven where they had not themselves yet penetrated, and causingpresentiments of a general commotion. The danger burst before long uponparticular places and in connection with particular names which haveremained historical. In the war with the confederation of the AEduans, that of the Arvernians called to their aid the German Ariovistus, chieftain of a confederation of tribes which, under the name of Suevians, were roving over the right bank of the Rhine, ready at any time to crossthe river. Ariovistus, with fifteen thousand warriors at his back, wasnot slow in responding to the appeal. The AEdaans were beaten; andAriovistus settled amongst the Gauls who had been thoughtless enough toappeal to him. Numerous bands of Suevians came and rejoined him; and intwo or three years after his victory he had about him, it was said, onehundred and twenty thousand warriors. He had appropriated to them athird of the territory of his Gallic allies, and he imperiously demandedanother third to satisfy other twenty-five thousand of his old Germancomrades, who asked to share his booty and his new country. One of theforemost AEduans, Divitiacus by name, went and invoked the succor of theRoman people, the patrons of his confederation. He was admitted to thepresence of the Senate, and invited to be seated; but he modestlydeclined, and standing, leaning upon his shield, he set forth thesufferings and the claims of his country. He received kindly promises, which at first remained without fruit. He, however, remained at Rome, persistent in his solicitations, and carrying on intercourse with severalRomans of consideration, notably with Cicero, who says of him, "I knewDivitiacus, the AEduan, who claimed proficiency in that natural sciencewhich the Greeks call physiology, and he predicted the future, either byaugury or his own conjecture. " The Roman Senate, with the indecision andindolence of all declining powers, hesitated to engage, for the AEduans'sake, in a war against the invaders of a corner of Gallic territory. Atthe same time that they gave a cordial welcome to Divitiacus, theyentered into negotiations with Ariovistus himself; they gave himbeautiful presents, the title of King, and even of friend; the onlydemand they made was, that he should live peaceably in his newsettlement, and not lend his support to the fresh invasions of whichthere were symptoms in Gaul, and which were becoming too serious forresolutions not to be taken to repel them. 

[Illustration: Divitiacus before the Roman Senate----63]

A people of Gallic race, the Helvetians, who inhabited presentSwitzerland, where the old name still abides beside the modern, foundthemselves incessantly threatened, ravaged, and invaded by the Germantribes which pressed upon their frontiers. After some years ofperplexity and internal discord, the whole Helvetic nation decided uponabandoning its territory, and going to seek in Gaul, westward, it issaid, on the borders of the ocean, a more tranquil settlement. Beinginformed of this design, the Roman Senate and Caesar, at that timeconsul, resolved to protect the Roman province and their Gallic allies, the AEduans, against this inundation of roving neighbors. The Helvetiansnone the less persisted in their plan; and in the spring of the year ofRome 696 (58 B C. ) they committed to the flames, in the country they wereabout to leave, twelve towns, four hundred villages, and all theirhouses; loaded their cars with provisions for three months, and agreed tomeet at the southern point of the Lake of Geneva. They found on theirreunion, says Caesar, a total of three hundred and sixty-eight thousandemigrants, including ninety-two thousand men-at-arms. The Switzerlandwhich they abandoned numbers now two million five hundred thousandinhabitants. But when the Helvetians would have entered Gaul, they foundthere Caesar, who, after having got himself appointed proconsul for fiveyears, had arrived suddenly at Geneva, prepared to forbid their passage. They sent to him a deputation, to ask leave, they said, merely totraverse the Roman province without causing the least damage. Caesarknew as well how to gain time as not to lose any: he was not ready; so heput off the Helvetians to a second conference. In the interval heemployed his legionaries, who could work as well as fight, in erectingupon the left bank of the Rhone a wall sixteen feet high and ten mileslong, which rendered the passage of the river very difficult, and, on thereturn of the Helvetian envoys, he formally forbade them to pass by theroad they had proposed to follow. They attempted to take another, and tocross not the Rhone but the Saone, and march thence towards western Gaul. But whilst they were arranging for the execution of this movement, Caesar, who had up to that time only four legions at his disposal, returned to Italy, brought away five fresh legions, and arrived on theleft bank of the Saone at the moment when the rear-guard of theHelvetians was embarking to rejoin the main body which had alreadypitched its camp on the right bank. Caesar cut to pieces this rear-guard, crossed the river, in his turn, with his legions, pursued the emigrantswithout relaxation, came in contact with them on several occasions, atone time attacking them or repelling their attacks, at another receivingand giving audience to their envoys without ever consenting to treat withthem, and before the end of the year he had so completely beaten, decimated, dispersed and driven them back, that of three hundred andsixty-eight thousand Helvetians who had entered Gaul, but one hundred andten thousand escaped from the Romans, and were enabled, by flight, toregain their country. 

[Illustration: Mounted Gauls----66]

AEduans, Sequanians, or Arvernians, all the Gauls interested in thestruggle thus terminated, were eager to congratulate Caesar upon hisvictory; but if they were delivered from the invasion of the Helvetians, another scourge fell heavily upon them; Ariovistus and the Germans, whowere settled upon their territory, oppressed them cruelly, and day by dayfresh bands were continually coming to aggravate the evil and the danger. They adjured Caesar to protect them from these swarms of barbarians. "Ina few years, " said they, "all the Germans will have crossed the Rhine, and all the Gauls will be driven from Gaul, for the soil of Germanycannot compare with that of Gaul, any more than the mode of life. IfCaesar and the Roman people refuse to aid us, there is nothing left forus but to abandon our lands, as the Helvetians would have done in theircase, and go seek, afar from the Germans, another dwelling-place. "Caesar, touched by so prompt an appeal to the power of his name and famegave ear to the prayer of the Gauls. But he was for trying negotiationbefore war. He proposed to Ariovistus an interview "at which they arighttreat in common of affairs of importance for both. " Ariovistus repliedthat "if he wanted anything of Caesar, he would go in search of him; ifCaesar had business with him, it was for Caesar to come. " Caesarthereupon conveyed to him by messenger his express injunctions, "not tosummon any more from the borders of the Rhine fresh multitudes of men, and to cease from vexing the AEduans and making war on them, them andtheir allies. Otherwise, Caesar would not fail to avenge their wrongs. "Ariovistus replied that "he had conquered the AEduans. The Roman peoplewere in the habit of treating the vanquished after their own pleasure, and not the advice of another; he too, himself, had the same right. Caesar said he would avenge the wrongs of the AEduans; but no one hadever attacked him with impunity. If Caesar would like to try it, let himcome; he would learn what could be done by the bravery of the Germans, who were as yet unbeaten, who were trained to arms, who for fourteenyears had not slept beneath a roof. " At the moment he received thisanswer, Caesar had just heard that fresh bands of Suevians were encampedon the right bank of the Rhine, ready to cross, and that Ariovistus withall his forces was making towards Vesontio (Besancon), the chief town ofthe Sequanians. Caesar forthwith put himself in motion, occupiedVesontio, established there a strong garrison, and made his arrangementsfor issuing from it with his legions to go and anticipate the attack ofAriovistus. Then came to him word that no little disquietude was showingitself among the Roman troops; that many soldiers and even officersappeared anxious about the struggle with the Germans, their ferocity, thevast forests that must be traversed to reach them, the difficult roads, and the transport of provisions; there was an apprehension of brokencourage, and perchance of numerous desertions. Caesar summoned a greatcouncil of war, to which he called the chief officers of his legions; hecomplained bitterly of their alarm, recalled to their memory their recentsuccess against the Helvetians, and scoffed at the rumors spread aboutthe Germans, and at the doubts with which there was an attempt to inspirehim about the fidelity and obedience of his troops. "An army, " said he, "disobeys only the commander who leads them badly and has no goodfortune, or is found guilty of cupidity and malversation. My whole lifeshows my integrity, and the war against the Helvetians my good fortune. I shall order forthwith the departure I had intended to put off. I shallstrike the camp the very next night, at the fourth watch; I wish to seeas soon as possible whether honor and duty or fear prevail in your ranks. If there be any refusal to follow me, I shall march with only the tenthlegion, of which I have no doubt; that shall be my praetorian cohort. "

The cheers of the troops, officers and men, were the answer given to thereproaches and hopes of their general: all hesitation passed away; andCaesar set out with his army. He fetched a considerable compass, tospare them the passage of thick forests, and, after a seven days' march, arrived at a short distance from the camp of Ariovistus. On learningthat Caesar was already so near, the German sent to him a messenger withproposals for the interview which was but lately demanded, and to whichthere was no longer any obstacle, since Caesar had himself arrived uponthe spot. And the interview really took place, with mutual precautionsfor safety and warlike dignity. Caesar repeated all the demands he hadmade upon Ariovistus, who, in his turn, maintained his refusal, asking, "What was wanted? Why had foot been set upon his lands? That part ofGaul was his province, just as the other was the Roman province. IfCaesar did not retire, and withdraw his troops, he should consider him nomore a friend, but an enemy. He knew that if he were to slay Caesar, hewould recommend himself to many nobles and chiefs amongst the Romanpeople; he had learned as much from their own envoys. But if Caesarretired and left him, Ariovistus, in free possession of Gaul, he wouldpay liberally in return, and would wage on Caesar's behalf, withouttrouble or danger to him, any wars he might desire. " During thisinterview it is probable that Caesar smiled more than once at theboldness and shrewdness of the barbarian. Ultimately some horsemen inthe escort of Ariovistus began to caracole towards the Romans, and tohurl at them stones and darts. Caesar ordered his men to make noreprisals, and broke off the conference. The next day but one Ariovistusproposed a renewal; but Caesar refused, having decided to bring thequarrel to an issue. Several days in succession he led out his legionsfrom their camp, and offered battle; but Ariovistus remained within hislines. Caesar then took the resolution of assailing the German camp. Athis approach, the Germans at length moved out from their intrenchments, arrayed by peoplets, and defiling in front of cars filled with theirwomen, who implored them with tears not to deliver them in slavery to theRomans. The struggle was obstinate, and not without moments of anxietyand partial check for the Romans; but the genius of Caesar and strictdiscipline of the legions carried the day. The rout of the Germans wascomplete; they fled towards the Rhine, which was only a few leagues fromthe field of battle. Ariovistus himself was amongst the fugitives; hefound a boat by the river side, and recrossed into Germany, where he diedshortly afterwards, "to the great grief of the Germans, " says Caesar. The Suevian bands, who were awaiting on the right bank the result of thestruggle, plunged back again within their own territory. And so theinvasion of the Germans was stopped as the emigration of the Helvetianshad been; and Caesar had only to conquer Gaul. 

It is uncertain whether he had from the very first determined the wholeplan; but so soon as he set seriously to work, he felt all thedifficulties. The expulsion of the Helvetian emigrants and of the Germaninvaders left the Romans and Gauls alone face to face; and from thatmoment the Romans were, in the eyes of the Gauls, foreigners, conquerors, oppressors. Their deeds aggravated day by day the feelings excited bythe situation; they did not ravage the country, as the Germans had done;they did not appropriate such and such a piece of land; but everywherethey assumed the mastery: they laid heavy burdens upon the population;they removed the rightful chieftains who were opposed to them, andforcibly placed or maintained in power those only who were subservient tothem. Independently of the Roman empire, Caesar established everywherehis own personal influence; by turns gentle or severe, caressing orthreatening, he sought and created for himself partisans amongst theGauls, as he had amongst his army, showing favor to those only whosedevotion was assured to him. To national antipathy towards foreignersmust be added the intrigues and personal rivalry of the conquered intheir relations with the conqueror. Conspiracies were hatched, insurrections soon broke out in nearly every part of Gaul, in the hearteven of the peoplets most subject to Roman dominion. Every movement ofthe kind was for Caesar a provocation, a temptation, almost an obligationto conquest. He accepted them and profited by them, with thatpromptitude in resolution, boldness and address in execution, and coolindifference as to the means employed, which were characteristic of hisgenius. During nine years, from A. U. C. 696 to 705, and in eightsuccessive campaigns, he carried his troops, his lieutenants, himself, and, ere long, war or negotiation, corruption, discord, or destruction inhis path, amongst the different nations and confederations of Gaul, Celtic, Kymric, Germanic, Iberian or Hybrid, northward and eastward, in Belgica, between the Seine and the Rhine; westward, in Armorica, onthe borders of the ocean; south-westward, in Aquitania; centre-ward, amongst the peoplets established between the Seine, the Loire, and theSaone. He was nearly always victorious, and then at one time he pushedhis victory to the bitter end, at another stopped at the right moment, that it might not be compromised. When he experienced reverses, he borethem without repining, and repaired them with inexhaustible ability andcourage. More than once, to revive the sinking spirits of his men, hewas rashly lavish of his person; and on one of those occasions, at theraising of the siege of Gergovia, he was all but taken by some Arvernianhorsemen, and left his sword in their hands. It was found a whileafterwards, when the war was over, in a temple in which the Gauls hadhung it. Caesar's soldiers would have torn it down and returned it tohim; but "let it be, " said he; "'tis sanctified. " In good or evilfortune, the hero of a triumph at Rome or a prisoner in the hands ofMediterranean pirates, he was unrivalled in striking the imaginations ofmen and growing great in their eyes. He did not confine himself toconquering and subjecting the Gauls in Gaul; his ideas were everoutstripping his deeds, and he knew how to make his power felt even wherehe had made no attempt to establish it. Twice he crossed the Rhine tohurl back the Germans beyond their river, and to strike to the veryhearts of their forests the terror of the Roman name (A. U. C. 699, 700). He equipped two fleets, made two descents on Great Britain(A. U. C. 699, 700), several times defeated the Britons and theirprincipal chieftain Caswallon (Cassivellaunus), and set up across thechannel, the first landmarks of Roman conquest. He thus became more andmore famous and terrible, both in Gaul, whence he sometimes departed fora moment to go and look after his political prospects in Italy, and inmore distant lands, where he was but an apparition. 

But the greatest minds are far from foreseeing all the consequences oftheir deeds, and all the perils proceeding from their successes. Caesarwas by nature neither violent nor cruel; but he did not trouble himselfabout justice or humanity, and the success of his enterprises, no matterby what means or at what price, was his sole law of conduct. He couldshow, on occasion, moderation and mercy; but when he had to put down anobstinate resistance, or when a long and arduous effort had irritatedhim, he had no hesitation in employing atrocious severity and perfidiouspromises. During his first campaign in Belgica, (A. U. C. 697 and 57B. C. ), two peoplets, the Nervians and the Aduaticans, had gallantlystruggled, with brief moments of success, against the Roman legions. TheNervians were conquered and almost annihilated. Their last remnants, huddled for refuge in the midst of their morasses, sent a deputation toCaesar, to make submission, saying, "Of six hundred senators three onlyare left, and of sixty thousand men that bore arms scarce five hundredhave escaped. " Caesar received them kindly, returned to them theirlands, and warned their neighbors to do them no harm. The Aduaticans, onthe contrary, defended them selves to the last extremity. Caesar, havingslain four thousand, had all that remained sold by auction; and fifty-sixthousand human beings, according to his own statement, passed as slavesinto the hands of their purchasers. Some years later another Belgianpeoplet, the Eburons, settled between the Meuse and the Rhine, rose andinflicted great losses upon the Roman legions. Caesar put them beyondthe pale of military and human law, and had all the neighboring peopletsand all the roving bands invited to come and pillage and destroy "thataccursed race, " promising to whoever would join in the work thefriendship of the Roman people. A little later still, some insurgents inthe centre of Gaul had concentrated in a place to the south-west, calledUrellocdunum (nowadays, it is said, Puy d'Issola, in the department ofthe Lot, between Vayrac and Martel). After a long resistance they wereobliged to surrender, and Caesar had all the combatants' hands cut off, and sent them, thus mutilated, to live and rove throughout Gaul, as aspectacle to all the country that was, or was to be, brought tosubmission. Nor were the rigors of administration less than those ofwarfare. Caesar wanted a great deal of money, not only to maintainsatisfactorily his troops in Gaul, but to defray the enormous expenses hewas at in Italy, for the purpose of enriching his partisans, or securingthe favor of the Roman people. It was with the produce of imposts andplunder in Gaul that he undertook the reconstruction at Rome of thebasilica of the Forum, the site whereof, extending to the temple ofLiberty, was valued, it is said, at more than twenty million fivehundred thousand francs. Cicero, who took the direction of the works, wrote to his friend Atticus, "We shall make it the most glorious thingin the world. " Cato was less satisfied; three years previouslydespatches from Caesar had announced to the Senate his victories overthe Belgian and German insurgents. The senators had voted a generalthanksgiving, but, "Thanksgiving!" cried Cato, "rather expiation! Praythe gods not to visit upon our armies the sin of a guilty general. Giveup Caesar to the Germans, and let the foreigner know that Rome does notenjoin perjury, and rejects with horror the fruit thereof!"

Caesar had all the gifts, all the means of success and empire, that canbe possessed by man. He was great in politics and in war; as active andas full of resource amidst the intrigues of the Forum as amidst thecombinations and surprises of the battle-field, equally able to pleaseand to terrify. He had a double pride, which gave him double confidencein himself, the pride of a great noble and the pride of a great man. Hewas fond of saying, "My aunt Julia is, maternally, the daughter of kings;paternally, she is descended from the immortal gods; my family unites, tothe sacred character of kings who are the most powerful amongst men, theawful majesty of the gods who have even kings in their keeping. " Thus, by birth as well as nature, Caesar felt called to dominion; and at thesame time he was perfectly aware of the decadence of the Romanpatriciate, and of the necessity for being popular in order to becomemaster. With this double instinct he undertook the conquest of the Gaulsas the surest means of achieving conquest at Rome. But owing either tohis own vices or to the difficulties of the situation, he displayed inhis conduct and his work in Gaul so much violence and oppression, so muchiniquity and cruel indifference, that, even at that time, in the midst ofRoman harshness, pagan corruption, and Gallic or German barbarism, sogreat an infliction of moral and material harm could not but be followedby a formidable reaction. Where there are strength and ability, the wantof foresight, the fears, the weaknesses, the dissensions of men, whetherindividuals or peoples, may be for a long while calculated upon; but itmay be carried too far. After six years' struggling Caesar was victor;he had successively dealt with all the different populations of Gaul; hehad passed through and subjected them all, either by his own strong arm, or thanks to their rivalries. In the year of Rome 702 he was suddenlyinformed in Italy, whither he had gone on his Roman business, that mostof the Gallic nations, united under a chieftain hitherto unknown, wererising with one common impulse, and recommencing war. 

The same perils and the same reverses, the same sufferings and the sameresentments, had stirred up amongst the Gauls, without distinction ofrace and name, a sentiment to which they had hitherto been almoststrangers, the sentiment of Gallic nationality and the passion forindependence, not local any longer, but national. This sentiment wasfirst manifested amongst the populace and under obscure chieftains; aband of Carnutian peasants (people of Chartrain) rushed upon the town ofGenabum (Gies), roused the inhabitants, and massacred the Italian tradersand a Roman knight, C. Fusius Cita, whom Caesar had commissioned to buycorn there. In less than twenty-four hours the signal of insurrectionagainst Rome was borne across the country as far as the Arvernians, amongst whom conspiracy had long ago been waiting and paving the way forinsurrection. Amongst them lived a young Gaul whose real name hasremained unknown, and whom history has called Vercingetorix, that is, chief over a hundred heads, chief-in-general. He came of an ancient andpowerful family of Arvernians, and his father had been put to death inhis own city for attempting to make himself king. Caesar knew him, andhad taken some pains to attach him to himself. It does not appear thatthe Arvernian aristocrat had absolutely declined the overtures; but whenthe hope of national independence was aroused, Vercingetorix was itsrepresentative and chief. He descended with his followers from themountain, and seized Gergovia, the capital of his nation. Thence hismessengers spread over the centre, north-west, and west of Gaul; thegreater part of the peoplets and cities of those regions pronounced fromthe first moment for insurrection; the same sentiment was working amongstothers more compromised with Rome, who waited only for a breath ofsuccess to break out. Vercingetorix was immediately invested with thechief command, and he made use of it with all the passion engendered bypatriotism and the possession of power; he regulated the movement, demanded hostages, fixed the contingents of troops, imposed taxes, inflicted summary punishment on the traitors, the dastards, and theindifferent, and subjected those who turned a deaf ear to the appeal oftheir common country to the same pains and the same mutilations thatCaesar inflicted on those who obstinately resisted the Roman yoke. 

At the news of this great movement Caesar immediately left Italy, andreturned to Gaul. He had one quality, rare even amongst the greatestmen: he remained cool amidst the very hottest alarms; necessity neverhurried him into precipitation, and he prepared for the struggle as if hewere always sure of arriving on the spot in time to sustain it. He wasalways quick, but never hasty; and his activity and patience were equallyadmirable and efficacious. Starting from Italy at the beginning of 702A. U. C. , he passed two months in traversing within Gaul the Romanprovince and its neighborhood, in visiting the points threatened by theinsurrection, and the openings by which he might get at it, in assemblinghis troops, in confirming his wavering allies; and it was not before theearly part of March that he moved with his whole army to Agendicum(Sens), the very centre of revolt, and started thence to push on the warwith vigor. In less than three months he had spread devastationthroughout the insurgent country; he had attacked and taken its principalcities, Vellaunodunum (Trigueres), Genabum (Gien), Noviodunum (Sancerre), and Avaricum (Bourges), delivering up everywhere country and city, landsand inhabitants, to the rage of the Roman soldiery, maddened at havingagain to conquer enemies so often conquered. To strike a decisive blow, he penetrated at last to the heart of the country of the Arvernians, andlaid siege to Gergovia, their capital and the birthplace ofVercingetorix. 

The firmness and the ability of the Gallic chieftain were not inferior tosuch a struggle. He understood from the outset that he could not cope inthe open field with Caesar and the Roman legions; he therefore exertedhimself in getting together a body of cavalry numerous enough to harassthe Romans during their movements, to attack their scattered detachments, to bear his orders swiftly to all quarters, and to keep up the excitementamongst the different peoplets with some hope of success. His plan ofcampaign, his repeated instructions, his passionate entreaties to theconfederates were to avoid any general action, to anticipate by their ownravages those of the Romans, to destroy everywhere, at the approach ofthe enemy, stores, springs, bridges, trees, and habitations: he wantedCaesar to find in his front nothing but ruins and clouds of warriorsrelentless in pursuing him without getting within reach. Frequently hesucceeded in obtaining from the people those painful sacrifices in theinterest of the common safety; as when the Biturigians (inhabitants ofthe district of Bourges) burned in one day twenty of their towns orvillages. Vercingetorix adjured them also to burn Avaricum (Bourges), their capital; but they refused, and the capture of Avaricum, thoughgallantly defended, justified the urgency of Vercingetorix, seeing thatit was an important success for Caesar and a serious blow for the Gauls. Out of forty thousand combatants within the walls, it is said, scarcelyeight hundred escaped the slaughter and succeeded in joiningVercingetorix, who had hovered continually in the neighborhood withoutbeing able to offer the besieged any effectual assistance. Nor was itonly against the Romans that he had to struggle; he had to fight amongsthis own people, against rivalry, mistrust, impatience, anddiscouragement; he was accused of desiring, beyond everything, themastery; he was even suspected of keeping up, with the view of assuringhis own future, secret relations with Caesar; he was called upon toattack the enemy in front, and so bring the war to a decisive issue. Itis all very fine to be summoned by the popular voice to accomplish agreat and arduous work; but you cannot be, with impunity, the mostfar-sighted, the most able, and the most in danger, because the mostdevoted. Vercingetorix was bearing the burden of his superiority andinfluence, until he should suffer the penalty and pay with his life forhis patriotism and his glory. He was approaching the happiest moment ofhis enterprise and his destiny. In spite of reverses, in spite ofCaesar's presence and activity, the insurrection was gaining ground andstrength; in the north, west, south-west, on the banks of the Rhine, theSeine, and the Loire, the idea of Gallic nationality and the hope ofindependence were spreading amongst people far removed from the centre ofthe movement, and were bringing to Vercingetorix declarations of sympathyor material re-enforcements. An event of more importance took place inthe centre itself. The AEduans, the most ancient allies and clients theRomans had in Gaul, being divided amongst themselves, and feeling, besides, the national instinct, ended, after much hesitation, by takingpart in the uprising. Caesar, for all his care, could neither preventnor stifle this defection, which threatened to become contagious, anddetach from Rome the neighboring peoplets that were still faithful. Caesar, engaged upon the siege of Gergovia, encountered an obstinateresistance; whilst Vercingetorix, encamped on the heights whichsurrounded his birthplace, everywhere embarrassed, sometimes attacked, and incessantly threatened the Romans. The eighth legion, drawn on oneday to make an imprudent assault, was repulsed, and lost forty-six of itsbravest centurions. Caesar determined to raise the siege, and totransfer the struggle to places where the population could be more safelydepended upon. It was the first decisive check he had experienced inGaul, the first Gallic town he had been unable to take, the firstretrograde movement he had executed in the face of the Gallic insurgentsand their chieftain. Vercingetorix could not and would not restrain hisjoy; it seemed to him that the day had dawned and an excellent chancearrived for attempting a decisive blow. He had under his orders, it issaid, eighty thousand men, mostly his own Arvernians, and a numerouscavalry furnished by the different peoplets his allies. He followed allCaesar's movements in retreat towards the Saone, and, on arriving atLongeau not far from Langres, near a little river called the Vingeanne, he halted, pitched his camp about nine miles from the Romans, andassembling the chiefs of his cavalry, said, "Now is the hour of victory;the Romans are flying to their province and leaving Gaul; that is enoughfor our liberty to-day, but too little for the peace and repose of thefuture; for they will return with greater armies, and the war will bewithout end. Attack we them amid the difficulties of their march; iftheir foot support the cavalry, they will not be able to pursue theirroute; if, as I fully trust, they leave their baggage, to provide fortheir safety, they will lose both their honor and the supplies whereofthey have need. None of the enemy's horse will dare to come forth fromtheir lines. To give ye courage and aid, I will order forth from thecamp and place in battle array all our troops, and they will strike theenemy with terror. " The Gallic horsemen cried out that they must allbind themselves by the most sacred of oaths, and swear that none of themwould come again under roof, or see again wife, or children, or parent, unless he had twice pierced through the ranks of the enemy. And all didtake this oath, and so prepared for the attack. Vercingetorix knew notthat Caesar, with his usual foresight, had summoned and joined to hislegions a great number of horsemen from the German tribes roving over thebanks of the Rhine, with which he had taken care to keep up friendlyrelations. Not only had he promised them pay, plunder, and lands, but, finding their horses ill-trained, he had taken those of his officers, even those of the Roman knights and veterans, and distributed themamongst his barbaric auxiliaries. The action began between the cavalryon both sides; a portion of the Gallic had taken up position on the roadfollowed by the Roman army, to bar its passage; but whilst the fightingat this point was getting more and more obstinate, the German horse inCaesar's service gained a neighboring height, drove off the Gallic horsethat were in occupation, and pursued them as far as the river, near whichwas Vercingetorix with his infantry. Disorder took place amongst thisinfantry so unexpectedly attacked. Caesar launched his legions at them, and there was a general panic and rout among the Gauls. Vercingetorixhad great trouble in rallying them, and he rallied them only to order ageneral retreat, for which they clamored. Hurriedly striking his camp, he made for Alesia (Semur in Auxois), a neighboring town and the capitalof the Mandubians, a peoplet in clientship to the AEduans. Caesarimmediately went in pursuit of the Gauls; killed, he says, threethousand, made important prisoners, and encamped with his legions beforeAlesia the day but one after Vercingetorix, with his fugitive army, hadoccupied the place as well as the neighboring hills, and was hard at workintrenching himself, probably without any clear idea as yet of what heshould do to continue the struggle. 

Caesar at once took a resolution as unexpected as it was discreetly bold. Here was the whole Gallic insurrection, chieftain and soldiery, unitedtogether within or beneath the walls of a town of moderate extent. Heundertook to keep it there and destroy it on the spot, instead of havingto pursue it everywhere without ever being sure of getting at it. He hadat his disposal eleven legions, about fifty thousand strong, and five orsix thousand cavalry, of which two thousand were Germans. He placed themround about Alesia and the Gallic camp, caused to be dug a circuit ofdeep ditches, some filled with water, others bristling with palisades andsnares, and added, from interval to interval, twenty-three little forts, occupied or guarded night and day by detachments. The result was a lineof investment about ten miles in extent. To the rear of the Roman camp, and for defence against attacks from without, Caesar caused to be dugsimilar intrenchments, which formed a line of circumvallation of aboutthirteen miles. The troops had provisions and forage for thirty days. Vercingetorix made frequent sallies to stop or destroy these works; butthey were repulsed, and only resulted in getting his army more closelycooped up within the place. Eighty thousand Gallic insurgents were, asit were, in prison, guarded by fifty thousand Roman soldiers. Vercingetorix was one of those who persevere and act in the days ofdistress just as in the spring-tide of their hopes. Before the works ofthe Romans were finished, he assembled his horsemen, and ordered them tosally briskly from Alesia, return each to his own land, and summon thewhole population to arms. He was obeyed; the Gallic horsemen made theirway, during the night, through the intervals left by the Romans' stillimperfect lines of investment, and dispersed themselves amongst theirvarious peoplets. Nearly everywhere irritation and zeal were at theirheight. An assemblage of delegates met at Bibracte (Autun), and fixedthe amount of the contingent to be furnished by each nation, and a pointwas assigned at which all those contingents should unite for the purposeof marching together towards Alesia, and attacking the besiegers. Thetotal of the contingents thus levied on forty-three Gallic peopletsamounted, according to Caesar, to two hundred and eighty-three thousandmen; and two hundred and forty thousand men, it is said, did actuallyhurry up to the appointed place. Mistrust of such enormous numbers hasalready been expressed by one who has lived through the greatest Europeanwars, and has heard the ablest generals reduce to their real strength thelargest armies. We find in M. Thiers' _History of the Consulate_ andEmpire, that at Austerlitz, on the 2d of December, 1805, Napoleon had butfrom sixty-five to seventy thousand men, and the combined Austrians andRussians but ninety thousand. At Leipzig, the biggest of modern battles, when all the French forces on the one side, and the Austrian, Prussian, Russian, and Swedish on the other, were face to face on the 18th ofOctober, 1813, they made all together about five hundred thousand men. How can we believe, then, that nineteen centuries ago, Gaul, so weaklypopulated and so slightly organized, suddenly sent two hundred and fortythousand men to the assistance of eighty thousand Gauls besieged in thelittle town of Alesia by fifty or sixty thousand Romans? But whatevermay be the case with the figures, it is certain that at the very firstmoment the national impulse answered the appeal of Vercingetorix, andthat the besiegers of Alesia, Caesar and his legions, found that theywere themselves all at once besieged in their intrenchments by a cloud ofGauls hurrying up to the defence of their compatriots. The struggle wasfierce, but short. Every time that the fresh Gallic army attacked thebesiegers, Vercingetorix and the Gauls of Alesia sallied forth, andjoined in the attack. Caesar and his legions, on their side, at one timerepulsed these double attacks, at another themselves took the initiative, and assailed at one and the same time the besieged and the auxiliariesGaul had sent them. The feeling was passionate on both sides: Romanpride was pitted against Gallic patriotism. But in four or five days thestrong organization, the disciplined valor of the Roman legions, and thegenius of Caesar carried the day. The Gallic re-enforcements, beaten andslaughtered without mercy, dispersed; and Vercingetorix and the besiegedwere crowded back within their walls without hope of escape. We have twoaccounts of the last moments of this great Gallic insurrection and itschief; one, written by Caesar himself, plain, cold, and harsh as itsauthor; the other, by two later historians, who were neither statesmennor warriors, Plutarch and Dion Cassius, has more detail and moreornament, following either popular tradition or the imagination of thewriters. It may be well to give both. "The day after the defeat, " saysCaesar, "Vercingetorix convokes the assembly, and shows that he did notundertake the war for his own personal advantage, but for the generalfreedom. Since submission must be made to fortune, he offers to satisfythe Romans either by instant death or by being delivered to them alive. A deputation there anent is sent to Caesar, who orders the arms to begiven up and the chiefs brought to him. He seats himself on histribunal, in the front of his camp. The chiefs are brought, Vercingetorix is delivered over; the arms are cast at Caesar's feet. Except the AEduans and Arvernians, whom Caesar kept for the purpose oftrying to regain their people, he had the prisoners distributed, head byhead, to his army as booty of war. "

[Illustration: Vercingetorix surrenders to Caesar----81]

The account of Dion Cassius is more varied and dramatic. "After thedefeat, " says he, "Vercingetorix, who was neither captured nor wounded, might have fled; but, hoping that the friendship that had once bound himto Caesar might gain him grace, he repaired to the Roman without previousdemand of peace by the voice of a herald, and appeared suddenly in hispresence, just as Caesar was seating himself upon his tribunal. Theapparition of the Gallic chieftain inspired no little terror, for he wasof lofty stature, and had an imposing appearance in arms. There was adeep silence. Vercingetorix fell at Caesar's feet, and made supplicationby touch of hand without speaking a word. The scene moved those presentwith pity, remembering the ancient fortunes of Vercingetorix andcomparing them with his present disaster. Caesar, on the contrary, foundproof of criminality in the very memories relied upon for salvation, contrasted the late struggle with the friendship appealed to byVercingetorix, and so put in a more hideous light the odiousness of hisconduct. And thus, far from being moved by his misfortunes at themoment, he threw him in chains forthwith, and subsequently had him put todeath, after keeping him to adorn his triumph. "

Another historian, contemporary with Plutarch, Florus, attributes toVercingetorix, as he fell down and cast his arms at Caesar's feet, thesewords: "Bravest of men, thou hast conquered a brave man. " It is notnecessary to have faith in the rhetorical compliment, or to likewisereject the mixture of pride and weakness attributed to Vercingetorix inthe account of Dion Cassius. It would not be the only example of a heroseeking yet some chance of safety in the extremity of defeat, and abasinghimself for the sake of preserving at any price a life on which fortunemight still smile. However it be, Vercingetorix vanquished, dragged out, after ten years' imprisonment, to grace Caesar's triumph, and put todeath immediately afterwards, lives as a glorious patriot in the pages ofthat history in which Caesar appears, on this occasion, as a peevishconqueror who took pleasure in crushing, with cruel disdain, the enemy hehad been at so much pains to conquer. 

Alesia taken, and Vercingetorix a prisoner, Gaul was subdued. Caesar, however, had in the following year (A. U. C. 703) a campaign to make tosubjugate some peoplets who tried to maintain their local independence. A year afterwards, again, attempts at insurrection took place in Belgica, and towards the mouth of the Loire; but they were easily repressed; theyhad no national or formidable characteristics; Caesar and his lieutenantswillingly contented themselves with an apparent submission, and in theyear 705 A. U. C. The Roman legions, after nine years' occupation in theconquest of Gaul, were able to depart therefrom to Italy and the East fora plunge into civil war. 

CHAPTER V. ----GAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. 

From the conquest of Gaul by Caesar, to the establishment there of theFranks under Clovis, she remained for more than five centuries underRoman dominion; first under the pagan, afterwards under the Christianempire. In her primitive state of independence she had struggled for tenyears against the best armies and the greatest man of Rome; after fivecenturies of Roman dominion she opposed no resistance to the invasion ofthe barbarians, Germans, Goths, Alans, Burgundians, and Franks, whodestroyed bit by bit the Roman empire. In this humiliation and, onemight say, annihilation of a population so independent, so active, and sovaliant at its first appearance in history, is to be seen thecharacteristic of this long epoch. It is worth while to learn and tounderstand how it was. 

[Illustration: Gaul subjugated by the Romans----83]

Gaul lived, during those five centuries, under very different rules andrulers. They may be summed up under five names, which correspond withgovernments very unequal in merit and defect, in good and evil wroughtfor their epoch:

1st, the Caesars from Julius to Nero (from 49 B. C. To A. D. 68);2d, the Flavians, from Vespasian to Domitian (from A. D. 69 to 95);3d, the Antonines, from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius (from A. D. 96 to 180);4th, the imperial anarchy, or the thirty-nine emperors and the thirty-onetyrants, from Commodus to Carinus and Numerian (from A. D. 180 to 284);5th, Diocletian (from A. D. 284 to 305). 

Through all these governments, and in spite of their different resultsfor their contemporary subjects, the fact already pointed out as thegeneral and definitive characteristic of that long epoch, to wit, themoral and social decadence of Gaul as well as of the Roman empire, neverceased to continue and spread. 

On quitting conquered Gaul to become master at Rome, Caesar neglectednothing to assure his conquest and make it conducive to the establishmentof his empire. He formed, of all the Gallic districts that he hadsubjugated, a special province which received the name of Gallia Comata(Gaul of the long-hair), whilst the old province was called Gallia Toyata(Gaul of the toga). Caesar caused to be enrolled amongst his troops amultitude of Gauls, Belgians, Arvernians, and Aquitanians, of whosebravery he had made proof. He even formed, almost entirely of Gauls, aspecial legion called Alauda (lark), because it bore on the helmets alark with outspread wings, the symbol of wakefulness. At the same timehe gave in Gallia Comata, to the towns and families that declared forhim, all kinds of favors, the rights of Roman citizenship, the title ofallies, clients, and friends, even to the extent of the Julian name, asign of the most powerful Roman patronage. He had, however, in the oldRoman province, formidable enemies, especially the town of Marseilles, which declared against him and for Pompey. Caesar had the place besiegedby one of his lieutenants, got possession of it, caused to be deliveredover to him its vessels and treasure, and left in it a garrison of twolegions. He established at Narbonne, Arles, Biterrce (Beziers) threecolonies of veteran legionaries devoted to his cause, and near Antipolis(Antibes) a maritime colony called Forum Julii, nowadays Frejus, of whichhe proposed to make a rival to Marseilles. Much money was necessary tomeet the expenses of such patronage and to satisfy the troops, old andnew, of the conqueror of Gaul and Rome. Now there was at Rome an ancienttreasure, founded more than four centuries previously by the DictatorCamillus, when he had delivered Rome from the Gauls--a treasure reservedfor the expenses of Gallic wars, and guarded with religious respect assacred money. In the midst of all discords and disorders at Rome, nonehad touched it. After his return from Gaul, Caesar one day ascended theCapitol with his soldiers, and finding, in the temple of Saturn, the doorclosed of the place where the treasure was deposited, ordered it to beforced. L. Metellus, tribune of the people, made strong opposition, conjuring Caesar not to bring on the Republic the penalty of suchsacrilege: but "the Republic has nothing to fear, " said Caesar; "I havereleased it from its oaths by subjugating Gaul. There are no moreGauls. " He caused the door to be forced, and the treasure was abstractedand distributed to the troops, Gallic and Roman. Whatever Caesar mayhave said, there were still Gauls, for at the same time that he wasdistributing to such of them as he had turned into his own soldiers themoney reserved for the expense of fighting them, he was imposing uponGallia Comata, under the name of stipendium (soldier's pay), a levy offorty millions of sesterces--a considerable amount for a devastatedcountry which, according to Plutarch, did not contain at that time morethan three millions of inhabitants, and almost equal to that of thelevies paid by the rest of the Roman provinces. 

After Caesar, Augustus, left sole master of the Roman world, assumed inGaul, as elsewhere, the part of pacificator, repairer, conservator, andorganizer, whilst taking care, with all his moderation, to remain alwaysthe master. He divided the provinces into imperial and senatorial, reserving to himself the entire government of the former, and leaving thelatter under the authority of the senate. Gaul "of the long hair, " allthat Caesar had conquered, was imperial province. Augustus divided itinto three provinces, Lugdunensian (Lyonese), Belgian, and Aquitanian. He recognized therein sixty nations or distinct cityships which continuedto have themselves the government of their own affairs, according to theirtraditions and manners, whilst conforming to the general laws of theempire, and abiding under the supervision of imperial governors, chargedwith maintaining everywhere, in the words of Pliny the Younger, "themajesty of Roman peace. " Luydunum (Lyons), which had been up to thattime of small importance and obscure, became the great town, the favoritecityship and ordinary abiding-place of the emperors when they visitedGaul. After having held at Narbonne (27 B. C. ) a meeting ofrepresentatives from the different Gallic nations, Augustus went severaltimes to Lyons, and even lived there, as it appears, a pretty long while, to superintend, no doubt, from thence, and to get into working order thenew government of Gaul. After the departure of Augustus, his adopted sonDrusus, who had just fulfilled, in Belgica and on the Rhine, a mission atthe same time military and administrative, called together at Lyonsdelegates from the sixty Gallic cityships, to take part (B. C. 12 or 10) inthe inauguration of a magnificent monument raised, at the confluence ofthe Rhone and Saone, in honor of Rome and Augustus as the tutelarydeities of Gaul. In the middle of a vast enclosure was placed a hugealtar of white marble, on which were engraved the names of the sixtycityships "of the long hair. " A colossal statue of the Gauls and sixtystatues of the Gallic cityships occupied the enclosure. Two columns ofgranite, twenty-five feet high, stood close by the altar, and weresurmounted by two colossal Victories, in white marble, ten feet high. Solemn festivals, gymnastic games, and oratorical and literaryexercitations accompanied the inauguration; and during the ceremony itwas announced, amidst popular acclamation, that a son had just been bornto Drusus at Lyons itself, in the palace of the emperor, where thechild's mother, Antonia, daughter of Marc Antony and Octavia (sister ofAugustus), had been staying for some months. This child was one day tobe the emperor Claudius. 

[Illustration: FROM LA CROIX ROUSSE----86]

The administrative energy of Augustus was not confined to the erection ofmonuments and to festivals; he applied himself to the development in Gaulof the material elements of civilization and social order. His mostintimate and able adviser, Agrippa, being settled at Lyons as governor ofthe Gauls, caused to be opened four great roads, starting from amilestone placed in the middle of the Lyonnese forum, and going, onecentrewards to Saintes and the ocean, another southwards to Narbonne andthe Pyrenees, the third north-westwards and towards the Channel by Amiensand Boulogne, and the fourth north-westwards and towards the Rhine. Agrippa founded several colonies, amongst others Cologne, which bore hisname; and he admitted to Gallic territory bands of Germans who asked foran establishment there. Thanks to public security, Romans becameproprietors in the Gallic provinces and introduced to them Italiancultivation. The Gallic chieftains, on their side, began to cultivatelands which had become their personal property. Towns were built or grewapace and became encircled by ramparts, under protection of which thepopulations came and placed themselves. The most learned and attentiveobserver of nature and Roman society, Pliny the Elder, attests that underAugustus Gallic agriculture and industry made vast progress. 

But side by side with this work in the cause of civilization andorganization, Augustus and his Roman agents were pursuing a work of quitea contrary tendency. They labored to extirpate from Gaul the spirit ofnationality, independence, and freedom; they took every pains to effaceeverywhere Gallic memories and sentiments. Gallic towns were losingtheir old and receiving Roman names: Augustonemetum, Augusta, andAugustodunum took the place of Gergovia, Noviodunum, and Bibracte. Thenational Gallic religion, which was Druidism, was attacked as well as theGallic fatherland, with the same design and by the same means; at onetime Augustus prohibited this worship amongst the Gauls converted intoRoman citizens, as being contrary to Roman belief; at another RomanPaganism and Gallic Druidism were fused together in the same temples andat the same altars, as if to fuse them in the same common indifference;Roman and Gallic names became applied to the same religiouspersonification of such and such a fact or such and such an idea; Marsand Camul were equally the god of war; Belen and Apollo the god of lightand healing; Diana and Arduinna the goddess of the chase. Everywhere, whether it was a question of the terrestrial fatherland or of religiousfaith, the old moral machinery of the Gauls was broken up or condemned torust, and no new moral machinery was allowed to replace it; it waseverywhere Roman and imperial authority that was substituted for thefree, national action of the Gauls. 

It is incredible that this hostility on the part of the powers that betowards moral sentiments, and this absence of freedom, should not havegravely compromised the material interest of the Gallic population. Public administration, however extensive its organization and energy, ifit be not under the superintendence and restraint of public freedom andmorality, soon falls into monstrous abuses, which itself is eitherignorant of or wittingly suffers. Examples of this evil, inherent indespotism, abound even under the intelligent and watchful sway ofAugustus. Here is a case in point. He had appointed as procurator, thatis, financial commissioner, in "long-haired" Gaul, a native who, havingbeen originally a slave and afterwards set free by Julius Caesar, hadtaken the Roman name of Licinius. This man gave himself up, during hisadministration, to a course of the most shameless extortion. The taxeswere collected monthly; and so, taking advantage of the change of namewhich flattery had caused in the two months of July and August, sacred toJulius Caesar and Augustus respectively, he made his year consist offourteen months, so that he might squeeze out fourteen contributionsinstead of twelve. "December, " said he, "is surely, as its nameindicates, the tenth month of the year, " and he added thereto, in honorof the emperor, two others which he called the eleventh and twelfth. During one of the trips which Augustus made into Gaul, strong complaintswere made against Licinius, and his robberies were denounced to theemperor. Augustus dared not support him, and seemed upon the point ofdeciding to bring him to justice, when Licinius conducted him to theplace where was deposited all the treasure he had extorted, and, "See, mylord, " said he, "what I have laid up for thee and for the Roman people, for fear lest the Gauls possessing so much gold should employ it againstyou both; for thee I have kept it, and to thee I deliver it. " (Thierry, _Histoire des Gaulois, _ t. Iii. P. 295; Clerjon, _Histoire de Lyon, _t. I. P. 178-180. ) Augustus accepted the treasure, and Licinius remainedunpunished. In the case of financial abuses or other acts, absolutepower seldom resists such temptations. 

We may hear it said, and we may read in the writings of certain modernphilosophers and scholars, that the victorious despotism of the Romanempire was a necessary and salutary step in advance, and that it broughtabout the unity and enfranchisement of the human race. Believe it not. There is mingled good and evil in all the events and governments of thisworld, and good often arises side by side with or in the wake of evil, but it is never from the evil that the good comes; injustice and tyrannyhave never produced good fruits. Be assured that whenever they have thedominion, whenever the moral rights and personal liberties of men aretrodden under foot by material force, be it barbaric or be it scientific, there can result only prolonged evils and deplorable obstacles to thereturn of moral right and moral force, which, God be thanked, can neverhe obliterated from the nature and the history of man. The despoticimperial administration upheld for a long while the Roman empire, and notwithout renown; but it corrupted, enervated, and impoverished the Romanpopulations, and left them, after five centuries, as incapable ofdefending themselves as they were of governing. 

Tiberius pursued in Gaul, but with less energy and less care for theprovincial administration, the pacific and moderate policy of Augustus. He had to extinguish in Belgica, and even in the Lyonnese province, twoinsurrections kindled by the sparks that remained of national and Druidicspirit. He repressed them effectually, and without any violent displayof vengeance. He made a trip to Gaul, took measures, quite insufficient, however, for defending the Rhine frontier from the incessantly repeatedincursions of the Germans, and hastened back to Italy to resume thecourse of suspicion, perfidy, and cruelty which he pursued against therepublican pride and moral dignity remaining amongst a few remnants ofthe Roman senate. He was succeeded by Germanicus' unworthy son, Caligula. After a few days of hypocrisy on the part of the emperor, andcredulous hope on that of the people, they found a madman let loose totake the place of an unfathomable and gloomy tyrant. Caligula was muchtaken up with Gaul, plundering it and giving free rein in it to hisfrenzies, by turns disgusting or ridiculous. In a short and fruitlesscampaign on the banks of the Rhine, he had made too few prisoners for thepomp of a triumph; he therefore took some Gauls, the tallest he couldfind, of triumphal size, as he said, put them in German clothes, madethem learn some Teutonic words, and sent them away to Rome to await inprison his return and his ovation. Lyons, where he staid some time, wasthe scene of his extortions and strangest freaks. He was playing at diceone day with some of his courtiers, and lost; he rose, sent for thetax-list of the province, marked down for death and confiscation some ofthose who were most highly rated, and said to the company, "You people, you play for a few drachmas; but as for me, I have just won by a singlethrow one hundred and fifty millions. " At the rumor of a plot hatchedagainst him in Italy, by some Roman nobles, he sent for and sold, publicly, their furniture, jewels, and slaves. As the sale was asuccess, he extended it to the old furniture of his own palaces in Italy:"I wish to fit out the Gauls, " said he; "it is a mark of friendship I oweto the brave performed the part Roman people. " He himself, at thesesales, performed the part of salesman and auctioneer, telling the historyof each article to enhance the price. "This belonged to my father, Germanicus; that comes to me from Agrippa; this vase is Egyptian, it wasAntony's, Augustus took it at the battle of Actium. " The imperial saleswere succeeded by literary games, at which the losers had to pay theexpenses of the prizes, and celebrate, in verse or prose, the praises ofthe winners; and if their compositions were pronounced bad, they werebound to wipe them out with a sponge or even with their tongues, unlessthey preferred to be beaten with a rod or soused in the Rhone. One day, when Caligula, in the character of Jupiter, was seated at his tribunaland delivering oracles in the middle of the public thoroughfare, a man ofthe people remained motionless in front of him, with eyes of astonishmentfixed upon him. "What seem I to thee?" asked the emperor, flattered, nodoubt, by this attention of the mob. "A great monstrosity, " answered theGaul. And that, at the end of about four years, was the universal cry:and against a mad emperor the only resource of the Roman world was atthat time assassination. The captain of Caligula's guards rid Rome andthe provinces of him. 

He did just one sensible and useful thing during the whole of his stay inGaul: he had a light-house constructed to illumine the passage betweenGaul and Great Britain. Some traces of it, they say, have beendiscovered. 

His successor, Claudius, brother of the great Germanicus, and married tohis own niece, the second Agrippina, was, as has been already stated, born at Lyons, at the very moment when his father, Drusus, wascelebrating there the erection of an altar to Augustus. During his wholereign he showed to the city of his birth the most lively good-will, andthe constant aim as well as principal result of this good-will was torender the city of Lyons more and more Roman by effacing all Galliccharacteristics and memories. She was endowed with Roman rights, monuments, and names, the most important or the most ostentatious; shebecame the colony supereminently, the great municipal town of the Gauls, the Claudian town; but she lost what had remained of her old municipalgovernment, that is of her administrative and commercial independence. Nor was she the only one in Gaul to experience the good-will of Claudius. This emperor, the mark of scorn from his infancy, whom his mother, Antonia, called "a shadow of a man, an unfinished sketch of nature'sdrawing, " and of whom his grand-uncle, Augustus, used to say, "We shallbe forever in doubt, without any certainty of knowing whether he be or benot equal to public duties, " Claudius, the most feeble indeed of theCaesars, in body, mind, and character, was nevertheless he who hadintermittent glimpses of the most elevated ideas and the most righteoussentiments, and who strove the most sincerely to make them take the formof deeds. He undertook to assure to all free men of "long-haired" Gaulthe same Roman privileges that were enjoyed by the inhabitants of Lyons;and amongst others, that of entering the senate of Rome and holding thegreat public offices. He made a formal proposal to that effect to thesenate, and succeeded, not without difficulty, in getting it adopted. The speech that he delivered on this occasion has been to a great extentpreserved to us, not only in the summary given by Tacitus, but also in aninscription on a bronze tablet, which split into many fragments at thetime of the destruction of the building in which it was placed. The twoprincipal fragments were discovered at Lyons, in 1528, and they are nowdeposited in the Museum of that city. They fully confirm the mostequitable, and, it may be readily allowed, the most liberal act of policythat emanated from the earlier Roman emperors. "Claudius had taken itinto his head, " says Seneca, "to see all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, andBritons clad in the toga. " But at the same time he took great care tospread everywhere the Latin tongue, and to make it take the place of thedifferent national idioms. A Roman citizen, originally of Asia Minor, and sent on a deputation to Rome by his compatriots, could not answer inLatin the emperor's questions. Claudius took away his privileges, saying, "He is no Roman citizen who is ignorant of the language of Rome. "

Claudius, however, was neither liberal nor humane towards a notableportion of the Gallic populations, to wit, the Druids. During his stayin Gaul he proscribed them and persecuted them without intermission;forbidding, under pain of death, their form of worship and every exteriorsign of their ceremonies. He drove them away and pursued them even intoGreat Britain, whither he conducted, A. D. 43, a military expedition, almost the only one of his reign, save the continued struggle of hislieutenants on the Rhine against the Germans. It was evidently amongstthe corporation of Druids and under the influence of religious creeds andtraditions, that there was still pursued and harbored some of the oldGallic spirit, some passion for national independence, and some hatred ofthe Roman yoke. In proportion as Claudius had been popular in Gaul didhis adopted son and successor, Nero, quickly become hated. There isnothing to show that he even went thither, either on the business ofgovernment or to obtain the momentary access of favor always excited inthe mob by the presence and prestige of power. It was towards Greece andthe East that a tendency was shown in the tastes and trips of Nero, imperial poet, musician, and actor. L. Verus, one of the militarycommandants in Belgica, had conceived a project of a canal to unite theMoselle to the Saone, and so the Mediterranean to the ocean; butintrigues in the province and the palace prevented its execution, and inthe place of public works useful to Gaul, Nero caused a new census to bemade of the population whom he required to squeeze to pay for hisextravagance. It was in his reign, as is well known, that a fierce fireconsumed a great part of Rome and her monuments. The majority ofhistorians accuse Nero of having himself been the cause of it; but at anyrate he looked on with cynical indifference, as if amused at so grand aspectacle, and taking pleasure in comparing it to the burning of Troy. He did more: he profited by it so far as to have built for himself, freeof expense, that magnificent palace called "The Palace of Gold, " of whichhe said, when he saw it completed, "At last I am going to be housed as aman should be. " Five years before the burning of Rome, Lyons had been aprey to a similar scourge, and Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius, "Lugdunum, which was one of the show-places of Gaul, is sought for invain to-day; a single night sufficed for the disappearance of a vastcity; it perished in less time than I take to tell the tale. " Nero gaveupwards of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars towards thereconstruction of Lyons, a gift that gained him the city's gratitude, which was manifested, it is said, when his fall became imminent. It was, however, J. Vindex, a Gaul of Vienne, governor of the Lyonnese province, who was the instigator of the insurrection which was fatal to Nero, andwhich put Galba in his place. 

When Nero was dead there was no other Caesar, no naturally indicatedsuccessor to the empire. The influence of the name of Caesar had spentitself in the crimes, madnesses, and incapacity of his descendants. Thenbegan a general search for emperors; and the ambition to be createdspread abroad amongst the men of note in the Roman world. During theeighteen months that followed the death of Nero, three pretenders--Galba, Otho, and Vitellius--ran this formidable risk. Galba was a worthy oldRoman senator, who frankly said, "If the vast body of the empire could bekept standing in equilibrium without a head, I were worthy of the chiefplace in the state. " Otho and Vitellius were two epicures, both indolentand debauched, the former after an elegant, and the latter after abeastly fashion. Galba was raised to the purple by the Lyonnese andNarbonnese provinces, Vitellius by the legions cantoned in the Belgicprovince: to such an extent did Gaul already influence the destinies ofRome. All three met disgrace and death within the space of eighteenmonths; and the search for an emperor took a turn towards the East, wherethe command was held by Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus, of Rieti inthe duchy of Spoleto), a general sprung from a humble Italian family, whohad won great military distinction, and who, having been proclaimed firstat Alexandria, in Judea, and at Antioch, did not arrive until manymonths afterwards at Rome, where he commenced the twenty-six years' reignof the Flavian family. 

Neither Vespasian nor his sons, Titus and Domitian, visited Gaul, astheir predecessors had. Domitian alone put in a short appearance. Theeastern provinces of the empire and the wars on the frontier of theDanube, towards which the invasions of the Germans were at that timebeginning to be directed, absorbed the attention of the new emperors. Gaul was far, however, from remaining docile and peaceful at this epoch. At the vacancy that occurred after Nero and amid the claims of variouspretenders, the authority of the Roman name and the pressure of theimperial power diminished rapidly; and the memory and desire ofindependence were reawakened. In Belgica the German peoplets, who hadbeen allowed to settle on the left bank of the Rhine, were veryimperfectly subdued, and kept up close communication with the independentpeoplets of the right bank. The eight Roman legions cantoned in thatprovince were themselves much changed; many barbarians had been enlistedamongst them, and did gallant service; but they were indifferent, andalways ready for a new master and a new country. There were not wantingsymptoms, soon followed by opportunities for action, of this change insentiment and fact. In the very centre of Gaul, between the Loire andthe Allier, a peasant, who has kept in history his Gallic name of Marieor Maricus, formed a band, and scoured the country, proclaiming nationalindependence. He was arrested by the local authorities and handed overto Vitellius, who had him thrown to the beasts. But in the northern partof Belgica, towards the mouths of the Rhine, where a Batavian peopletlived, a man of note amongst his compatriots and in the service of theRomans, amongst whom he had received the name of Claudius Civilis, embraced first secretly, and afterwards openly, the cause ofinsurrection. He had vengeance to take for Nero's treatment, who hadcaused his brother, Julius Paulus, to be beheaded, and himself to be putin prison, whence he had been liberated by Galba. He made a vow to lethis hair grow until he was revenged. He had but one eye, and gloried inthe fact, saying that it had been so with Hannibal and with Sertorius, and that his highest aspiration was to be like them. He pronounced firstfor Vitellius against Otho, then for Vespasian against Vitellius, andthen for the complete independence of his nation against Vespasian. Hesoon had, amongst the Germans on the two banks of the Rhine and amongstthe Gauls themselves, secret or declared allies. He was joined by ayoung Gaul from the district of Langres, Julius Sabinus, who boastedthat, during the great war with the Gauls, his great-grandmother hadtaken the fancy of Julius Caesar, and that he owed his name to him. Newshad just reached Gaul of the burning down, for the second time, of theCapitol during the disturbances at Rome on the death of Nero. The Druidscame forth from the retreats where they had hidden since Claudius'proscription, and reappeared in the towns and country-places, proclaimingthat "the Roman empire was at an end, that the Gallic empire wasbeginning, and that the day had come when the possession of all the worldshould pass into the hands of the Transalpine nations. " The insurgentsrose in the name of the Gallic empire, and Julius Sabinus assumed thetitle of Caesar. War commenced. Confusion, hesitation, and actualdesertion reached the colonies and extended positively to the Romanlegions. Several towns, even Troves and Cologne, submitted or fell intothe hands of the insurgents. Several legions, yielding to bribery, persuasion, or intimidation, went over to them, some with a bad grace, others with the blood of their officers on their hands. The gravity ofthe situation was not misunderstood at Rome. Petilius Cerealis, acommander of renown for his campaigns on the Rhine, was sent off toBelgica with seven fresh legions. He was as skilful in negotiation andpersuasion as he was in battle. The struggle that ensued was fierce, butbrief; and nearly all the towns and legions that had been guilty ofdefection returned to their Roman allegiance. Civilis, though not morethan half vanquished, himself asked leave to surrender. The Batavianmight, as was said at the time, have inundated the country, and drownedthe Roman armies. Vespasian, therefore, not being inclined to drive menor matters to extremity, gave Civilis leave to go into retirement andlive in peace amongst the marshes of his own land. The Gallic chieftainsalone, the projectors of a Gallic empire, were rigorously pursued andchastised. There was especially one, Julius Sabinus, the pretendeddescendant of Julius Caesar, whose capture was heartily desired. Afterthe ruin of his hopes he took refuge in some vaults connected with one ofhis country houses. The way in was known only to two devoted freedmen ofhis, who set fire to the buildings, and spread a report that Sabinus hadpoisoned himself, and that his dead body had been devoured by the flames. He had a wife, a young Gaul named Eponina, who was in frantic despair atthe rumor; but he had her informed, by the mouth of one of his freedmen, of his place of concealment, begging her at the same time to keep up ashow of widowhood and mourning, in order to confirm the report already incirculation. "Well did she play her part, " to use Plutarch's expression, "in her tragedy of woe. " She went at night to visit her husband in hisretreat, and departed at break of day; and at last would not depart atall. At the end of seven months, hearing great talk of Vespasian'sclemency, she set out for Rome, taking with her her husband, disguised asa slave, with shaven head and a dress that made him unrecognizable. Butthe friends who were in their confidence advised them not to risk as yetthe chance of imperial clemency, and to return to their secret asylum. There they lived for nine years, during which "as a lioness in her den, neither more nor less, " says Plutarch, "Eponina gave birth to two youngwhelps, and suckled them herself at her teat. " At last they werediscovered and brought before Vespasian at Rome: "Caesar, " said Eponina, showing him her children, "I conceived them and suckled them in a tomb, that there might be more of us to ask thy mercy. "

[Illustration: Eponina and Sabinus hidden in a Vault----97]

But Vespasian was merciful only from prudence, and not by nature or frommagnanimity; and he sent Sabinus to execution. Eponina asked that shemight die with her husband, saying, "Caesar, do me this grace; for I havelived more happily beneath the earth and in the darkness than thou in thesplendor of thy empire. " Vespasian fulfilled her desire by sending heralso to execution; and Plutarch, their contemporary, undoubtedlyexpressed the general feeling, when he ended his tale with the words, "In all the long reign of this emperor there was no deed so cruel or sopiteous to see; and he was afterwards punished for it, for in a shorttime all his posterity was extinct. "

In fact the Caesars and the Flavians met the same fate; the two linesbegan and ended alike; the former with Augustus and Nero, the latter withVespasian and Domitian; first a despot, able, cold, and as capable ofcruelty as of moderation, then a tyrant, atrocious and detested. Andboth were extinguished without a descendant. Then a rare piece of goodfortune befell the Roman world. Domitian, two years before he wasassassinated by some of his servants whom he was about to put to death, grew suspicious of an aged and honorable senator, Cocceius Nerva, who hadbeen twice consul, and whom he had sent into exile, first to Tarenturn, and then in Gaul, preparatory, probably, to a worse fate. To this victimof proscription application was made by the conspirators who had just gotrid of Domitian, and had to get another emperor. Nerva accepted, but notwithout hesitation, for he was sixty-four years old; he had witnessed theviolent death of six emperors, and his grandfather, a celebrated jurist, and for a long while a friend of Tiberius, had killed himself, it issaid, for grief at the iniquitous and cruel government of his friend. The short reign of Nerva was a wise, a just, and a humane, but a sad one, not for the people, but for himself. He maintained peace and order, recalled exiles, suppressed informers, re-established respect for lawsand morals, turned a deaf ear to self-interested suggestions ofvengeance, spoliation, and injustice, proceeding at one time from thosewho had made him emperor, at another from the Praetorian soldiers and theRoman mob, who regretted Domitian just as they had Nero. But Nerva didnot succeed in putting a stop to mob-violence or murders prompted bycupidity or hatred. Finding his authority insulted and his lifethreatened, he formed a resolution which has been described and explainedby a learned and temperate historian of the last century, Lenain deTillemont (_Histoire des Empereurs, _ &c. , t. Ii. P. 59), with so muchjustice and precision that it is a pleasure to quote his own words. "Seeing, " says he, "that his age was despised, and that the empirerequired some one who combined strength of mind and body, Nerva, beingfree from that blindness which prevents one from discussing and measuringone's own powers, and from that thirst for dominion which often prevailsover even those who are nearest to the grave, resolved to take a partnerin the sovereign power, and showed his wisdom by making choice ofTrajan. " By this choice, indeed, Nerva commenced and inaugurated thefinest period of the Roman empire, the period that contemporariesentitled the golden age, and that history has named the age of theAntonines. It is desirable to become acquainted with the real characterof this period, for to it belong the two greatest historical events--thedissolution of ancient pagan, and the birth of modern Christian society. 

Five notable sovereigns, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, andMarcus Aurelius swayed the Roman empire during this period (A. D. 96-150). What Nerva was has just been described; and he made no mistake inadopting Trajan as his successor. Trajan, unconnected by origin, asNerva also had been, with old Rome, was born in Spain, near Seville, andby military service in the East had made his first steps towards fortuneand renown. He was essentially a soldier--a moral and a modest soldier;a friend to justice and the public weal; grand in what he undertook forthe empire he governed; simple and modest on his own score; respectfultowards the civil authority and the laws; untiring and equitable in thework of provincial administration; without any philosophical system orpretensions; full of energy and boldness, honesty and good sense. Hestoutly defended the empire against the Germans on the banks of theDanube, won for it the province of Dacia, and, being more taken up withthe East than the West, made many Asiatic conquests, of which hissuccessor, Hadrian, lost no time in abandoning, wisely no doubt, a portion. Hadrian, adopted by Trajan, and a Spaniard too, wasintellectually superior and morally very inferior to him. He was fullof ambition, vanity, invention, and restlessness; he was sceptical inthought and cynical in manners; and he was overflowing with political, philosophical, and literary views and pretensions. He passed thetwenty-one years of his reign chiefly in travelling about the empire, in Asia, Africa, Greece, Spain, Gaul, and Great Britain, opening roads, raising ramparts and monuments, founding schools of learning and museums, and encouraging among the provinces, as well as at Rome, the march ofadministration, legislation, and intellect, more for his own pleasure andhis own glorification than in the interest of his country and of society. At the close of this active career, when he was ill and felt that he wasdying, he did the best deed of his life. He had proved, in the dischargeof high offices, the calm and clear-sighted wisdom of Titus Antoninus, aGaul, whose family came originally from Nimes; he had seen him one daycoming to the senate and respectfully supporting the tottering steps ofhis aged father (or father-in-law, according to Aurelius Victor); and headopted him as his successor. Antoninus Pius, as a civilian, was justwhat Trajan had been as a warrior--moral and modest; just and frugal;attentive to the public weal; gentle towards individuals; full of respectfor laws and rights; scrupulous in justifying his deeds before the senateand making them known to the populations by carefully posted edicts; andmore anxious to do no wrong or harm to anybody than to gain lustre frombrilliant or popular deeds. "He surpasses all men in goodness, " said hiscontemporaries, and he conferred on the empire the best of gifts, for hegave it Marcus Aurelius for its ruler. 

It has been said that Marcus Aurelius was philosophy enthroned. Withoutany desire to contest or detract from that compliment, let it be addedthat he was conscientiousness enthroned. It is his grand and originalcharacteristic that he governed the Roman empire and himself with aconstant moral solicitude, ever anxious to realize that ideal of personalvirtue and general justice which he had conceived, and to which heaspired. His conception, indeed, of virtue and justice was incomplete, and even false in certain cases; and in more than one instance, such asthe persecution of the Christians, he committed acts quite contrary tothe moral law which he intended to put in practice towards all men; buthis respect for the moral law was profound, and his intention to shapehis acts according to it, serious and sincere. Let us cull a few phrasesfrom that collection of his private thoughts, which he entitled _ForSelf, _ and which is really the most faithful picture man ever left ofhimself and the pains he took with himself. "There is, " says he, "relationship between all beings endowed with reason. The world is likea superior city within which the other cities are but families. . . . I have conceived the idea of a government founded on laws of general andequal application. Beware lest thou Caesarze thyself, for it is whathappens only too often. Keep thyself simple, good, unaltered, worthy, grave, a friend to justice, pious, kindly disposed, courageous enough forany duty. . . . Reverence the gods, preserve mankind. Life is short;the only possible good fruit of our earthly existence is holiness ofintention and deeds that tend to the common weal. . . . My soul, bethou covered with shame! Thy life is well nigh gone, and thou hast notyet learned how to live. " Amongst men who have ruled great states, it isnot easy to mention more than two, Marcus Aurelius and Saint Louis, whohave been thus passionately concerned about the moral condition of theirsouls and the moral conduct of their lives. The mind of Marcus Aureliuswas superior to that of Saint Louis; but Saint Louis was a Christian, andhis moral ideal was more pure, more complete, more satisfying, and morestrengthening for the soul than the philosophical ideal of MarcusAurelius. And so Saint Louis was serene and confident as to his fate andthat of the human race, whilst Marcus Aurelius was disquieted and sad--sad for himself and also for humanity, for his country and for his times:"O, my sole, " was his cry, "wherefore art thou troubled, and why am I sovexed?"

We are here brought closer to the fact which has already beenforeshadowed, and which characterizes the moral and social condition ofthe Roman world at this period. It would be a great error to take thefive emperors just spoken of--Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, andMarcus Aurelius--as representatives of the society amidst which theylived, and as giving in a certain degree the measure of itsenlightenment, its morality, its prosperity, its disposition, andcondition in general. Those five princes were not only picked men, superior in mind and character to the majority of their contemporaries, but they were men almost isolated in their generation; in them there wasa resumption of all that had been acquired by Greek and Roman antiquityof enlightenment and virtue, practical wisdom and philosophical morality:they were the heirs and the survivors of the great minds and the greatpoliticians of Athens and Rome, of the Areopagus and the Senate. Theywere not in intellectual and moral harmony with the society theygoverned, and their action upon it served hardly to preserve it partiallyand temporarily from the evils to which it was committed by its own vicesand to break its fall. When they were thoughtful and modest as MarcusAurelius was, they were gloomy and disposed to discouragement, for theyhad a secret foreboding of the uselessness of their efforts. 

Nor was their gloom groundless: in spite of their honest plans andof brilliant appearances, the degradation, material as well as moral, of Roman society went on increasing. The wars, the luxury, thedilapidations, and the disturbances of the empire always raised itsexpenses much above its receipts. The rough miserliness of Vespasian andthe wise economy of Antoninus Pius were far from sufficient to restorethe balance; the aggravation of imposts was incessant; and thepopulation, especially the agricultural population, dwindled away moreand more, in Italy itself, the centre of the state. This evil disquietedthe emperors, when they were neither idiots nor madmen; Claudius, Vespasian, Nerva, and Trajan labored to supply a remedy, and Augustushimself had set them the example. They established in Italy colonies ofveterans to whom they assigned lands; they made gifts thereof to indigentRoman citizens; they attracted by the title of senator rich citizens fromthe provinces, and when they had once installed them as landholders inItaly, they did not permit them to depart without authorization. Trajandecreed that every candidate for the Roman magistracies should be boundto have a third of his fortune invested in Italian land, "in order, " saysPliny the Younger, "that those who sought the public dignities shouldregard Rome and Italy not as an inn to put up at in travelling, but astheir home. " And Pliny the Elder, going as a philosophical observer tothe very root of the evil, says, in his pompous manner, "In former timesour generals tilled their fields with their own hands; the earth, we maysuppose, opened graciously beneath a plough crowned with laurels and heldby triumphal hands, maybe because those great men gave to tillage thesame care that they gave to war, and that they sowed seed with the sameattention with which they pitched a camp; or maybe, also, becauseeverything fructifies best in honorable hands, because everything is donewith the most scrupulous exactitude. . . . Nowadays these same fieldsare given over to slaves in chains, to malefactors who are condemned topenal servitude, and on whose brow there is a brand. Earth is not deafto our prayers; we give her the name of mother; culture is what we callthe pains we bestow on her . . . But can we be surprised if she rendernot to slaves the recompense she paid to generals?"

What must have been the decay of population and of agriculture in theprovinces, when even in Italy there was need of such strong protectiveefforts, which were nevertheless so slightly successful?

Pliny had seen what was the fatal canker of the Roman empire in thecountry as well as in the towns: slavery or semi-slavery. 

Landed property was overwhelmed with taxes, was subject to conditionswhich branded it with a sort of servitude, and was cultivated by aservile population, in whose hands it became almost barren. The largeholders were thus disgusted, and the small ruined or reduced to acondition more and more degraded. Add to this state of things in thecivil department a complete absence of freedom and vitality in thepolitical; no elections, no discussion, no public responsibility;characters weakened by indolence and silence, or destroyed by despoticpower, or corrupted by the intrigues of court or army. Take a stepfarther; cast a glance over the moral department; no religious creeds andnothing left of even Paganism but its festivals and frivolous or shamefulsuperstitions. The philosophy of Greece and the old Roman manner of lifehad raised up, it is true, in the higher ranks of society Stoics andjurists, the former the last champions of morality and the dignity ofhuman nature, the latter the last enlightened servants of the civilcommunity. But neither the doctrines of the Stoics nor the science andable reasoning of the jurists were lights and guides within the reach andfor the use of the populace, who remained a prey to the vices andmiseries of servitude or public disorders, oscillating between thewearisomeness of barren ignorance and the corruptiveness of a life ofadventure. All the causes of decay were at this time spreadingthroughout Roman society; not a single preservative or regenerativeprinciple of national life was in any force or any esteem. 

After the death of Marcus Aurelius the decay manifested and developeditself, almost without interruption, for the space of a century, theoutward and visible sign of it being the disorganization and repeatedfalls of the government itself. The series of emperors given to theRoman world by heirship or adoption, from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius, was succeeded by what may be termed an imperial anarchy; in the course ofone hundred and thirty-two years the sceptre passed into the hands ofthirty-nine sovereigns with the title of _emperor (Augustus)_, and wasclutched at by thirty-one pretenders, whom history has dubbed tyrants, without other claim than their fiery ambition and their trials ofstrength, supported at one time in such and such a province of the empireby certain legions or some local uprising, at another, and mostfrequently in Italy itself, by the Praetorian guards, who had at theirdisposal the name of Rome and the shadow of a senate. There wereItalians, Africans, Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, Illyrians, and Asiatics;and amongst the number were to be met with some cases of eminence in warand politics, and some even of rare virtue and patriotism, such asPertinax, Septimius Severus, Alexander Severus, Deeius, ClaudiusGothicus, Aurelian, Tacitus, and Probus. They made great efforts, someto protect the empire against the barbarians, growing day by day moreaggressive, others to re-establish within it some sort of order, and torestore to the laws some sort of force. All failed, and nearly all dieda violent death, after a short-lived guardianship of a fabric that wascrumbling to pieces in every part, but still under the grand name ofRoman Empire. Gaul had her share in this series of ephemeral emperorsand tyrants; one of the most wicked and most insane, though issue of oneof the most valorous and able, Caracalla, son of Septimius Severus, wasborn at Lyons, four years after the death of Marcus Aurelius. A hundredyears later Narbonne gave in two years to the Roman world three emperors, Carus and his two sons, Carinus and Numerian. Amongst the thirty-onetyrants who did not attain to the title of Augustus, six were Gauls; andthe last two, Amandus and AElianus, were, A. D. 285, the chiefs of thatgreat insurrection of peasants, slaves or half-slaves, who, under thename of Bagaudians (signifying, according to Ducange, a wandering troopof insurgents from field and forest), spread themselves over the north ofGaul, between the Rhine and the Loire, pillaging and ravaging in alldirections, after having themselves endured the pillaging and ravages ofthe fiscal agents and soldiers of the empire. A contemporary witness, Lactantius, describes the causes of this popular outbreak in thefollowing words: "So enormous had the imposts become, that the tillers'strength was exhausted; fields became deserts and farms were changed intoforests. The fiscal agents measured the land by the clod; trees, vinestalks, were all counted. The cattle were marked; the peopleregistered. Old age or sickness was no excuse; the sick and the infirmwere brought up; every one's age was put down; a few years were added onto the children's, and taken off from the old men's. Meanwhile thecattle decreased, the people died, and there was no deduction made forthe dead. "

It is said that to excite the confidence and zeal of their bands, the twochiefs of the Bagaudians had medals struck, and that one exhibited thehead of Amandus, "Emperor, Caesar, Augustus, pious and prosperous, " withthe word "Hope" on the other side. 

When public evils have reached such a pitch, and nevertheless the day hasnot yet arrived for the entire disappearance of the system that causesthem, there arises nearly always a new power which, in the name ofnecessity, applies some remedy to an intolerable condition. A legioncantoned amongst the Tungrians (Tongres), in Belgica, had on itsmuster-roll a Dalmatian named Diocletian, not yet very high in rank, but already much looked up to by his comrades on account of hisintelligence and his bravery. He lodged at a woman's, who was, theysaid, a Druidess, and had the prophetic faculty. One day when he wassettling his account with her, she complained of his extreme parsimony:"Thou'rt too stingy, Diocletian, " said she; and he answered laughing, "I'll be prodigal when I'm emperor. " "Laugh not, " rejoined she: "thou'ltbe emperor when thou hast slain a wild boar" (aper). The conversationgot about amongst Diocletian's comrades. He made his way in the army, showing continual ability and valor, and several times during his changesof quarters and frequent hunting expeditions he found occasion to killwild boars; but he did not immediately become emperor, and several of hiscontemporaries, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, Carus, and Numerian, reachedthe goal before him. "I kill the wild boars, " said he to one of hisfriends, "and another eats them. " The last mentioned of these ephemeralemperors, Numerian, had for his father-in-law and inseparable comrade aPraetorian prefect named Arrius Aper. During a campaign in MesopotamiaNumerian was assassinated, and the voice of the army pronounced Aperguilty. The legions assembled to deliberate about Numerian's death andto choose his successor. Aper was brought before the assembly under aguard of soldiers. Through the exertions of zealous friends thecandidature of Diocletian found great favor. At the first wordspronounced by him from a raised platform in the presence of the troops, cries of "Diocletian Augustus "were raised in every quarter. Othervoices called on him to express his feelings about Numerian's murderers. Drawing his sword, Diocletian declared on oath that he was innocent ofthe emperor's death, but that he knew who was guilty and would find meansto punish him. Descending suddenly from the platform, he made straightfor the Praetorian prefect, and saying, "Aper, be comforted; thou shaltnot die by vulgar hands; by the right hand of great AEneas thou fallest, "he gave him his death-wound. "I have killed the prophetic wild boar, "said he in the evening to his confidants; and soon afterwards, in spiteof the efforts of certain rivals, he was emperor. 

"Nothing is more difficult than to govern, " was a remark his comrades hadoften heard made by him amidst so many imperial catastrophes. Emperor inhis turn, Diocletian treasured up this profound idea of the difficulty ofgovernment, and he set to work, ably, if not successfully, to master it. Convinced that the empire was too vast, and that a single man did notsuffice to make head against the two evils that were destroying it, --waragainst barbarians on the frontiers, and anarchy within, --he divided theRoman world into two portions, gave the West to Maximian, one of hiscomrades, a coarse but valiant soldier, and kept the East himself. Tothe anarchy that reigned within he opposed a general despoticadministrative organization, a vast hierarchy of civil and militaryagents, everywhere present, everywhere masters, and dependent upon theemperor alone. By his incontestable and admitted superiority, Diocletianremained the soul of these two bodies. At the end of eight years he sawthat the two empires were still too vast; and to each Augustus he added aCaesar, --Galerius and Constantius Chlorus, --who, save a nominal, ratherthan real, subordination to the two emperors, had, each in his own state, the imperial power with the same administrative system. In thispartition of the Roman world, Gaul had the best of it: she had formaster, Constantius Chlorus, a tried warrior, but just, gentle, anddisposed to temper the exercise of absolute power with moderation andequity. He had a son, Constantine, at this time eighteen years of age, whom he was educating carefully for government as well as for war. Thissystem of the Roman empire, thus divided between four masters, lastedthirteen years; still fruitful in wars and in troubles at home, butwithout victories, and with somewhat less of anarchy. In spite of thisappearance of success and durability, absolute power failed to performits task; and, weary of his burden and disgusted with the imperfection ofhis work, Diocletian abdicated A. D. 303. No event, no solicitations ofhis old comrades in arms and empire, could draw him from his retreat onhis native soil of Salona, in Dalmatia. "If you could see the vegetablesplanted by these hands, " said he to Maximian and Galerius, "you would notmake the attempt. " He had persuaded or rather dragged his firstcolleague, Maximian, into abdication after him; and so Galerius in theEast, and Constantius Chlorus in the West, remained sole emperors. Afterthe retirement of Diocletian, ambitions, rivalries, and intrigues werenot slow to make head; Maximian reappeared on the scene of empire, butonly to speedily disappear (A. D. 310), leaving in his place his sonMaxentius. Constantius Chlorus had died A. D. 306, and his son, Constantine, had immediately been proclaimed by his army Caesar andAugustus. Galerius died A. D. 311 and Constantine remained to dispute themastery with Maxentius in the West, and in the East with Maximinus andLicinius, the last colleagues taken by Diocletian and Galerius. On the29th of October, A. D. 312, after having gained several battles againstMaxentius in Italy, at Milan, Brescia, and Verona, Constantine pursuedand defeated him before Rome, on the borders of the Tiber, at the foot ofthe Milvian bridge; and the son of Maximian, drowned in the Tiber, leftto the son of Constantins Chlorus the Empire of the West, to which thatof the East was destined to be in a few years added, by the defeat anddeath of Licinius. Constantine, more clear-sighted and more fortunatethan any of his predecessors, had understood his era, and opened his eyesto the new light which was rising upon the world. Far from persecutingthe Christians, as Diocletian and Galerius had done, he had given themprotection, countenance, and audience; and towards him turned all theirhopes. He had even, it is said, in his last battle against Maxentius, displayed the Christian banner, the cross, with this inscription: Hocsigno vinces ("with this device thou shalt conquer "). There is noknowing what was at that time the state of his soul, and to what extentit was penetrated by the first rays of Christian faith; but it is certainthat he was the first amongst the masters of the Roman world to perceiveand accept its influence. With him Paganism fell, and Christianitymounted the throne. With him the decay of Roman society stops, and theera of modern society commences. 

[Illustration: Knights returning from Foray----311]

CHAPTER VI. ----ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 

When Christianity began to penetrate into Gaul, it encountered there tworeligions very different one from the other, and infinitely moredifferent from the Christian religion; these were Druidism and Paganism--hostile one to the other, but with a hostility political only, andunconnected with those really religious questions that Christianity wascoming to raise. 

[Illustration: Christianity established in Gaul----111]

Druidism, considered as a religion, was a mass of confusion, wherein theinstinctive notions of the human race concerning the origin and destinyof the world and of mankind were mingled with the Oriental dreams ofmetempsychosis--that pretended transmigration, at successive periods, ofimmortal souls into divers creatures. This confusion was worseconfounded by traditions borrowed from the mythologies of the East andthe North, by shadowy remnants of a symbolical worship paid to thematerial forces of nature, and by barbaric practices, such as humansacrifices, in honor of the gods or of the dead. People who are withoutthe scientific development of language and the art of writing do notattain to systematic and productive religious creeds. There is nothingto show that, from the first appearance of the Gauls in history to theirstruggle with victorious Rome, the religious influence of Druidism hadcaused any notable progress to be made in Gallic manners andcivilization. A general and strong, but vague and incoherent, belief inthe immortality of the soul was its noblest characteristic. But with thereligious elements, at the same time coarse and mystical, were united twofacts of importance: the Druids formed a veritable ecclesiasticalcorporation, which had, throughout Gallic society, fixed attributes, special manners and customs, an existence at the same time distinct andnational; and in the wars with Rome this corporation became the mostfaithful representatives and the most persistent defenders of Gallicindependence and nationality. The Druids were far more a clergy thanDruidism was a religion; but it was an organized and a patriotic clergy. It was especially on this account that they exercised in Gaul aninfluence which was still existent, particularly in north-western Gaul, at the time when Christianity reached the Gallic provinces of the southand centre. 

[Illustration: Druids offering Human Sacrifices----111]

The Greco-Roman Paganism was, at this time, far more powerful thanDruidism in Gaul, and yet more lukewarm and destitute of all religiousvitality. It was the religion of the conquerors and of the state, andwas invested, in that quality, with real power; but, beyond that, it hadbut the power derived from popular customs and superstitions. As areligious creed, the Latin Paganism was at bottom empty, indifferent, andinclined to tolerate all religions in the state, provided only that they, in their turn, were indifferent at any rate towards itself, and that theydid not come troubling the state, either by disobeying her rulers or byattacking her old deities, dead and buried beneath their own stillstanding altars. 

Such were the two religions with which, in Gaul, nascent Christianity hadto contend. Compared with them it was, to all appearance, very small andvery weak; but it was provided with the most efficient weapons forfighting and beating them, for it had exactly the moral forces which theylacked. Christianity, instead of being, like Druidism, a religionexclusively national and hostile to all that was foreign, proclaimed auniversal religion, free from all local and national partiality, addressing itself to all men in the name of the same God, and offering toall the same salvation. It is one of the strangest and most significantfacts in history, that the religion most universally human, mostdissociated from every consideration but that of the rights andwell-being of the human race in its entirety--that such a religion, beit repeated, should have come forth from the womb of the most exclusive, most rigorously and obstinately national religion that ever appeared inthe world, that is, Judaism. Such, nevertheless, was the birth ofChristianity; and this wonderful contrast between the essence and theearthly origin of Christianity was without doubt one of its mostpowerful attractions and most efficacious means of success. 

Against Paganism Christianity was armed with moral forces not a whit lessgreat. Confronting mythological traditions and poetical or philosophicalallegories, appeared a religion truly religious, concerned solely withthe relations of mankind to God and with their eternal future. To thepagan indifference of the Roman world the Christians opposed the profoundconviction of their faith, and not only their firmness in defending itagainst all powers and all dangers, but also their ardent passion forpropagating it without any motive but the yearning to make their fellowsshare in its benefits and its hopes. They confronted, nay, they welcomedmartyrdom, at one time to maintain their own Christianity, at another tomake others Christians around them; propagandism was for them a dutyalmost as imperative as fidelity. And it was not in memory of old andobsolete mythologies, but in the name of recent deeds and persons, inobedience to laws proceeding from God, One and Universal, in fulfilmentand continuation of a contemporary and superhuman history, --that of JesusChrist, the Son of God and Son of Man, --that the Christians of the firsttwo centuries labored to convert to their faith the whole Roman world. Marcus Aurelius was contemptuously astonished at what he called theobstinacy of the Christians; he knew not from what source these namelessheroes drew a strength superior to his own, though he was at the sametime emperor and sage. It is impossible to assign with exactness thedate of the first footprints and first labors of Christianity in Gaul. It was not, however, from Italy, nor in the Latin tongue and throughLatin writers, but from the East and through the Greeks, that it firstcame and began to spread. Marseilles--and the different Greek colonies, originally from Asia Minor and settled upon the shores of theMediterranean or along the Rhone, mark the route and were the placeswhither the first Christian missionaries carried their teaching: on thispoint the letters of the Apostles and the writings of the first twogenerations of their disciples are clear and abiding proof. In the westof the empire, especially in Italy, the Christians at their firstappearance were confounded with the Jews, and comprehended under the samename: "The Emperor Claudius, " says Suetonius, "drove from Rome (A. D. 52)the Jews who, at the instigation of Christus, were in continualcommotion. " After the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus (A. D. 71), theJews, Christian or not, dispersed throughout the Empire; but theChristians were not slow to signalize themselves by their religiousfervor, and to come forward everywhere under their own true name. Lyonsbecame the chief centre of Christian preaching and association in Gaul. As early as the first half of the second century there existed there aChristian congregation, regularly organized as a church, and alreadysufficiently important to be in intimate and frequent communication withthe Christian Churches of the East and West. There is a tradition, generally admitted, that St. Pothinus, the first Bishop of Lyons, wassent thither from the East by the Bishop of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, himselfa disciple of St. John. One thing is certain, that the Christian Churchof Lyons produced Gaul's first martyrs, amongst whom was the Bishop, St. Pothinus. 

It was under Marcus Aurelius, the most philosophical and mostconscientious of the emperors, that there was enacted for the firsttime in Gaul, against nascent Christianity, that scene of tyranny andbarbarity which was to be renewed so often and during so many centuriesin the midst of Christendom itself. In the eastern provinces of theEmpire and in Italy the Christians had already been several timespersecuted, now with cold-blooded cruelty, now with some slighthesitation and irresolution. Nero had caused them to be burned in thestreets of Rome, accusing them of the conflagration himself had kindled, and, a few months before his fall, St. Peter and St. Paul had undergonemartyrdom at Rome. Domitian had persecuted and put to death Christianseven in his own family, and though invested with the honors of theconsulate. Righteous Trajan, when consulted by Pliny the Younger on theconduct he should adopt in Bithynia towards the Christians, had answered, "It is impossible, in this sort of matter, to establish any certaingeneral rule; there must be no quest set on foot against them, and nounsigned indictment must be accepted; but if they be accused andconvicted, they must be punished. " To be punished, it sufficed that theywere convicted of being Christians; and it was Trajan himself whocondemned St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, to be brought to Rome andthrown to the beasts, for the simple reason that he was highly Christian. Marcus Aurelius, not only by virtue of his philosophicalconscientiousness, but by reason of an incident in his history, seemedbound to be farther than any other from persecuting the Christians. During one of his campaigns on the Danube, A. D. 174, his army wassuffering cruelly from fatigue and thirst; and at the very moment whenthey were on the point of engaging in a great battle against thebarbarians, the rain fell in abundance, refreshed the Roman soldiers, andconduced to their victory. There was in the Roman army a legion, thetwelfth, called the _Melitine_ or the _Thundering, _ which bore on itsroll many Christian soldiers. They gave thanks for the rain and thevictory to the one omnipotent God who had heard their prayers, whilst thepagans rendered like honor to Jupiter, the rain-giver and the thunderer. The report about these Christians got spread abroad and gained credit inthe Empire, so much so that there was attributed to Marcus Aurelius aletter, in which, by reason, no doubt, of this incident, he forbadepersecution of the Christians. Tertullian, a contemporary witness, speaks of this letter in perfect confidence; and the Christian writersof the following century did not hesitate to regard it as authentic. Nowadays a strict examination of its existing text does not allow such acharacter to be attributed to it. At any rate the persecutions of theChristians were not forbidden, for in the year 177, that is, only threeyears after the victory of Marcus Aurelius over the Germans, there tookplace, undoubtedly by his orders, the persecution which caused at Lyonsthe first Gallic martyrdom. This was the fourth, or, according toothers, the fifth great imperial persecution of the Christians. 

Most tales of the martyrs were written long after the event, and came tobe nothing more than legends laden with details often utterly puerile ordevoid of proof. The martyrs of Lyons in the second century wrote, so tospeak, their own history; for it was their comrades, eye-witnesses oftheir sufferings and their virtue, who gave an account of them in a longletter addressed to their friends in Asia Minor, and written withpassionate sympathy and pious prolixity, but bearing all the, characteristics of truth. It seems desirable to submit for perusal thatdocument, which has been preserved almost entire in the EcclesiasticalHistory of Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in the third century, and whichwill exhibit, better than any modern representations, the state of factsand of souls in the midst of the imperial persecutions, and the mightyfaith, devotion, and courage with which the early Christians faced themost cruel trials. 

"The servants of Christ, dwelling at Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, to thebrethren settled in Asia and Phrygia, who have the same faith and hope ofredemption that we have, peace, grace, and glory from God the Father andJesus Christ our Lord!

"None can tell to you in speech or fully set forth to you in writing theweight of our misery, the madness and rage of the Gentiles against thesaints, and all that hath been suffered by the blessed martyrs. Ourenemy doth rush upon us with all the fury of his powers, and alreadygiveth us a foretaste and the first-fruits of all the license with whichhe doth intend to set upon us. He hath omitted nothing for the trainingof his agents against us, and he doth exercise them in a sort ofpreparatory work against the servants of the Lord. Not only are wedriven from the public buildings, from the baths, and from the forum, butit is forbidden to all our people to appear publicly in any placewhatsoever. 

"The grace of God hath striven for us against the devil: at the same timethat it hath sustained the weak, it hath opposed to the Evil One, as itwere, pillars of strength--men strong and valiant, ready to draw onthemselves all his attacks. They have had to bear all manner of insult;they have deemed but a small matter that which others find hard andterrible; and they have thought only of going to Christ, proving by theirexample that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be put in thebalance with the glory which is to be manifested in us. They haveendured, in the first place, all the outrages that could be heaped uponthem by the multitude, outcries, blows, thefts, spoliation, stoning, imprisonment, all that the fury of the people could devise against hatedenemies. Then, dragged to the forum by the military tribune and themagistrates of the city, they have been questioned before the people andcast into prison until the coming of the governor. He, from the momentour people appeared before him, committed all manner of violence againstthem. Then stood forth one of our brethren, Vettius Epagathus, full oflove towards God and his neighbor, living a life so pure and strict that, young as he was, men held him to be the equal of the aged Zacharias. --He could not bear that judgment so unjust should go forth against us, and, moved with indignation, he asked leave to defend his brethren, andto prove that there was in them no kind of irreligion or impiety. Thosepresent at the tribunal, amongst whom he was known and celebrated, criedout against him, and the governor himself, enraged at so just a demand, asked him no more than this question, 'Art thou a Christian?'Straightway with a loud voice, he declared himself a Christian, and wasplaced amongst the number of the martyrs. . . . 

"Afterwards the rest began to be examined and classed. The first, firmand well prepared, made hearty and solemn confession of their faith. Others, ill prepared and with little firmness, showed that they lackedstrength for such a fight. About ten of them fell away, which caused usincredible pain and mourning. Their example broke down the courage ofothers, who, not being yet in bonds, though they had already had much tosuffer, kept close to the martyrs, and withdrew not out of their sight. Then were we all stricken with dread for the issue of the trial: not thatwe had great fear of the torments inflicted, but because, prophesying theresult according to the degree of courage of the accused, we feared muchfalling away. They took, day by day, those of our brethren who wereworthy to replace the weak; so that all the best of the two churches, those whose care and zeal had founded them, were taken and confined. They took, likewise, some of our slaves, for the governor had orderedthat they should be all summoned to attend in public; and they, fearingthe torments they saw the saints undergo, and instigated by the soldiers, accused us falsely of odious deeds, such as the banquet of Thyestes, theincest of OEdipus, and other crimes which must not be named or eventhought of, and which we cannot bring ourselves to believe that men wereever guilty of. These reports having once spread amongst the people, even those persons who had hitherto, by reason, perhaps, of relationship, shown moderation towards us, burst forth into bitter indignation againstour people. Thus was fulfilled that which had been prophesied by theLord: 'The time cometh when whosoever shall kill you shall think that hedoeth God service. ' Since that day the holy martyrs have sufferedtortures that no words can express. 

"The fury of the multitude, of the governor, and of the soldiers, fellchiefly upon Sanctus, a deacon of Vienne; upon Maturus, a neophyte still, but already a valiant champion of Christ; upon Attalus also, born atPergamus, but who hath ever been one of the pillars of our Church; uponBlandina, lastly, in whom Christ hath made it appear that persons whoseem vile and despised of men are just those whom God holds in thehighest honor by reason of the excellent love they bear Him, which ismanifested in their firm virtue, and not in vain show. All of us, andeven Blandina's mistress here below, who fought valiantly with the othermartyrs, feared that this poor slave, so weak of body, would not be in acondition to freely confess her faith; but she was sustained by suchvigor of soul that the executioners, who from morn till eve put her toall manner of torture, failed in their efforts, and declared themselvesbeaten, not knowing what further punishment to inflict, and marvellingthat she still lived, with her body pierced through and through, and tornpiecemeal by so many tortures, of which a single one should have sufficedto kill her. But that blessed saint, like a valiant athlete, took freshcourage and strength from the confession of her faith; all feeling ofpain vanished, and ease returned to her at the mere utterance of thewords, 'I am a Christian, and no evil is wrought amongst us. '

"As for Sanctus, the executioners hoped that in the midst of the torturesinflicted upon him--the most atrocious which man could devise--they wouldhear him say something unseemly or unlawful; but so firmly did he resistthem, that, without even saying his name, or that of his nation or city, or whether he was bond or free, he only replied in the Roman tongue, toall questions, 'I am a Christian. ' Therein was, for him, his name, hiscountry, his condition, his whole being; and never could the Gentileswrest from him another word. The fury of the governor and theexecutioners was redoubled against him; and, not knowing how to tormenthim further, they applied to his most tender members bars of red-hotiron. His members burned; but he, upright and immovable, persisted inhis profession of faith, as if living waters from the bosom of Christflowed over him and refreshed him. . . . Some days after, theseinfidels began again to torture him, believing that if they inflictedupon his blistering wounds the same agonies, they would triumph over him, who seemed unable to bear the mere touch of their hands; and they hoped, also, that the sight of this torturing alive would terrify his comrades. But, contrary to general expectation, the body of Sanctus, risingsuddenly up, stood erect and firm amidst these repeated torments, andrecovered its old appearance and the use of its members, as if, by Divinegrace, this second laceration of his flesh had caused healing rather thansuffering. . . . 

"When the tyrants had thus expended and exhausted their tortures againstthe firmness of the martyrs sustained by Christ, the devil devised othercontrivances. They were cast into the darkest and most unendurable placein their prison; their feet were dragged out and compressed to the utmosttension of the muscles; the jailers, as if instigated by a demon, triedevery sort of torture, insomuch that several of them, for whom God willedsuch an end, died of suffocation in prison. Others, who had beentortured in such a manner that it was thought impossible they should longsurvive, deprived as they were of every remedy and aid from men, butsupported nevertheless by the grace of God, remained sound and strong inbody as in soul, and comforted and reanimated their brethren. . . . 

"The blessed Pothinus, who held at that time the bishopric of Lyons, being upwards of ninety, and so weak in body that he could hardlybreathe, was himself brought before the tribunal, so worn with old ageand sickness that he seemed nigh to extinction; but he still possessedhis soul, wherewith to subserve the triumph of Christ. Being brought bythe soldiers before the tribunal, whither he was accompanied by all themagistrates of the city and the whole populace, that pursued him withhootings, he offered, as if he had been the very Christ, the mostglorious testimony. At a question from the governor, who asked what theGod of the Christians was, he answered, 'If thou be worthy, thou shaltknow. ' He was immediately raised up, without any respect or humanity, and blows were showered upon him; those who happened to be nearest to himassaulted him grievously with foot and fist, without the slightest regardfor his age; those who were farther off cast at him whatever was to theirhand; they would all have thought themselves guilty of the greatestdefault if they had not done their best, each on his own score, to insulthim brutally. They believed they were avenging the wrongs of their gods. Pothinus, still breathing, was cast again into prison, and two days afteryielded up his spirit. 

"Then were manifested a singular dispensation of God and the immeasurablecompassion of Jesus Christ; an example rare amongst brethren, but inaccord with the intentions and the justice of the Lord. All those who, at their first arrest, had denied their faith, were themselves cast intoprison and given over to the same sufferings as the other martyrs, fortheir denial did not serve them at all. Those who had made profession ofbeing what they really were--that is, Christians--were imprisoned withoutbeing accused of other crimes. The former, on the contrary, wereconfined as homicides and wretches, thus suffering a double punishment. The one sort found repose in the honorable joys of martyrdom, in the hopeof promised blessedness, in the love of Christ, and in the spirit of Godthe Father; the other were a prey to the reproaches of conscience. Itwas easy to distinguish the one from the other by their looks. The onewalked joyously, bearing on their faces a majesty mingled with sweetness, and their very bonds seemed unto them an ornament, even as the broiderythat decks a bride . . . The other, with downcast eyes and humble anddejected air, were an object of contempt to the Gentiles themselves, whoregarded them as cowards who had forfeited the glorious and saving nameof Christians. And so they who were present at this double spectaclewere thereby signally strengthened, and whoever amongst them chanced tobe arrested confessed the faith without doubt or hesitation. . . . 

"Things having come to this pass, different kinds of death were inflictedon the martyrs, and they offered to God a crown of divers flowers. Itwas but right that the most valiant champions, those who had sustained adouble assault and gained a signal victory, should receive a splendidcrown of immortality. The neophyte Maturus and the deacon Sanctus, withBlandina and Attalus, then, were led into the amphitheatre, and thrown tothe beasts, as a sight to please the inhumanity of the Gentiles. . . . Maturus and Sanctus there underwent all kinds of tortures, as if they hadhitherto suffered nothing; or, rather, like athletes who had already beenseveral times victorious, and were contending for the crown of crowns, they braved the stripes with which they were beaten, the bites of thebeasts that dragged them to and fro, and all that was demanded by theoutcries of an insensate mob, so much the more furious, because it couldby no means overcome the firmness of the martyrs or extort from Sanctusany other speech than that which, on the first day, he had uttered: 'I ama Christian. '

"After this fearful contest, as life was not extinct, their throats wereat last cut, when they alone had thus been offered as a spectacle to thepublic instead of the variety displayed in the combat of gladiators. Blandina, in her turn, tied to a stake, was given to the beasts: she wasseen hanging, as it were, on a sort of cross, calling upon God withtrustful fervor, and the brethren present were reminded, in the person ofa sister, of Him who had been crucified for their salvation. . . . Asnone of the beasts would touch the body of Blandina, she was releasedfrom the stake, taken back to prison, and reserved for another occasion. . . . Attalus, whose execution, seeing that he was a man of mark, wasfuriously demanded by the people, came forward ready to brave everything, as a man deriving confidence from the memory of his life, for he hadcourageously trained himself to discipline, and had always amongst usborne witness for the truth. He was led all round the amphitheatre, preceded by a board bearing this inscription in Latin: 'This is Attalusthe Christian. ' The people pursued him with the most furious hootings;but the governor, having learnt that he was a Roman citizen, had himtaken back to prison with the rest. Having subsequently written toCaesar, he waited for his decision as to those who were thus detained. 

"This delay was neither useless nor unprofitable, for then shone forththe boundless compassion of Christ. Those of the brethren who had beenbut dead members of the Church, were recalled to life by the pains andhelp of the living; the martyrs obtained grace for those who had fallenaway; and great was the joy in the Church, at the same time virgin andmother, for she once more found living those whom she had given up fordead. Thus revived and strengthened by the goodness of God, who willethnot the death of the sinner, but rather inviteth him to repentance, theypresented themselves before the tribunal, to be questioned afresh by thegovernor. Caesar had replied that they who confessed themselves to beChristians should be put to the sword, and they who denied sent away safeand sound. When the time for the great market had fully come, thereassembled a numerous multitude from every nation and every province. Thegovernor had the blessed martyrs brought up before his judgment-seat, showing them before the people with all the pomp of a theatre. Hequestioned them afresh; and those who were discovered to be Romancitizens were beheaded, the rest were thrown to the beasts. 

"Great glory was gained for Christ by means of those who had at firstdenied their faith, and who now confessed it contrary to the expectationof the Gentiles. Those who, having been privately questioned, declaredthemselves Christians were added to the number of the martyrs. Those inwhom appeared no vestige of faith, and no fear of God, remained withoutthe pale of the Church. When they were dealing with those who had beenreunited to it, one Alexander, a Phrygian by nation, a physician byprofession, who had for many years been dwelling in Gaul, a man wellknown to all for his love of God and open preaching of the faith, tookhis place in the hall of judgment, exhorting by signs all who filled itto confess their faith, even as if he had been called in to deliver themof it. The multitude, enraged to see that those who had at first denied, turned round and proclaimed their faith, cried out against Alexander, whom they accused of the conversion. The governor forthwith asked himwhat he was, and at the answer, 'I am a Christian, ' condemned him to thebeasts. On the morrow Alexander was again brought up, together withAttalus, whom the governor, to please the people, had once more condemnedto the beasts. After they had both suffered in the amphitheatre all thetorments that could be devised, they were put to the sword. Alexanderuttered not a complaint, not a word; he had the air of one who wastalking inwardly with God. Attalus, seated on an iron seat, and waitingfor the fire to consume his body, said, in Latin, to the people, 'Seewhat ye are doing; it is in truth devouring men; as for us, we devour notmen, and we do no evil at all. ' He was asked what was the name of God:'God, ' said he, 'is not like us mortals; He hath no name. '

"After all these martyrs, on the last day of the shows, Blandina wasagain brought up, together with a young lad, named Ponticus, aboutfifteen years old. They had been brought up every day before that theymight see the tortures of their brethren. When they were called upon toswear by the altars of the Gentiles, they remained firm in their faith, making no account of those pretended gods, and so great was the fury ofthe multitude against them, that no pity was shown for the age of thechild or the sex of the woman. Tortures were heaped upon them; they weremade to pass through every kind of torment, but the desired end was notgained. Supported by the exhortations of his sister, who was seen andheard by the Gentiles, Ponticus, after having endured all magnanimously, gave up the ghost. Blandina, last of all, --like a noble mother that hathroused the courage of her sons for the fight, and sent them forth toconquer for their king, --passed once more through all the tortures theyhad suffered, anxious to go and rejoin them, and rejoicing at each steptowards death. At length, after she had undergone fire, the talons ofbeasts, and agonizing aspersion, she was wrapped in a network and thrownto a bull that tossed her in the air; she was already unconscious of allthat befell her, and seemed altogether taken up with watching for theblessings that Christ had in store for her. Even the Gentiles allowedthat never a woman had suffered so much or so long. 

"Still their fury and their cruelty towards the saints were not appeased. They devised another way of raging against them; they cast to the dogsthe bodies of those who had died of suffocation in prison, and watchednight and day that none of our brethren might come and bury them. As forwhat remained of the martyrs' half-mangled or devoured corpses, they leftthem exposed under a guard of soldiers, coming to look on them withinsulting eyes, and saying, 'Where is now their God? Of what use to themwas this religion for which they laid down their lives?' We wereovercome with grief that we were not able to bury these poor corpses; northe darkness of night, nor gold, nor prayers could help us to succeedtherein. After being thus exposed for six days in the open air, givenover to all manner of outrage, the corpses of the martyrs were at lastburned, reduced to ashes, and cast hither and thither by the infidelsupon the waters of the Rhone, that there might be left no trace of themon earth. They acted as if they had been more mighty than God, and couldrob our brethren of their resurrection: ''Tis in that hope, ' said they, 'that these folk bring amongst us a new and strange religion, that theyset at nought the most painful torments, and that they go joyfully toface death: let us see if they will rise again, if their God will come totheir aid and will be able to tear them from our hands. '"

It is not without a painful effort that, even after so many centuries, we can resign ourselves to be witnesses, in imagination only, of such aspectacle. We can scarce believe that amongst men of the same period andthe same city so much ferocity could be displayed in opposition to somuch courage, the passion for barbarity against the passion for virtue. Nevertheless, such is history; and it should be represented as it reallywas: first of all, for truth's sake; then for the due appreciation ofvirtue and all it costs of effort and sacrifice; and, lastly, for thepurpose of showing what obstacles have to be surmounted, what strugglesendured, and what sufferings borne, when the question is theaccomplishment of great moral and social reforms. Marcus Aurelius was, without any doubt, a virtuous ruler, and one who had it in his heart tobe just and humane; but he was an absolute ruler, that is to say, one fedentirely on his owns ideas, very ill-informed about the facts on which hehad to decide, and without a free public to warn him of the errors of hisideas or the practical results of his decrees. He ordered thepersecution of the Christians without knowing what the Christians were, or what the persecution would be, and this conscientious philosopher letloose at Lyons, against the most conscientious of subjects, the zealousservility of his agents, and the atrocious passions of the mob. 

The persecution of the Christians did not stop at Lyons, or with MarcusAurelius; it became, during the third century, the common practice of theemperors in all parts of the Empire: from A. D. 202 to 312, under thereigns of Septimius Severus, Maximinus the First, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, Diocletian, Maximian, and Galerius, there are reckoned sixgreat general persecutions, without counting others more circumscribed orless severe. The Emperors Alexander Severns, Philip the Arabian, andConstantius Chlorus were almost the only exceptions to this cruel system;and nearly always, wherever it was in force, the Pagan mob, in itsbrutality or fanatical superstition, added to imperial rigor its ownatrocious and cynical excesses. 

But Christian zeal was superior in perseverance and efficacy to Paganpersecution. St. Pothinus the Martyr was succeeded as bishop at Lyons bySt. Irenaeus, the most learned, most judicious, and most illustrious ofthe early heads of the Church in Gaul. Originally from Asia Minor, probably from Smyrna, he had migrated to Gaul, at what particular date isnot known, and had settled as a simple priest in the diocese of Lyons, where it was not long before he exercised vast influence, as well on thespot as also during certain missions intrusted to him, and amongst themone, they say, to the Pope St. Eleutherius at Rome. Whilst Bishop ofLyons, from A. D. 177 to 202, he employed the five and twenty years inpropagating the Christian faith in Gaul, and in defending, by hiswritings, the Christian doctrines against the discord to which they hadalready been subjected in the East, and which was beginning to penetrateto the West. In 202, during the persecution instituted by SeptimiusSeverus, St. Irenaeus crowned by martyrdom his active and influentiallife. It was in his episcopate that there began what may be called theswarm of Christian missionaries who, towards the end of the second andduring the third centuries, spread over the whole of Gaul, preaching thefaith and forming churches. Some went from Lyons at the instigation ofSt. Irenaeus; others from Rome, especially under the pontificate of PopeSt. Fabian, himself martyred in 219; St. Felix and St. Fortunatus toValence, St. Ferreol to Besancon, St. Marcellus to Chalons-sur-Saone, St. Benignus to Dijon, St. Trophimus to Arles, St. Paul to Narbonne, St. Saturninus to Toulouse, St. Martial to Limoges, St. Andeol andSt. Privatus to the Cevennes, St. Austremoine to Clermont-Ferrand, St. Gatian to Tours, St. Denis to Paris, and so many others that theirnames are scarcely known beyond the pages of erudite historians, or thevery spots where they preached, struggled, and conquered, often at theprice of their lives. Such were the founders of the faith and of theChristian Church in France. At the commencement of the fourth centurytheir work was, if not accomplished, at any rate triumphant; and when, A. D. 312, Constantine declared himself a Christian, he confirmed the factof the conquest of the Roman world, and of Gaul in particular, byChristianity. No doubt the majority of the inhabitants were not as yetChristians; but it was clear that the Christians were in the ascendantand had command of the future. Of the two grand elements which were tomeet together, on the ruins of Roman society, for the formation of modernsociety, the moral element, the Christian religion, had already takenpossession of souls; the devastated territory awaited the coming of newpeoples, known to history under the general name of Germans, whom theRomans called the barbarians. 

CHAPTER VII. ----THE GERMANS IN GAUL. --THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS. 

About A. D. 241 or 242 the sixth Roman legion, commanded by Aurelian, atthat time military tribune, and thirty years later, emperor, had justfinished a campaign on the Rhine, undertaken for the purpose of drivingthe Germans from Gaul, and was preparing for Eastern service, to make waron the Persians. The soldiers sang, --

 We have slain a thousand Franks and a thousand Sarmatians; we want a thousand, thousand, Thousand Persians. 

[Illustration: Germans invading Gaul----129]

That was, apparently, a popular burden at the time, for on the days ofmilitary festivals, at Rome and in Gaul, the children sang, as theydanced, --

 We have cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand, Thousand; One man hath cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand, Thousand, thousand; May he live a thousand, thousand years, he who hath slain a thousand, thousand! Nobody hath so much of wine as he hath of blood poured out. 

Aurelian, the hero of these ditties, was indeed much given to the pouringout of blood, for at the approach of a fresh war he wrote to thesenate, --

"I marvel, Conscript Fathers, that ye have so much misgiving aboutopening the Sibylline books, as if ye were deliberating in an assembly ofChristians, and not in the temple of all the gods. . . . Let inquirybe made of the sacred books, and let celebration take place of theceremonies that ought to be fulfilled. Far from refusing, I offer, withzeal, to satisfy all expenditure required, with captives of everynationality, victims of royal rank. It is no shame to conquer with theaid of the gods; it is thus that our ancestors began and ended many awar. "

Human sacrifices, then, were not yet foreign to Pagan festivals, andprobably the blood of more than one Frankish captive on that occasionflowed in the temple of all the gods. 

It is the first time the name of _Franks_ appears in history; and itindicated no particular, single people, but a confederation of Germanicpeoplets, settled or roving on the right bank of the Rhine, from the Maynto the ocean. The number and the names of the tribes united in thisconfederation are uncertain. A chart of the Roman empire, preparedapparently at the end of the fourth century, in the reign of the EmperorHonorius (which chart, called _tabula Peutingeri, _ was found amongst theancient MSS. Collected by Conrad Peutinger, a learned German philosopher, in the fifteenth century), bears over a large territory on the right bankof the Rhine, the word _Francia, _ and the following enumeration: "TheChaucians, the Ampsuarians, the Cheruscans, and the Chamavians, who arealso called Franks;" and to these tribes divers chroniclers added severalothers, "the Attuarians, the Bructerians, the Cattians, and theSicambrians. " Whatever may have been the specific names of thesepeoplets, they were all of German race, called themselves Franks, thatis, "free-men, " and made, sometimes separately, sometimes collectively, continued incursions into Gaul, --especially Belgica and the northernportions of Lyonness, --at one time plundering and ravaging, at anotheroccupying forcibly, or demanding of the Roman emperors lands whereon tosettle. From the middle of the third to the beginning of the fifthcentury, the history of the Western empire presents an almostuninterrupted series of these invasions on the part of the Franks, together with the different relationships established between them andthe Imperial government. At one time whole tribes settled on Roman soil, submitted to the emperors, entered their service, and fought for them, even against their own German compatriots. At another, isolatedindividuals, such and such warriors of German race, put themselves at thecommand of the emperors, and became of importance. At the middle of thethird century, the Emperor Valerian, on committing a command to Aurelian, wrote, "Thou wilt have with thee Hartmund, Haldegast, Hildmund, andCarioviscus. " Some Frankish tribes allied themselves more or lessfleetingly with the Imperial government, at the same time that theypreserved their independence; others pursued, throughout the Empire, their life of incursion and adventure. From A. D. 260 to 268, under thereign of Gallienus, a band of Franks threw itself upon Gaul, scoured itfrom north-east to south-east, plundering and devastating on its way;then it passed from Aquitania into Spain, took and burned Tarragona, gained possession of certain vessels, sailed away, and disappeared inAfrica, after having wandered about for twelve years at its own will andpleasure. There was no lack of valiant emperors, precarious andephemeral as their power may have been, to defend the Empire, andespecially Gaul, against those enemies, themselves ephemeral, but foreverrecurring; Decius, Valerian, Gallienus, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, andProbus gallantly withstood those repeated attacks of German hordes. Sometimes they flattered themselves they had gained a definitive victory, and then the old Roman pride exhibited itself in their patrioticconfidence. About A. D. 278, the Emperor Probes, after gaining severalvictories in Gaul over the Franks, wrote to the senate, --

"I render thanks to the immortal gods, Conscript Fathers, for that theyhave confirmed your judgment as regards me. Germany is subduedthroughout its whole extent; nine kings of different nations have comeand cast themselves at my feet, or rather at yours, as suppliants, withtheir foreheads in the dust. Already all those barbarians are tillingfor you, sowing for you, and fighting for you against the most distantnations. 

"Order ye, therefore, according to your custom, prayers of thanksgiving, for we have slain four thousand of the enemy; we have had offered to ussixteen thousand men ready armed; and we have wrested from the enemy theseventy most important towns. The Gauls, in fact, are completelydelivered. The crowns offered to me by all the cities of Gaul I havesubmitted, Conscript Fathers, to your grace; dedicate ye them with yourown hands to Jupiter, all-bountiful, all-powerful, and to the otherimmortal gods and goddesses. All the booty is re-taken, and, further, wehave made fresh captures, more considerable than our first losses; thefields of Gaul are tilled by the oxen of the barbarians, and German teamsbend their necks in slavery to our husbandmen; divers nations raisecattle for our consumption, and horses to remount our cavalry; our storesare full of the corn of the barbarians--in one word, we have left to thevanquished nought but the soil; all their other possessions are ours. Wehad at first thought it necessary, Conscript Fathers, to appoint a newGovernor of Germany; but we have put off this measure to the time whenour ambition shall be more completely satisfied, which will be, as itseems to us, when it shall have pleased Divine Providence to increase andmultiply the forces of our armies. "

Probus had good reason to wish that "Divine Providence might be pleasedto increase the forces of the Roman armies, " for even after hisvictories, exaggerated as they probably were, they did not suffice fortheir task, and it was not long before the vanquished recommenced war. He had dispersed over the territory of the Empire the majority of theprisoners he had taken. A band of Franks, who had been transported andestablished as a military colony on the European shore of the Black Sea, could not make up their minds to remain there. They obtained possessionof some vessels, traversed the Propontis, the Hellespont, and theArchipelago, ravaged the coasts of Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa, plundered Syracuse, scoured the whole of the Mediterranean, entered theocean by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, making their way up again alongthe coasts of Gaul, arrived at last at the mouths of the Rhine, wherethey once more found themselves at home amongst the vines which Probus, in his victorious progress, had been the first to have planted, and withprobably their old taste for adventure and plunder. 

After the commencement of the fifth century, from A. D. 406 to 409, it wasno longer by incursions limited to certain points, and sometimes repelledwith success, that the Germans harassed the Roman provinces: a veritabledeluge of divers nations, forced one upon another, from Asia into Europe, by wars and migration in mass, inundated the Empire and gave the decisivesignal for its fall. St. Jerome did not exaggerate when he wrote toAgeruchia, "Nations, countless in number and exceeding fierce, haveoccupied all the Gauls; Quadians, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepidians, Herulians, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemannians, Pannonians, and evenAssyrians have laid waste all that there is between the Alps and thePyrenees, the ocean and the Rhine. Sad destiny of the commonwealth!Mayence, once a noble city, hath been taken and destroyed; thousands ofmen were slaughtered in the church. Worms hath fallen after a longsiege. The inhabitants of Rheims, a powerful city, and those of Amiens, Arras, Terouanne, at the extremity of Gaul, Tournay, Spires, andStrasburg have been carried away to Germany. All hath been ravaged inAquitania (Novempopulania), Lyonness, and Narbonness; the towns, save afew, are dispeopled; the sword pursueth them abroad and famine at home. I cannot speak without tears of Toulouse; if she be not reduced to equalruin, it is to the merits of her holy Bishop Exuperus that she oweth it. "

Then took place throughout the Roman empire, in the East as well as inthe West, in Asia and Africa as well as in Europe, the last grandstruggle between the Roman armies and the barbaric nations. Armies isthe proper term; for, to tell the truth, there was no longer a Romannation, and very seldom a Roman emperor with some little capacity forgovernment or war. The long continuance of despotism and slavery hadenervated equally the ruling power and the people; everything depended onthe soldiers and their generals. It was in Gaul that the struggle wasmost obstinate and most promptly brought to a decisive issue, and theconfusion there was as great as the obstinacy. Barbaric peoplets servedin the ranks and barbaric leaders held the command of the Roman armies:Stilieho was a Goth; Arbogastes and Mellobaudes were Franks; Ricimer wasa Suevian. The Roman generals, Bonifacius, Aetius, AEgidius, Syagrius, at one time fought the barbarians, at another negotiated with such andsuch of them, either to entice them to take service against otherbarbarians, or to promote the objects of personal ambition, for the Romangenerals also, under the titles of patrician, consul, or proconsul, aspired to and attained a sort of political independence, and contributedto the dismemberment of the empire in the very act of defending it. Nolater than A. D. 412, two German nations, the Visigoths and theBurgundians, took their stand definitively in Gaul, and founded there twonew kingdoms: the Visigoths, under their kings Ataulph and Wallia, inAquitania and Narbonness; the Burgundians, under their kings Gundichaireand Gundioch, in Lyonness, from the southern point of Alsatia right intoProvence, along the two banks of the Saone and the left bank of theRhone, and also in Switzerland. In 451 the arrival in Gaul of the Hunsand their king Attila--already famous, both king and nation, for theirwild habits, their fierce valor, and their successes against the Easternempire--gravely complicated the situation. The common interest ofresistance against the most barbarous of barbarians, and the renown andenergy of Aetius, united, for the moment, the old and new masters ofGaul; Romans, Gauls, Visigoths, Burgundians, Franks, Alans, Saxons, andBritons, formed the army led by Aetius against that of Attila, who alsohad in his ranks Goths, Burgundians, Gepidians, Alans, and beyond RhineFranks, gathered together and enlisted on his road. It was a chaos and aconflict of barbarians, of every name and race, disputing one withanother, pell-mell, the remnants of the Roman empire torn asunder and indissolution. Attila had already arrived before Orleans, and was layingsiege to it. The bishop, St. Anianus, sustained a while the courage ofthe besieged, by promising them aid from Aetius and his allies. The aidwas slow to come; and the bishop sent to Aetius a message: "If thou benot here this very day, my son, it will be too late. " Still Aetius camenot. The people of Orleans determined to surrender; the gates flew open;the Huns entered; the plundering began without much disorder; "wagonswere stationed to receive the booty as it was taken from the houses, andthe captives, arranged in groups, were divided by lot between thevictorious chieftains. " Suddenly a shout re-echoed through the streets:it was Aetius, Theodoric, and Thorismund, his son, who were coming withthe eagles of the Roman legions and with the banners of the Visigoths. Afight took place between them and the Huns, at first on the banks of theLoire, and then in the streets of the city. The people of Orleans joinedtheir liberators; the danger was great for the Huns, and Attila ordered aretreat. It was the 14th of June, 451, and that day was for a long whilecelebrated in the church of Orleans, as the date of a signal deliverance. The Huns retired towards Champagne, which they had already crossed attheir coming into Gaul; and when they were before Troyes, the bishop, St. Lupus, repaired to Attila's camp, and besought him to spare a defencelesscity, which had neither walls nor garrison. "So be it!" answered Attila;"but thou shalt come with me and see the Rhine; I promise then to sendthee back again. " With mingled prudence and superstition, the barbarianmeant to keep the holy man as a hostage. The Huns arrived at the plainshard by Chalons-sur-Marne; Aetius and all his allies had followed them;and Attila, perceiving that a battle was inevitable, halted in a positionfor delivering it. The Gothic historian Jornandes says that he consultedhis priests, who answered that the Huns would be beaten, but that thegeneral of the enemy would fall in the fight. In this prophecy Attilasaw predicted the death of Aetius, his most formidable enemy; and thestruggle commenced. There is no precise information about the date; but"it was, " says Jornandes, "a battle which for atrocity, multitude, horror, and stubbornness has not the like in the records of antiquity. "Historians vary in their exaggerations of the numbers engaged and killed:according to some, three hundred thousand, according to others, onehundred and sixty-two thousand were left on the field of battle. Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, was killed. Some chroniclers nameMeroveus as King of the Franks, settled in Belgica, near Tongres, whoformed part of the army of Aetius. They even attribute to him abrilliant attack made on the eve of the battle upon the Gepidians, alliesof the Huns, when ninety thousand men fell, according to some, and onlyfifteen thousand according to others. The numbers are purely imaginary, and even the fact is doubtful. However, the battle of Chalons drove theHuns out of Gaul, and was the last victory in Gaul, gained still in thename of the Roman empire, but in reality for the advantage of the Germannations which had already conquered it. Twenty-four years afterwards thevery name of Roman empire disappeared with Augustulus, the last of theemperors of the West. 

[Illustration: The Huns at the Battle of Chalons----135]

Thirty years after the battle of Chalons, the Franks settled in Gaul werenot yet united as one nation; several tribes with this name, independentone of another, were planted between the Rhine and the Somme; there weresome in the environs of Cologne, Calais, Cambrai, even beyond the Seineand as far as Le Mans, on the confines of the Britons. This is one ofthe reasons of the confusion that prevails in the ancient chroniclesabout the chieftains or kings of these tribes, their names and dates, andthe extent and site of their possessions. Pharamond, Clodion, Meroveus, and Childeric cannot be considered as Kings of France, and placed at thebeginning of her history. If they are met with in connection withhistorical facts, fabulous legends or fanciful traditions are mingledwith them: Priam appears as a predecessor of Pharamond; Clodion, whopasses for having been the first to bear and transmit to the Frankishkings the title of "long-haired, " is represented as the son, at one timeof Pharamond, at another, of another chieftain named Theodemer; romanticadventures, spoiled by geographical mistakes, adorn the life of Childric. All that can be distinctly affirmed is, that, from A. D. 450 to 480, thetwo principal Frankish tribes were those of the Salian Franks and theRipuarian Franks, settled, the latter in the east of Belgica, on thebanks of the Moselle and the Rhine; the former, towards the west, between the Meuse, the ocean, and the Somme. Meroveus, whose name wasperpetuated in his line, was one of the principal chieftains of theSalian Franks; and his son Childeric, who resided at Tournay, where histomb was discovered in 1655, was the father of Clovis, who succeeded himin 481, and with whom really commenced the kingdom and history of France. 

Clovis was fifteen or sixteen years old when he became King of the SalianFranks of Tournay. Five years afterwards his ruling passion, ambition, exhibited itself, together with that mixture of boldness and craft whichwas to characterize his whole life. He had two neighbors: one, hostileto the Franks, the Roman patrician Syagrius, who was left master atSoissons after the death of his father AEgidius, and whom Gregory ofTours calls "King of the Romans;" the other, a Salian-Frankish chieftain, just as Clovis was, and related to him, Ragnacaire, who was settled atCambrai. Clovis induced Ragnacaire to join him in a campaign againstSyagrius. They fought, and Syagrius was driven to take refuge inSouthern Gaul with Alaric, king of the Visigoths. Clovis, not contentwith taking possession of Soissons, and anxious to prevent anytroublesome return, demanded of Alaric to send Syagrius back to him, threatening war if the request were refused. The Goth, less bellicosethan the Frank, delivered up Syagrius to the envoys of Clovis, whoimmediately had him secretly put to death, settled himself at Soissons, and from thence set on foot, in the country between the Aisne and theLoire, plundering and subjugating expeditions which speedily increasedhis domains and his wealth, and extended far and wide his fame as well ashis ambition. The Franks who accompanied him were not long before theyalso felt the growth of his power; like him they were pagans, and thetreasures of the Christian churches counted for a great deal in the bootythey had to divide. On one of their expeditions they had taken in thechurch of Rheims, amongst other things, a vase "of marvellous size andbeauty. " The Bishop of Rheims, St. Remi, was not quite a stranger toClovis. Some years before, when he had heard that the son of Childerichad become king of the Franks of Tournai, he had written to congratulatehim: "We are informed, " said he, "that thou halt undertaken the conductof affairs; it is no marvel that thou beginnest to be what thy fathersever were;" and, whilst taking care to put himself on good terms with theyoung pagan chieftain, the bishop added to his felicitations some piousChristian counsel, without letting any attempt at conversion be mixed upwith his moral exhortations. The bishop, informed of the removal of thevase, sent to Clovis a messenger begging the return, if not of all hischurch's ornaments, at any rate of that. "Follow us as far as Soissons, "said Clovis to the messenger; "it is there the partition is to take placeof what we have captured: when the lots shall have given me the vase, Iwill do what the bishop demands. " When Soissons was reached, and all thebooty had been placed in the midst of the host, the king said, "Valiantwarriors, I pray you not to refuse me, over and above my share, this vasehere. " At these words of the king, those who were of sound mind amongstthe assembly answered, "Glorious king, everything we see here is thine, and we ourselves are submissive to thy commands. Do thou as seemeth goodto thee, for there is none that can resist thy power. " When they hadthus spoken a certain Frank, light-minded, jealous, and vain, cried outaloud as he struck the vase with his battle-axe, "Thou shalt have noughtof all this save what the lots shall truly give thee. " At these wordsall were astounded; but the king bore the insult with sweet patience, and, accepting the vase, he gave it to the messenger, hiding his wound inthe recesses of his heart. At the end of a year he ordered all his hostto assemble fully equipped at the March parade, to have their armsinspected. After having passed in review all the other warriors, he cameto him who had struck the vase. "None, " said he, "hath brought hitherarms so ill kept as thine; nor lance, nor sword, nor battle-axe are incondition for service. " And wresting from him his axe he flung it on theground. The man stooped down a little to pick it up, and forthwith theking, raising with both hands his own battle-axe, drove it into hisskull, saying, "Thus didst thou to the vase of Soissons!" On the death ofthis fellow he bade the rest begone; and by this act made himself greatlyfeared. 

[Illustration: "Thus didst thou to the Vase of Soissons. "----139]

A bold and unexpected deed has always a great effect on men: with hisFrankish warriors, as well as with his Roman and Gothic foes, Clovis hadat command the instincts of patience and brutality in turn: he could beara mortification and take vengeance in due season. Whilst prosecuting hiscourse of plunder and war in Eastern Belgica, on the banks of the Meuse, Clovis was inspired with a wish to get married. He had heard tell of ayoung girl, like himself of the Germanic royal line, Clotilde, niece ofGondebaud, at that time king of the Burgundians. She was dubbedbeautiful, wise, and well-informed; but her situation was melancholy andperilous. Ambition and fraternal hatred had devastated her family. Herfather, Chilperic, and her two brothers, had been put to death by heruncle Gondebaud, who had caused her mother Agrippina to be thrown intothe Rhone, with a stone round her neck; and drowned. Two sisters alonehad survived this slaughter; the elder, Chrona, had taken religions vows, the other, Clotilde, was living almost in exile at Geneva, absorbed inworks of piety and charity. The principal historian of this epoch, Gregory of Tours, an almost contemporary authority, for he was electedbishop sixty-two years after the death of Clovis, says simply, "Clovis at once sent a deputation to Gondebaud to ask Clotilde inmarriage. Gondebaud, not daring to refuse, put her into the hands of theenvoys, who took her promptly to the king. Clovis at sight of her wastransported with joy, and married her. " But to this short account otherchroniclers, amongst them Fredegaire, who wrote a commentary upon and acontinuation of Gregory of Tours' work, added details which deservereproduction, first as a picture of manners, next for the betterunderstanding of history. "As he was not allowed to see Clotilde, " saysFredegaire, "Clovis charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use allhis wit to come nigh her. Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothedin rags and with his wallet upon his back, like a mendicant. To insureconfidence in himself he took with him the ring of Clovis. On hisarrival at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a pilgrim charitably, and, whilst she was washing his feet, Aurelian, bending towards her, saidunder his breath, 'Lady, I have great matters to announce to thee if thoudeign to permit me secret revelation. ' She consenting, replied, 'Sayon. ' 'Clovis, king of the Franks, ' said he, 'hath sent me to thee: if itbe the will of God, he would fain raise thee to his high rank bymarriage; and that thou mayest be certified thereof, he sendeth thee thisring. ' She accepted the ring with great joy, and said to Aurelian, 'Takefor recompense of thy pains these hundred sous in gold and this ring ofmine. Return promptly to thy lord; if he would fain unite me to him bymarriage, let him send without delay messengers to demand me of my uncleGondebaud, and let the messengers who shall come take me away in haste, so soon as they shall have obtained permission; if they haste not, I fearlest a certain sage, one Aridius, may return from Constantinople, and ifhe arrive beforehand, all this matter will by his counsel come tonought. ' Aurelian returned in the same disguise under which he had come. On approaching the territory of Orleans, and at no great distance fromhis house, he had taken as travelling companion a certain poor mendicant, by whom he, having fallen asleep from sheer fatigue, and thinking himselfsafe, was robbed of his wallet and the hundred sous in gold that itcontained. On awaking, Aurelian was sorely vexed, ran swiftly home andsent his servants in all directions in search of the mendicant who hadstolen his wallet. He was found and brought to Aurelian, who, afterdrubbing him soundly for three days, let him go his way. He afterwardstold Clovis all that had passed and what Clotilde suggested. Clovis, pleased with his success and with Clotilde's notion, at once sent adeputation to Gondebaud to demand his niece in marriage. Gondebaud, notdaring to refuse, and flattered at the idea of making a friend of Clovis, promised to give her to him. Then the deputation, having offered thedenier and the sou, according to the custom of the Franks, espousedClotilde in the name of Clovis, and demanded that she be given up to themto be married. Without any delay the council was assembled at Chalons, and preparations made for the nuptials. The Franks, having arrived withall speed, received her from the hands of Gondebaud, put her into acovered carriage, and escorted her to Clovis, together with muchtreasure. She, however, having already learned that Aridius was on hisway back, said to the Frankish lords, "If ye would take me into thepresence of your lord, let me descend from this carriage, mount me onhorseback, and get you hence as fast as ye may; for never in thiscarriage shall I reach the presence of your lord. "

"Aridius, in fact, returned very speedily from Marseilles, and Gondebaud, on seeing him, said to him, 'Thou knowest that we have made friends withthe Franks, and that I have given my niece to Clovis to wife. ' 'This, 'answered Aridius, 'is no bond of friendship, but the beginning ofperpetual strife; thou shouldst have remembered, my lord, that thou didstslay Clotilde's father, thy brother Chilperic, that thou didst drown hermother, and that thou didst cut off her brothers' heads and cast theirbodies into a well. If Clotilde become powerful she will avenge thewrongs of her relatives. Send thou forthwith a troop in chase, and haveher brought back to thee. It will be easier for thee to bear the wrathof one person, than to be perpetually at strife, thyself and thine, withall the Franks. ' And Gondebaud did send forthwith a troop in chase tofetch back Clotilde with the carriage and all the treasure; but she, onapproaching Villers, where Clovis was waiting for her, in the territoryof Troyes, and before passing the Burgundian frontier, urged them whoescorted her to disperse right and left over a space of twelve leagues inthe country whence she was departing, to plunder and burn; and thathaving been done with the permission of Clovis, she cried aloud, 'I thankthee, God omnipotent, for that I see the commencement of vengeance for myparents and my brethren!'"

The majority of the learned have regarded this account of Fredegaire asa romantic fable, and have declined to give it a place in history. M. Fauriel, one of the most learned associates of the Academy ofInscriptions, has given much the same opinion, but he nevertheless adds, "Whatever may be their authorship, the fables in question are historic inthe sense that they relate to real facts of which they are a poeticalexpression, a romantic development, conceived with the idea ofpopularizing the Frankish kings amongst the Gallo-Roman subjects. " Itcannot, however, be admitted that a desire to popularize the Frankishkings is a sufficient and truth-like explanation of these tales of theGallo-Roman chroniclers, or that they are no more than "a poeticalexpression, " a romantic development of the real facts briefly noted byGregory of Tours; the tales have a graver origin and contain more truththan would be presumed from some of the anecdotes and sayings mixed upwith them. In the condition of minds and parties in Gaul at the end ofthe fifth century the marriage of Clovis and Clotilde was, for the publicof the period, for the barbarians and for the Gallo-Romans, a greatmatter. Clovis and the Franks were still pagans; Gondebaud and theBurgundians were Christians, but Arians; Clotilde was a CatholicChristian. To which of the two, Catholics or Arians, would Clovis allyhimself? To whom, Arian, pagan, or Catholic, would Clotilde be married?Assuredly the bishops, priests, and all the Gallo-Roman clergy, for themost part Catholics, desired to see Clovis, that young and audaciousFrankish chieftain, take to wife a Catholic rather than an Arian or apagan, and hoped to convert the pagan Clovis to Christianity much morethan an Arian to orthodoxy. 

The question between Catholic orthodoxy and Arianism was, at that time, a vital question for Christianity in its entirety, and St. Athanasius wasnot wrong in attributing to it supreme importance. It may be presumedthat the Catholic clergy, the bishop of Rheims, or the bishop of Langres, were no strangers to the repeated praises which turned the thoughts ofthe Frankish king towards the Burgundian princess, and the idea of theirmarriage once set afloat, the Catholics, priesthood or laity, laboredundoubtedly to push it forward, whilst the Burgundian Arians exertedthemselves to prevent it. Thus there took place, between opposinginfluences, religious and national, a most animated struggle. Noastonishment can be felt, then, at the obstacles the marriageencountered, at the complications mingled with it, and at the indirectmeans employed on both sides to cause its success or failure. Theaccount of Fredegaire is but a picture of this struggle and itsincidents, a little amplified or altered by imagination or the credulityof the period; but the essential features of the picture, the disguise ofAurelian, the hurry of Clotilde, the prudent recollection of Aridius, Gondebaud's alternations of fear and violence, and Clotilde's vindictivepassion when she is once out of danger, there is nothing in all this outof keeping with the manners of the time or the position of the actors. Let it be added that Aurelian and Aridius are real personages who are metwith elsewhere in history, and whose parts as played on the occasion ofClotilde's marriage are in harmony with the other traces that remain oftheir lives. 

[Illustration: BATTLE OF TOLBIACUM----144]

The consequences of the marriage justified before long the importancewhich had on all sides been attached to it. Clotilde had a son; she wasanxious to have him baptized, and urged her husband to consent. "Thegods you worship, " said she, "are nought, and can do nought forthemselves or others; they are of wood, or stone, or metal. " Clovisresisted, saying, "It is by the command of our gods that all things arecreated and brought forth. It is plain that your God hath no power;there is no proof even that He is of the race of the gods. " But Clotildeprevailed; and she had her son baptized solemnly, hoping that thestriking nature of the ceremony might win to the faith the father whomher words and prayers had been powerless to touch. The child soon died, and Clovis bitterly reproached the queen, saying, "Had the child beendedicated to my gods he would be alive; he was baptized in the name ofyour God, and he could not live. " Clotilde defended her God and prayed. She had a second son, who was also baptized, and fell sick. "It cannotbe otherwise with him than with his brother, " said Clovis; "baptized inthe name of your Christ, he is going to die. " But the child was cured, and lived; and Clovis was pacified and less incredulous of Christ. Anevent then came to pass which affected him still more than the sicknessor cure of his children. In 496 the Allemannians, a Germanicconfederation like the Franks, who also had been, for some time past, assailing the Roman empire on the banks of the Rhine or the frontiers ofSwitzerland, crossed the river, and invaded the settlements of the Frankson the left bank. Clovis went to the aid of his confederation andattacked the Allemannians at Tolbiac, near Cologne. He had with himAurelian, who had been his messenger to Clotilde, whom he had made Dukeof Melun, and who commanded the forces of Sens. The battle was goingill; the Franks were wavering, and Clovis was anxious. Before settingout he had, according to Fredegaire, promised his wife that if he werevictorious he would turn Christian. Other chroniclers say that Aurelian, seeing the battle in danger of being lost, said to Clovis, "My lord king, believe only on the Lord of heaven whom the queen, my mistress, preacheth. " Clovis cried out with emotion, "Christ Jesus, Thou whom myqueen Clotilde calleth the Son of the living God; I have invoked my owngods, and they have withdrawn from me; I believe that they have no power, since they aid not those who call upon them. Thee, very God and Lord, Iinvoke; if Thou give me victory over these foes, if I find in Thee thepower that the people proclaim of Thee, I will believe on Thee, and willbe baptized in Thy name. " The tide of battle turned: the Franksrecovered confidence and courage; and the Allemannians, beaten and seeingtheir king slain, surrendered themselves to Clovis, saying, "Cease, ofthy grace, to cause any more of our people to perish; for we are thine. "

On the return of Clovis, Clotilde, fearing he should forget his victoryand his promise, "secretly sent, " says Gregory of Tours, "to St. Remi, bishop of Rheims, and prayed him to penetrate the king's heart, with thewords of salvation. " St. Remi was a fervent Christian and an ablebishop; and "I will listen to thee, most holy father, " said Clovis, "willingly; but there is a difficulty. The people that follow me willnot give up their gods. But I am about to assemble them, and will speakto them according to thy word. " The king found the people more docile orbetter prepared than he had represented to the bishop. Even before heopened his mouth the greater part of those present cried out, "We abjurethe mortal gods; we are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remipreacheth. " About three thousand Frankish warriors, however, persistedin their intention of remaining pagans, and deserting Clovis, betookthemselves to Ragnacaire, the Frankish king of Cambrai, who was destinedere long to pay dearly for this acquisition. So soon as St. Remi wasinformed of this good disposition on the part of king and people, hefixed Christmas Day of this year, 496, for the ceremony of the baptism ofthese grand neophytes. The description of it is borrowed from thehistorian of the church of Rheims, Frodoard by name, born at the close ofthe ninth century. He gathered together the essential points of it fromthe _Life of Saint Remi, _ written, shortly before that period, by thesaint's celebrated successor at Rheims, Archbishop Hincmar. "Thebishop, " says he, "went in search of the king at early morn in hisbed-chamber, in order that, taking him at the moment of freedom fromsecular cares, he might more freely communicate to him the mysteries ofthe holy word. The king's chamber-people receive him with great respect, and the king himself runs forward to meet him. Thereupon they passtogether into an oratory dedicated to St. Peter, chief of the apostles, and adjoining the king's apartment. When the bishop, the king, and thequeen had taken their places on the seats prepared for them, andadmission had been given to some clerics and also some friends andhousehold servants of the king, the venerable bishop began hisinstructions on the subject of salvation. . . . Meanwhilepreparations are being made along the road from the palace to thebaptistery; curtains and valuable stuffs are hung up; the houses oneither side of the street are dressed out; the baptistery is sprinkledwith balm and all manner of perfume. The procession moves from thepalace; the clergy lead the way with the holy gospels, the cross, andstandards, singing hymns and spiritual songs; then comes the bishop, leading the king by the hand; after him the queen, lastly the people. On the road it is said that the king asked the bishop if that were thekingdom promised him: 'No, ' answered the prelate, 'but it is the entranceto the road that leads to it. ' . . . At the moment when the king benthis head over the fountain of life, 'Lower thy head with humility, Sicambrian, ' cried the eloquent bishop; 'adore what thou hast burned:burn what thou hast adored. ' The king's two sisters, Alboflede andLantechilde, likewise received baptism; and so at the same time did threethousand of the Frankish army, besides a large number of women andchildren. "

When it was known that Clovis had been baptized by St. Remi, and withwhat striking circumstance, great was the satisfaction amongst theCatholics. The chief Burgundian prelate, Avitus, bishop of Vienne, wroteto the Frankish king, "Your faith is our victory; in choosing for you andyours, you have pronounced for all; divine providence bath given you asarbiter to our age. Greece can boast of having a sovereign of ourpersuasion; but she is no longer alone in possession of this preciousgift; the rest of the world cloth share her light. " Pope Anastasiushasted to express his joy to Clovis: "The Church, our common mother, " hewrote, "rejoiceth to have born unto God so great a king. Continue, glorious and illustrious son, to cheer the heart of this tender mother;be a column of iron to support her, and she in her turn will give theevictory over all thine enemies. "

Clovis was not a man to omit turning his Catholic popularity to theaccount of his ambition. At the very time when he was receiving thesetestimonies of good will from the heads of the Church, he learned thatGondebaud, disquieted, no doubt, at the conversion of his powerfulneighbor, had just made a vain attempt, at a conference held at Lyons, toreconcile in his kingdom the Catholics and the Arians. Clovis consideredthe moment favorable to his projects of aggrandizement at the expense ofthe Burgundian king; he fomented the dissensions which already prevailedbetween Gondebaud and his brother Godegisile, assured to himself thelatter's complicity, and suddenly entered Burgundy with his army. Gondebaud, betrayed and beaten at the first encounter at Dijon, fled tothe south of his kingdom, and went and shut himself up in Avignon. Clovis pursued and besieged him there. Gondebaud in great alarm askedcounsel of his Roman confidant Aridius, who had but lately foretold tohim what the marriage of his niece Clotilde would bring upon him. "Onevery side, " said the king, "I am encompassed by perils, and I know notwhat to do; lo! here be these barbarians come upon us to slay us anddestroy the land. " "To escape death, " answered Aridius, "thou mustappease the ferocity of this man. Now, if it please thee, I will feignto fly from thee and go over to him. So soon as I shall be with him, Iwill so do that he ruin neither thee nor the land. Only have thou careto perform whatsoever I shall ask of thee, until the Lord in His goodnessdeign to make thy cause triumph. " "All that thou shalt bid will I do, "said Gondebaud. So Aridius left Gondebaud and went his way to Clovis, and said, "Most pious king, I am thy humble servant; I give up thiswretched Gondebaud, and come unto thy mightiness. If thy goodness deignto cast a glance upon me, thou and thy descendants will find in me aservant of integrity and fidelity. " Clovis received him very kindly andkept him by him, for Aridius was agreeable in conversation, wise incounsel, just in judgment, and faithful in whatever was committed to hiscare. As the siege continued, Aridius said to Clovis, "O king, if theglory of thy greatness would suffer thee to listen to the words of myfeebleness, though thou needest not counsel, I would submit them to theein all fidelity, and they might be of use to thee, whether for thyself orfor the towns by the which thou dost propose to pass. Wherefore keepestthou here thine army, whilst thine enemy doth hide himself in awell-fortified place? Thou ravagest the fields, thou pillagest thecorn, thou cuttest down the vines, thou fellest the olive trees, thoudestroyest all the produce of the land, and yet thou succeedest not indestroying thine adversary. Rather send thou unto him deputies, and layon him a tribute to be paid to thee every year. Thus the land will bepreserved, and thou wilt be lord forever over him who owes thee tribute. If he refuse, thou shalt then do what pleaseth thee. " Clovis found thecounsel good, ordered his army to return home, sent deputies toGondebaud, and called upon him to undertake the payment every year of afixed tribute. Gondebaud paid for the time, and promised to paypunctually for the future. And peace appeared made between the twobarbarians. 

Pleased with his campaign against the Burgundians, Clovis kept on goodterms with Gondebaud, who was to be henceforth a simple tributary, andtransferred to the Visigoths of Aquitania, and their king, Alaric II. , his views of conquest. He had there the same pretexts for attack and thesame means of success. Alaric and his Visigoths were Arians, and betweenthem and the bishops of Southern Gaul, nearly all orthodox Catholics, there were permanent ill-will and distrust. Alaric attempted toconciliate their good-will: in 506 a Council met at Agde; the thirty-fourbishops of Aquitania attended in person or by delegate; the kingprotested that he had no design of persecuting the Catholics; thebishops, at the opening of the Council, offered prayers for the king; butAlaric did not forget that immediately after the conversion of Clovis, Volusian, bishop of Tours, had conspired in favor of the Frankish king, and the bishops of Aquitania regarded Volusian as a martyr, for he hadbeen deposed, without trial, from his see, and taken as a prisoner firstto Toulouse, and afterwards into Spain, where in a short time he had beenput to death. In vain did the glorious chief of the race of Goths, Theodoric the Great, king of Italy, father-in-law of Alaric, and brother-in-law of Clovis, exert himself to prevent any outbreak between the twokings. In 498, Alaric, no doubt at his father-in-law's solicitation, wrote to Clovis, "If my brother consent thereto, I would, following mydesires and by the grace of God, have an interview with him. " Theinterview took place at a small island in the Loire, called the Islandd'Or or de St. Jean, near Amboise. "The two kings, " says Gregory ofTours, "conversed, ate, and drank together, and separated with mutualpromises of friendship. " The positions and passions of each soon madethe promises of no effect. In 505 Clovis was seriously ill; the bishopsof Aquitania testified warm interest in him; and one of them, Quintian, bishop of Rodez, being on this account persecuted by the Visigoths, hadto seek refuge at Clermont, in Auvergne. Clovis no longer concealed hisdesigns. In 507 he assembled his principal chieftains; and, "Itdispleaseth me greatly, " said he, "that these Arians should possess aportion of the Gauls; march we forth with the help of God, drive we themfrom that land, for it is very goodly, and bring we it under our ownpower. " The Franks applauded their king; and the army set out on themarch in the direction of Poitiers, where Alaric happened at that time tobe. "As a portion of the troops was crossing the territory of Tours, "says Gregory, who was shortly afterwards its bishop, "Clovis forbade, outof respect for St. Martin, anything to be taken, save grass and water. One of the army, however, having found some hay belonging to a poor man, said, 'This is grass; we do not break the king's commands by taking it;'and, in spite of the poor man's resistance, he robbed him of his hay. Clovis, informed of the fact, slew the soldier on the spot with one sweepof his sword, saying, 'What will become of our hopes of victory if weoffend St. Martin?'" Alaric had prepared for the struggle; and the twoarmies met in the plain of Vouille, on the banks of the little riverClain, a few leagues from Poitiers. The battle was very severe. "TheGoths, " says Gregory of Tours, "fought with missiles; the Franks sword inhand. Clovis met and with his own hand slew Alaric in the fray; at themoment of striking his blow, two Goths fell suddenly upon Clovis, andattacked him with their pikes on either side, but he escaped death, thanks to his cuirass and the agility of his horse. "

Beaten and kingless, the Goths retreated in great disorder; and Clovis, pursuing his march, arrived without opposition at Bordeaux, where hesettled down with his Franks for the winter. When the war seasonreturned, he marched on Toulouse, the capital of the Visigoths, which helikewise occupied without resistance, and where he seized a portion ofthe treasure of the Visigothic kings. He quitted it to lay siege toCarcassonne, which had been made by the Romans into the stronghold ofSeptimauia. 

There his course of conquest was destined to end. After the battle ofVouille he had sent his eldest son Theodoric in command of a division, with orders to cross Central Gaul from west to east, to go and join theBurgundians of Gondebaud, who had promised his assistance, and inconjunction with them to attack the Visigoths on the banks of the Rhoneand in Narbonness. The young Frank boldly executed his father's orders, but the intervention of Theodoric the Great, king of Italy, prevented thesuccess of the operation. He sent an army into Gaul to the aid of hisson-in-law Alaric; and the united Franks and Burgundians failed in theirattacks upon the Visigoths of the Eastern Provinces. Clovis had no ideaof compromising by his obstinacy the conquests already accomplished; hetherefore raised the siege of Carcassonne, returned first to Toulouse, and then to Bordeaux, took Angouleme, the only town of importance he didnot possess in Aquitania; and feeling reasonably sure that the Visigoths, who, even with the aid that had cone from Italy, had great difficulty indefending what remained to them of Southern Gaul, would not come anddispute with him what he had already conquered, he halted at Tours, andstaid there some time, to enjoy on the very spot the fruits of hisvictory and to establish his power in his new possessions. 

It appears that even the Britons of Armorica tendered to him at thattime, through the interposition of Melanins, bishop of Rennes, if nottheir actual submission, at any rate their subordination and homage. 

Clovis at the same time had his self-respect flattered in a manner towhich barbaric conquerors always attach great importance. Anastasius, Emperor of the East, with whom he had already had some communication, sent to him at Tours a solemn embassy, bringing him the titles andinsignia of Patrician and Consul. "Clovis, " says Gregory of Tours, "puton the tunic of purple and the chlamys and the diadem; then mounting hishorse, he scattered with his own hand and with much bounty gold andsilver amongst the people, on the road which lies between the gate of thecourt belonging to the basilica of St. Martin and the church of the city. From that day he was called Consul and Augustus. On leaving the city ofTours he repaired to Paris, where he fixed the seat of his government. "

Paris was certainly the political centre of his dominions, theintermediate point between the early settlements of his race and himselfin Gaul and his new Gallic conquests; but he lacked some of thepossessions nearest to him and most naturally, in his own opinion, his. To the east, north, and south-west of Paris were settled some independentFrankish tribes, governed by chieftains with the name of kings. So soonas he had settled at Paris, it was the one fixed idea of Clovis to reducethem all to subjection. He had conquered the Burgundians and theVisigoths; it remained for him to conquer and unite together all theFranks. The barbarian showed himself in his true colors, during this newenterprise, with his violence, his craft, his cruelty, and his perfidy. He began with the most powerful of the tribes, the Ripuarian Franks. Hesent secretly to Cloderic, son of Sigebert, their king, saying, "Thyfather hath become old, and his wound maketh him to limp o' one foot; ifhe should die, his kingdom will come to thee of right, together with ourfriendship. " Cloderic had his father assassinated whilst asleep in histent, and sent messengers to Clovis, saying, "My father is dead, and Ihave in my power his kingdom and his treasures. Send thou unto mecertain of thy people, and I will gladly give into their hands whatsoeveramongst these treasures shall seem like to please thee. " The envoys ofClovis came, and, as they were examining in detail the treasures ofSigebert, Cloderic said to them, "This is the coffer wherein my fatherwas wont to pile up his gold pieces. " "Plunge, " said they, "thy handright to the bottom that none escape thee. " Cloderic bent forward, andone of the envoys lifted his battle-axe and cleft his skull. Clovis wentto Cologne and convoked the Franks of the canton. "Learn, " said he, "that which hath happened. As I was sailing on the river Scheldt, Cloderic, son of my relative, did vex his father, saying I was minded toslay him; and as Sigebert was flying across the forest of Buchaw, his sonhimself sent bandits, who fell upon him and slew him. Cloderic also isdead, smitten I know not by whom as he was opening his father'streasures. I am altogether unconcerned in it all, and I could not shedthe blood of my relatives, for it is a crime. But since it hath sohappened, I give unto you counsel, which ye shall follow if it seem toyou good; turn ye towards me, and live under my protection. " And theywho were present hoisted him on a huge buckler, and hailed him king. 

After Sigebert and the Ripuarian Franks, came the Franks of Terouanne, and Chararic their king. He had refused, twenty years before, to marchwith Clovis against the Roman, Syagrius. Clovis, who had not forgottenit, attacked him, took him and his son prisoners, and had them bothshorn, ordering that Chararic should be ordained priest and his sondeacon. Chararic was much grieved. Then said his son to him, "Here bebranches which were cut from a green tree, and are not yet wholly driedup: soon they will sprout forth again. May it please God that he whohath wrought all this shall die as quickly!" Clovis considered thesewords as a menace, had both father and son beheaded, and took possessionof their dominions. Ragnacaire, king of the Franks of Cambrai, was thethird to be attacked. He had served Clovis against Syagrins, but Clovistook no account of that. Ragnacaire, being beaten, was preparing forflight, when he was seized by his own soldiers, who tied his hands behindhis back, and took him to Clovis along with his brother Riquier. "Wherefore hast thou dishonored our race, " said Clovis, "by lettingthyself wear bonds?" "Twere better to have died;" and cleft his skullwith one stroke of his battle-axe. Then turning to Riquier, "Hadst thousuccored thy brother, " said he, "he had assuredly not been bound;" andfelled him likewise at his feet. Rignomer, king of the Franks ofLe Mans, met the same fate, but not at the hands, only by the order, ofClovis. So Clovis remained sole king of the Franks, for all theindependent chieftains had disappeared. 

It is said that one day, after all these murders, Clovis, surrounded byhis trusted servants, cried, "Woe is me! who am left as a travelleramongst strangers, and who have no longer relatives to lend me support inthe day of adversity!" Thus do the most shameless take pleasure inexhibiting sham sorrow after crimes they cannot disavow. 

It cannot be known whether Clovis ever felt in his soul any scruple orregret for his many acts of ferocity and perfidy, or if he looked, assufficient expiation, upon the favor he had bestowed on the churches andtheir bishops, upon the gifts he lavished on them, and upon theabsolutions he demanded of them. In times of mingled barbarism and faiththere are strange cases of credulity in the way of bargains made withdivine justice. We read in the life of St. Eleutherus, bishop ofTournai, the native land of Clovis, that at one of those periods when theconscience of the Frankish king must have been most heavily laden, hepresented himself one day at the church. "My lord king, " said thebishop, "I know wherefore thou art come to me. " "I have nothing specialto say unto thee, " rejoined Clovis. "Say not so, O king, " replied thebishop; "thou hast sinned, and darest not avow it. " The king was moved, and ended by confessing that he had deeply sinned and had need of largepardon. St. Eleutherus betook himself to prayer; the king came back thenext day, and the bishop gave him a paper on which was written by adivine hand, he said, "The pardon granted to royal offences which mightnot be revealed. " Clovis accepted this absolution, and loaded the churchof Tournai with his gifts. In 511, the very year of his death, his lastact in life was the convocation at Orleans of a Council, which wasattended by thirty bishops from the different parts of his kingdom, andat which were adopted thirty-one canons that, whilst granting to theChurch great privileges and means of influence, in many cases favorableto humanity and respect for the rights of individuals, bound the Churchclosely to the State, and gave to royalty, even in ecclesiasticalmatters, great power. The bishops, on breaking up, sent these canons toClovis, praying him to give them the sanction of his adhesion, which hedid. A few months afterwards, on the 27th of November, 511, Clovis diedat Paris, and was buried in the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, nowadays St. Genevieve, built by his wife Queen Clotilde, who survivedhim. 

It was but right to make the reader intimately acquainted with that greatbarbarian who, with all his vices and all his crimes, brought about, orrather began, two great matters which have already endured throughfourteen centuries, and still endure; for he founded the French monarchyand Christian France. Such men and such facts have a right to be closelystudied and set in a clear light by history. Nothing similar will beseen for two centuries, under the descendants of Clovis, theMerovingians; amongst them will be encountered none but those personageswhom death reduces to insignificance, whatever may have been their rankin the world, and of whom Virgil thus speaks to Dante:--

 "Non ragionam di for, ma guarda e passa. "

 "Waste we no words on them: one glance and pass thou on. " Inferno, Canto III. 

CHAPTER VIII. ---THE MEROVINGIANS. 

[Illustration: The Sluggard King Journeying----156]

In its beginning and in its end the line of the Merovingians is mediocreand obscure. Its earliest ancestors, Meroveus, from whom it got itsname, and Clodion, the first, it is said, of the long-haired kings, acharacteristic title of the Frankish kings, are scarcely historicalpersonages; and it is under the qualification of sluggard kings that thelast Merovingians have a place in history. Clovis alone, amidst hisvices and his crimes, was sufficiently great and did sufficiently greatdeeds to live forever in the course of ages; the greatest part of hissuccessors belong only to genealogy or chronology. In a moment ofself-abandonment and weariness, the great Napoleon once said, "Whattrouble to take for half a page in universal history!" Histories farmore limited and modest than a universal history, not only have a right, but are bound to shed their light only upon those men who have deservedit by the eminence of their talents or the important results of theirpassage through life; rarity only can claim to escape oblivion. Andsave two or three, a little less insignificant or less hateful than therest, the Merovingian kings deserve only to be forgotten. From A. D. 511to A. D. 752, that is, from the death of Clovis to the accession of theCarlovingians, is two hundred and forty-one years, which was theduration of the dynasty of the Merovingians. During this time therereigned twenty-eight Merovingian kings, which reduces to eight years andseven months the average reign of each, a short duration compared withthat of most of the royal dynasties. Five of these kings, Clotaire I. , Clotaire II. , Dagobert I. , Thierry IV. And Childeric III. , alone, atdifferent intervals, united under their power all the dominionspossessed by Clovis or his successors. The other kings of this linereigned only over special kingdoms, formed by virtue of diverspartitions at the death of their general possessor. From A. D. 511 to638 five such partitions took place. In 511, after the death of Clovis, his dominions were divided amongst his four sons; Theodoric, or ThierryI. , was king of Metz; Clodomir, of Orleans; Childebert, of Paris;Clotaire I. , of Soissons. To each of these capitals fixed boundarieswere attached. In 558, in consequence of divers incidents brought aboutnaturally or by violence, Clotaire I. Ended by possessing alone, duringthree years, all the dominions of his fathers. At his death, in 561, they were partitioned afresh amongst his four sons; Charibert was kingof Paris; Gontran of Orleans and Burgundy; Sigebert I. , of Metz; andChilderic, of Soissons. In 567, Charibert, king of Paris, died withoutchildren, and a new partition left only three kingdoms, Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy. Austrasia, in the east, extended over the twobanks of the Rhine, and comprised, side by side with Roman towns anddistricts, populations that had remained Germanic. Neustria, in thewest, was essentially Gallo-Roman, though it comprised in the north theold territory of the Salian Franks, on the borders of the Scheldt. Burgundy was the old kingdom of the Burgundians, enlarged in the northby some few counties. Paris, the residence of Clovis, was reserved andundivided amongst the three kings, kept as a sort of neutral city intowhich they could not enter without the common consent of all. In 613, new incidents connected with family matters placed Clotaire II. , son ofChilperic, and heretofore king of Soissons, in possession of the threekingdoms. He kept them united up to 628, and left them so to his son, Dagobert I. , who remained in possession of them up to 638. At his deatha new division of the Frankish dominions took place, no longer intothree but two kingdoms, Austrasia being one, and Neustria and Burgundythe other. This was the definitive dismemberment of the great Frankishdominion to the time of its last two Merovingian kings, Thierry IV. AndChilderic III. , who were kings in name only, dragged from the cloisteras ghosts from the tomb to play a motionless part in the drama. For along time past the real power had been in the hands of that valiantAustrasian family which was to furnish the dominions of Clovis with anew dynasty and a greater king than Clovis. 

Southern Gaul, that is to say, Aquitania, Vasconia, Narbonness, calledSeptimania, and the two banks of the Rhone near its mouths, were notcomprised in these partitions of the Frankish dominions. Each of thecopartitioners assigned to themselves, to the south of the Garonne and onthe coasts of the Mediterranean, in that beautiful region of old RomanGaul, such and such a district or such and such a town, just as heirs-at-law keep to themselves severally such and such a piece of furniture orsuch and such a valuable jewel out of a rich property to which theysucceed, and which they divide amongst them. The peculiar situation ofthose provinces at their distance from the Franks' own settlementscontributed much towards the independence which Southern Gaul, andespecially Aquitania, was constantly striving and partly managed torecover, amidst the extension and tempestuous fortunes of the Frankishmonarchy. It is easy to comprehend how these repeated partitions of amighty inheritance with so many successors, these dominions continuallychanging both their limits and their masters, must have tended toincrease the already profound anarchy of Roman and Barbaric worlds thrownpell-mell one upon the other, and fallen a prey, the Roman to thedisorganization of a lingering death, the barbaric to the fermentation ofa new existence striving for development under social conditions quitedifferent from those of its primitive life. Some historians have saidthat, in spite of these perpetual dismemberments of the great Frankishdominion, a real unity had always existed in the Frankish monarchy, andregulated the destinies of its constituent peoples. They who say so showthemselves singularly easy to please in the matter of political unity andinternational harmony. Amongst those various States, springing from acommon base and subdivided between the different members of one and thesame family, rivalries, enmities, hostile machinations, deeds of violenceand atrocity, struggles and wars soon became as frequent, as bloody, andas obstinate as they have ever been amongst states and sovereigns asunconnected as possible one with another. It will suffice to quote onecase which was not long in coming. In 424, scarcely thirteen years afterthe death of Clovis and the partition of his dominions amongst his foursons, the second of them, Clodomir, king of Orleans, was killed in a waragainst the Burgundians, leaving three sons, direct heirs of his kingdom, subject to equal partition between them. Their grandmother, Clotilde, kept them with her at Paris; and "their uncle Childebert (king of Paris), seeing that his mother bestowed all her affection upon the sons ofClodomir, grew jealous; so, fearing that by her favor they would get ashare in the kingdom, he sent secretly to his brother Clotaire (king ofSoissons), saying, 'Our mother keepeth by her the sons of our brother, and willeth to give them the kingdom of their father. Thou must needs, therefore, cone speedily to Paris, and we must take counsel together asto what shall be done with them; whether they shall be shorn and reducedto the condition of commoners, or slain and leave their kingdom to beshared equally between us. ' Clotaire, overcome with joy at these words, came to Paris. Childebert had already spread abroad amongst the peoplethat the two kings were to join in raising the young children to thethrone. The two kings then sent a message to the queen, who at that timedwelt in the same city, saying, 'Send thou the children to us, that wemay place them on the throne. ' Clotilde, full of joy, and unwitting oftheir craft, set meat and drink before the children, and then sent themaway, saying, 'I shall seem not to have lost my son if I see ye succeedhim in his kingdom. ' The young princes were immediately seized, andparted from their servants and governors; and the servants and thechildren were kept in separate places. Then Childebert and Clotaire sentto the queen their confidant Arcadius (one of the Arvernian senators), with a pair of shears and a naked sword. When he came to Clotilde, heshowed her what he bare with him, and said to her, 'Most glorious queen, thy sons, our masters, desire to know thy will touching these children:wilt thou that they live with shorn hair or that they be put to death?'Clotilde, astounded at this address, and overcome with indignation, answered at hazard, amidst the grief that overwhelmed her, and notknowing what she would say, 'If they be not set upon the throne I wouldrather know that they were dead than shorn. ' But Areadius, caring littlefor her despair or for what she might decide after more reflection, returned in haste to the two kings, and said, 'Finish ye your work, forthe queen, favoring your plans, willeth that ye accomplish them. 'Forthwith Clotaire taketh the eldest by the arm, dasheth him upon theground, and slayeth him without mercy with the thrust of a hunting-knifebeneath the arm-pit. At the cries raised by the child, his brothercasteth himself at the feet of Childebert, and clinging to his knees, saith amidst his sobs, 'Aid me, good father, that I die not like mybrother. ' Childebert, his visage bathed in tears, saith to Clotaire, 'Dear brother, I crave thy mercy for his life; I will give theewhatsoever thou wilt as the price of his soul; I pray thee, slay himnot. ' Then Clotaire, with menacing and furious mien, crieth out aloud, 'Thrust him away, or thou diest in his stead: thou, the instigator of allthis work, art thou, then, so quick to be faithless?' At these wordsChildebert thrust away the child towards Clotaire, who seized him, plunged a hunting-knife in his side, as he had in his brother's, and slewhim. They then put to death the slaves and governors of the children. After these murders Clotaire mounted his horse and departed, takinglittle heed of his nephew's death; and Childebert withdrew into theoutskirts of the city. Queen Clotilde had the corpses of the twochildren placed in a coffin, and followed them, with a great parade ofchanting, and immense mourning, to the basilica of St. Pierre (now St. Genevieve), where they were buried together. One was ten years old andthe other seven. The third, named Clodoald (who died about the year 560, after having founded, near Paris, a monastery called after him St. Cloud), could not be caught, and was saved by some gallant men. He, disdaining a terrestrial kingdom, dedicated himself to the Lord, wasshorn by his own hand, and became a church-man: he devoted himself whollyto good works, and died a priest. And the two kings divided equallybetween them the kingdom of Clodomir. " (Gregory of Tours, _Histoire desFrancs, _ III. Xviii. )

[Illustration: "Thrust him away, or thou diest in his stead. "----160]

The history of the most barbarous peoples and times assuredly offers noexample, in one and the same family, of an usurpation more perfidiouslyand atrociously consummated. King Clodomir, the father of the two youngprinces thus dethroned and murdered by their uncles, had, during hisreign, shown almost equal indifference and cruelty. In 523, during a warwhich, in concert with his brothers Childebert and Clotaire, he had wagedagainst Sigismund, king of Burgundy, he had made prisoners of that king, his wife, and their sons, and kept them shut up at Orleans. The yearafter, the war was renewed with the Burgundians. "Clodomir resolved, "says Gregory of Tours, "to put Sigismund to death. The blessed Avitus, abbot of St. Mesrnin de Micy (an abbey about two leagues from Orleans), afamous priest in those days, said to him on this occasion, 'If, turningthy thoughts towards God, thou change thy plan, and suffer not these folkto be slain, God will be with thee, and thou wilt gain the victory; butif thou slay them, thou thyself wilt be delivered into the hands of thineenemies, and thou wilt undergo their fate; to thee and thy wife and thysons will happen that which thou wilt have done to Sigismund and his wifeand his sons. ' But Clodomir, taking no heed of this counsel, said, 'Itwere great folly to leave one enemy at home when I march out againstanother; one attacking me behind and another in front, I should findmyself between two armies: victory will be surer and easier if I separateone from the other; when the first is once dead, it will be lessdifficult to get rid of the other also. ' Accordingly he put Sigismund todeath, together with his wife and his sons, ordered them to be throwninto a well in the village of Coulmier, belonging to the territory ofOrleans, and set out for Burgundy. After his first success Clodomir fellinto an ambush and into the hands of his enemies, who cut off his head, stuck it on the end of a pike and held it up aloft. Victory, nevertheless, remained with the Franks; but scarcely had a year elapsedwhen Queen Guntheuque, Clodomir's widow, became the wife of his brotherClotaire, and his two elder sons, Theobald and Gonthaire, fell beneaththeir uncle's hunting-knife. "

Even in the coarsest and harshest ages the soul of man does notcompletely lose its instincts of justice and humanity. The bishops andpriests were not alone in crying out against such atrocities; thebarbarians themselves did not always remain indifferent spectators ofthem, but sometimes took advantage of them to rouse the wrath and warlikeardor of their comrades. "About the year 528, Theodoric, king of Metz, the eldest son of Clovis, purposed to undertake a grand campaign on theright bank of the Rhine against his neighbors the Thuringians, andsummoned the Franks to a meeting. 'Bethink you, ' said he, that of oldtime the Thuringians fell violently upon our ancestors, and did them muchharm. Our fathers, ye know, gave them hostages to obtain peace; but theThuringians put to death those hostages in divers ways, and once morefalling upon our relatives, took from them all they possessed. Afterhaving hung children up, by the sinews of their thighs, on the branchesof trees, they put to a most cruel death more than two hundred younggirls, tying them by the legs to the necks of horses, which, driven bypointed goads in different directions, tore the poor souls in pieces;they laid others along the ruts of the roads, fixed them in the earthwith stakes, drove over them laden cars, and so left them, with theirbones all broken, as a meal for the birds and dogs. To this very daydoth Hermannfroi fail in his promise, and absolutely refuse to fulfil hisengagements: right is on our side; march we against them with the help ofGod. ' Then the Franks, indignant at such atrocities, demanded with onevoice to be led into Thuringia. . . . Victory made them masters ofit, and they reduced the country under their dominion. . . . Whilstthe Frankish kings were still there, Theodoric would have slain hisbrother Clotaire. Having put armed men in waiting, he had him fetched totreat secretly of a certain matter. Then, having arranged, in a portionof his house, a curtain from wall to wall, he posted his armed men behindit; but, as the curtain was too short, it left their feet exposed. Clotaire, having been warned of the snare, entered the house armed andwith a goodly company. Theodoric then perceived that he was discovered, invented some story, and talked of this, that, and the other. At last, not knowing how to get his treachery forgotten, he made Clotaire apresent of a large silvern dish. Clotaire wished him good by, thankedhim, and returned home. But Theodoric immediately complained to his ownfolks that he had sacrificed his silvern dish to no purpose, and said tohis son Theodebert, 'Go, find thy uncle, and pray him to give thee thepresent I made him. ' Theodebert went, and got what he asked. In suchtricks did Theodoric excel. " (Gregory of Tours, III. Vii. )

These Merovingian kings were as greedy and licentious as they were cruel. Not only was pillage, in their estimation, the end and object of war, butthey pillaged even in the midst of peace and in their own dominions;sometimes, after the Roman practice, by aggravation of taxes and fiscalmanoeuvres, at others after the barbaric fashion, by sudden attacks onplaces and persons they knew to be rich. It often happened that theypillaged a church, of which the bishop had vexed them by his protests, either to swell their own personal treasury, or to make, soon afterwards, offerings to another church of which they sought the favor. When somegreat family event was at hand, they delighted in a coarse magnificence, for which they provided at the expense of the populations of theirdomains, or of the great officers of their courts, who did not fail toindemnify themselves, thanks to public disorder, for the sacrificesimposed upon them. At the end of the sixth century, Chilperic, king ofNeustria, had promised his daughter Rigonthe in marriage to PrinceRecared, son of Leuvigild, king of the Visigoths of Spain. "A granddeputation of Goths came to Paris to fetch the Frankish princess. KingChilperic ordered several families in the fiscal domains to be seized andplaced in cars. As a great number of them wept and were not willing togo, he had them kept in prison that he might more easily force them to goaway with his daughter. It is said that several, in their despair, hungthemselves, fearing to be taken from their parents. Sons were separatedfrom fathers, daughters from mothers, and all departed with deep groansand maledictions, and in Paris there reigned a desolation like that ofEgypt. Not a few, of superior birth, being forced to go away, even madewills whereby they left their possessions to the churches, and demandedthat, so soon as the young girl should have entered Spain, their willsshould be opened just as if they were already in their graves. . . . When King Chilperic gave up his daughter to the ambassadors of the Goths, he presented them with vast treasures. Her mother (Queen Fredegonde)added thereto so great a quantity of gold and silver and valuablevestments, that, at the sight thereof, the king thought he must havenought remaining. The queen, perceiving his emotion, turned to theFranks, and said to them, 'Think not, warriors, that there is here aughtof the treasures of former kings. All that ye see is taken from mine ownpossessions, for my most glorious king hath made me many gifts. Theretohave I added of the fruits of mine own toil, and a great part proceedethfrom the revenues I have drawn, either in kind or in money, from thehouses that have been ceded unto me. Ye yourselves have given me riches, and ye see here a portion thereof; but there is here nought of the publictreasure. ' And the king was deceived into believing her words. Such wasthe multitude of golden and silvern articles and other precious thingsthat it took fifty wagons to hold them. The Franks, on their part, mademany offerings; some gave gold, others silver, sundry gave horses, butmost of them vestments. At last the young girl, with many tears andkisses, said farewell. As she was passing through the gate an axle ofher carriage broke, and all cried out alacic! which was interpreted bysome as a presage. She departed from Paris, and at eight miles' distancefront the city she had her tents pitched. During the night fifty menarose, and, having taken a hundred of the best horses and as many goldenbits and bridles, and two large silvern dishes, fled away, and tookrefuge with king Childebert. During the whole journey whoever couldescape fled away with all that he could lay hands on. It was requiredalso of all the towns that were traversed on the way, that they shouldmake great preparations to defray expenses, for the king forbade anycontribution from the treasury: all the charges were met by extraordinarytaxes levied on the poor. " (Gregory of Tours, VI. Xlv. )

"Close upon this tyrannical magnificence came unexpected sorrows, andclose upon these outrages remorse. The youngest son of King Chilperic, Dagobert by name, fell ill. He was a little better, when his elderbrother Chlodebert was attacked with the same symptoms. His motherFredegonde, seeing him in danger of death, and touched by tardyrepentance, said to the king, 'Long hath divine mercy borne with ourmisdeeds; it hath warned us by fever, and other maladies, and we have notmended our ways, and now we are losing our sons; now the tears of thepoor, the lamentations of widows, and the sighs of orphans are causingthem to perish, and leaving us no hope of laying by for any one. We heapup riches and know not for whom. Our treasures, all laden with plunderand curses, are like to remain without possessors. Our cellars are theynot bursting with wine, and our granaries with corn? Our coffers werethey not full to the brim with gold and silver and precious stones andnecklaces and other imperial ornaments? And yet that which was our mostbeautiful possession we are losing! Come then, if thou wilt, and let usburn all these wicked lists; let our treasury be content with what wassufficient for thy father Clotaire. ' Having thus spoken, and beating herbreast, the queen had brought to her the rolls, which Mark had consignedto her of each of the cities that belonged to her, and cast them into thefire. Then, turning again to the king, 'What!' she cried, 'dost thouhesitate? Do thou even as I; if we lose our dear children, at leastescape we everlasting punishment. ' Then the king, moved withcompunction, threw into the fire all the lists, and, when they wereburned, sent people to stay the levy of those imposts. And afterwardstheir youngest child died, worn out with lingering illness. Overwhelmedwith grief, they bare him from their house at Braine to Paris, and hadhim buried in the basilica of St. Denis. As for Chlodebert, they placedhim on a litter, carried him to the basilica of St. Medard at Soissons, and, laying him before the tomb of the saint, offered vows for hisrecovery; but in the middle of the night, enfeebled and exhausted, hegave up the ghost. They buried him in the basilica of the holy martyrsCrispin and Crispinian. Then King Chilperic showed great largess to thechurches and the monasteries and the poor. " (Gregory of Tours, V. Xxxv. )

It is doubtful whether the maternal grief of Fredegonde were quite sopious and so strictly in accordance with morality as it has beenrepresented by Gregory of Tours; but she was, without doubt, passionatelysincere. Rash actions and violent passions are the characteristics ofbarbaric natures; the interest or impression of the moment holds swayover them, and causes forgetfulness of every moral law as well as ofevery wise calculation. These two characteristics show themselves in theextreme license displayed in the private life of the Merovingian kings:on becoming Christians, not only did they not impose upon themselves anyof the Christian rules in respect of conjugal relations, but the greaternumber of them did not renounce polygamy, and more than one holy bishop, at the very time that he reprobated it, was obliged to tolerate it. "King Clotaire I. Had to wife Ingonde, and her only did he love, when shemade to him the following request: 'My lord, ' said she, 'hath made of hishandmaid what seemed to him good; and now, to crown his favors, let mylord deign to hear what his handmaid demandeth. I pray you be graciouslypleased to find for my sister Aregonde, your slave, a man both capableand rich, so that I be rather exalted than abased thereby, and be enabledto serve you still more faithfully. ' At these words Clotaire, who wasbut too voluptuously disposed by nature, conceived a fancy for Aregonde, betook himself to the country-house where she dwelt, and united her tohim in marriage. When the union had taken place he returned to Ingonde, and said to her, 'I have labored to procure for thee the favor thou didstso sweetly demand, and, on looking for a man of wealth and capabilityworthy to be united to thy sister, I could find no better than myself;know, therefore, that I have taken her to wife, and I trow that it willnot displease thee. ' What seemeth good in my master's eyes, that let himdo, ' replied Ingonde: 'only let thy servant abide still in the king'sgrace. '"

Clotaire I. Had, as has been already remarked, four sons: the eldest, Charibert, king of Paris, had to wife Ingoberge, "who had in her servicetwo young persons, daughters of a poor work-man; one of them, namedMarcovieve, had donned the religious dress, the other was calledMeroflede, and the king loved both of them exceedingly. They weredaughters, as has been said, of a worker in wool. Ingoberge, jealous ofthe affection borne to them by the king, had their father put to workinside the palace, hoping that the king, on seeing him in such condition, would conceive a distaste for his daughters; and, whilst the man was athis work, she sent for the king. 

"Charibert, thinking he was going to see some novelty, saw only theworkman afar off at work on his wool. He forsook Ingoberge, and took towife Meroflede. He had also (to wife) another young girl namedTheudoehilde, whose father was a shepherd, a mere tender of sheep, andhad by her, it is said, a son who, on issuing from his mother's womb, wascarried straight-way to the grave. " Charibert afterwards espousedMarcovive, sister of Meroflede; and for that cause both wereexcommunicated by St. Germain, bishop of Paris. 

Chilperic, fourth son of Clotaire I. And king of Soissons, "though he hadalready several wives, asked the hand of Galsuinthe, eldest daughter ofAthanagild, king of Spain. She arrived at Soissons and was united to himin marriage; and she received strong evidences of love, for she hadbrought with her vast treasures. But his love for Fredegonde, one of theprincipal women about Chilperic, occasioned fierce disputes between them. As Galsuinthe had to complain to the king of continual insult and of notsharing with him the dignity of his rank, she asked him in return for thetreasures which she had brought, and which she was ready to give up tohim, to send her back free to her own country. Chilperic, artfullydissimulating, appeased her with soothing words; and then had herstrangled by a slave, and she was found dead in her bed. When he hadmourned for her death, he espoused Fredegonde after an interval of a fewdays. " (Gregory of Tours, IV. Xxvi. , xxviii. )

Amidst such passions and such morals, treason, murder and poisoning werethe familiar processes of ambition, covetousness, hatred, vengeance, andfear. Eight kings or royal heirs of the Merovingian line died of brutalmurder or secret assassination, to say nothing of innumerable crimes ofthe same kind committed in their circle, and left unpunished, save bysimilar crimes. Nevertheless, justice is due to the very worst times andthe very worst governments; and it must be recorded that, whilst sharingin many of the vices of their age and race, especially their extremelicense of morals, three of Clovis's successors, Theodebert, king ofAustrasia (from 534 to 548), Gontran, king of Burgundy (from 561 to 598), and Dogobert I. , who united under his own sway the whole Frankishmonarchy (from 622 to 688), were less violent, less cruel, lessiniquitous, and less grossly ignorant or blind than the majority of theMerovingians. 

"Theodebert, " says Gregory of Tours, "when confirmed in his kingdom, showed himself full of greatness and goodness; he ruled with justice, honoring the bishops, doing good to the churches, helping the poor, anddistributing in many directions numerous benefits with a very charitableand very liberal hand. He generously remitted to the churches ofAuvergne all the tribute they were wont to pay into his treasury. " (III. Xxv. )

Gontran, king of Burgundy, in spite of many shocking and unprincipleddeeds, at one time of violence, at another of weakness, displayed, duringhis reign of thirty-three years, an inclination towards moderation andpeace, in striking contrast with the measureless pretensions andoutrageous conduct of the other Frankish kings his contemporaries, especially King Chilperic his brother. The treaty concluded by Gontran, on the 38th of November, 587, at Andelot, near Langres, with his youngnephew Childebert, king of Metz, and Queen Brunehant, his mother, contains dispositions, or, more correctly speaking, words, which breathea sincere but timid desire to render justice to all, to put an end to thevindictive or retrospective quarrels and spoliations which wereincessantly harassing the Gallo-Frankish community, and to build up peacebetween the two kings on the foundation of mutual respect for the rightsof their lieges. "It is established, " says this treaty, "that whatsoeverthe kings have given to the churches or to their lieges, or with God'shelp shall hereafter will to give to them lawfully, shall be irrevocableacquired; as also that none of the lieges, in one kingdom or the other, shall have to suffer damage in respect of whatsoever belongeth to him, either by law or by virtue of a decree, but shall be permitted to recoverand possess things due to him. . . . And as the aforesaid kings haveallied themselves, in the name of God, by a pure and sincere affection, it hath been agreed that at no time shall passage through one kingdom berefused to the Leudes (lieges--great vassals) of the other kingdom whoshall desire to traverse them on public or private affairs. It islikewise agreed that neither of the two kings shall solicit the Leudes ofthe other or receive them if they offer themselves; and if, peradventure, any of these Leudes shall think it necessary, in consequence of somefault, to take refuge with the other king, he shall be absolved accordingto the nature of his fault and given back. It hath seemed good also toadd to the present treaty that whichever, if either, of the partieshappen to violate it, under any pretext and at any time whatsoever, itshall lose all advantages, present or prospective, therefrom; and theyshall be for the profit of that party which shall have faithfullyobserved the aforesaid conventions, and which shall be relieved in allpoints from the obligations of its oath. " (Gregory of Tours, IX. Xx. )

It may be doubted whether between Gontran and Childebert the promises inthe treaty were always scrupulously fulfilled; but they have a stamp ofserious and sincere intention foreign to the habitual relations betweenthe other Merovingian kings. 

Mention was but just now made of two women--two queens--Fredegonde andBrunehaut, who, at the Merovingian epoch, played important parts in thehistory of the country. They were of very different origin andcondition; and, after fortunes which were for a long while analogous, they ended very differently. Fredegonde was the daughter of poorpeasants in the neighborhood of Montdidier in Picardy, and at an earlyage joined the train of Queen Audovere, the first wife of King Chilperic. She was beautiful, dexterous, ambitious, and bold; and she attracted theattention, and before long awakened the passion of the king. She pursuedwith ardor and without scruple her unexpected fortune. Queen Audoverewas her first obstacle and her first victim; and on the pretext of aspiritual relationship which rendered her marriage with Chilpericillegal, was repudiated and banished to a convent. But Fredegonde's hourhad not yet come; for Chilperic espoused Galsuinthe, daughter of theVisigothic king, Athanagild, whose youngest daughter, Brunehaut, had justmarried Chilperic's brother, Sigebert, king of Austrasia. It has alreadybeen said that before long Galsuinthe was found strangled in her bed, andthat Chilperic espoused Fredegonde. An undying hatred from that timearose between her and Brunehaut, who had to avenge her sister. A war, incessantly renewed, between the kings of Austrasia and Neustriafollowed. Sigebert succeeded in beating Chilperic, but, in 575, in themidst of his victory, he was suddenly assassinated in his tent by twoemissaries of Fredegonde. His army disbanded; and his widow, Brunehaut, fell into the hands of Chilperic. The right of asylum belonging to thecathedral of Paris saved her life, but she was sent away to Rouen. There, at this very time, on a mission from his father, happened to beMerovee, son of Chilperic, and the repudiated Queen Audovere; he sawBrunehaut in her beauty, her attractiveness and her trouble; he wassmitten with her and married her privately, and Praetextatus, bishop ofRouen, had the imprudent courage to seal their union. Fredegonde seizedwith avidity upon this occasion for persecuting her rival and destroyingher step-son, heir to the throne of Chilperic. The Austrasians, who hadpreserved the child Childebert, son of their murdered king, demanded backwith threats their queen Brunehaut. She was surrendered to them; butFredegonde did not let go her other prey, Merovice. First imprisoned, then shorn and shut up in a monastery, afterwards a fugitive and secretlyurged on to attempt a rising against his father, he was so affrightenedat his perils, that he got a faithful servant to strike him dead, that hemight not fall into the hands of his hostile step-mother. Chilperic hadremaining another son, Clovis, issue, as Merovee was, of Queen Audovere. He was accused of having caused by his sorceries the death of the threechildren lost about this time by Fredegonde; and was, in his turn, imprisoned and before long poniarded. His mother Audovere was strangledin her convent. Fredegonde sought in these deaths, advantageous for herown children, some sort of horrible consolation for her sorrows as amother. But the sum of crimes was not yet complete. In 584 KingChilperic, on returning from the chase and in the act of dismounting, wasstruck two mortal blows by a man who took to rapid flight, and a cry wasraised all around of "Treason! 'tis the hand of the Austrasian Childebertagainst our lord the king!" The care taken to have the cry raised wasproof of its falsity; it was the hand of Fredegonde herself, anxious lestChilperic should discover the guilty connection existing between her andan officer of her household, Landry, who became subsequently mayor of thepalace of Neustria. Chilperic left a son, a few months old, named. Clotaire, of whom his mother Fredegonde became the sovereign guardian. She employed, at one time in defending him against his enemies, atanother in endangering him by her plots, her hatreds and her assaults, the last thirteen years of her life. She was a true type of thestrong-willed, artful, and perverse woman in barbarous times; she startedlow down in the scale and rose very high without a correspondingelevation of soul; she was audacious and perfidious, as perfect indeception as in effrontery, proceeding to atrocities either from coolcalculation or a spirit of revenge, abandoned to all kinds of passion, and, for gratification of them, shrinking from no sort of crime. However, she died quietly at Paris, in 597 or 598, powerful and dreaded, and leaving on the throne of Neustria her son Clotaire II. , who, fifteenyears later, was to become sole king of all the Frankish dominions. 

Brunehaut had no occasion for crimes to become a queen, and, in spite ofthose she committed, and in spite of her out-bursts and the moralirregularities of her long life, she bore, amidst her passion and herpower, a stamp of courageous frankness and intellectual greatness whichplaces her far above the savage who was her rival. Fredegonde was anupstart, of barbaric race and habits, a stranger to every idea and everydesign not connected with her own personal interest and successes; andshe was as brutally selfish in the case of her natural passions as in theexercise of a power acquired and maintained by a mixture of artifice andviolence. Brunehaut was a princess of that race of Gothic kings who, inSouthern Gaul and in Spain, had understood and admired the Romancivilization, and had striven to transfer the remains of it to thenewly-formed fabric of their own dominions. She, transplanted to a homeamongst the Franks of Austrasia, the least Roman of all the barbarians, preserved there the ideas and tastes of the Visigoths of Spain, who hadbecome almost Gallo-Romans; she clung stoutly to the efficacious exerciseof the royal authority; she took a practical interest in the publicworks, highways, bridges, monuments, and the progress of materialcivilization; the Roman roads in a short time received and for a longwhile kept in Anstrasia the name of Brunehaut's causeways; there used tohe shown, in a forest near Bourges, Brunehaut's castle, Brunehaut's towerat Etampes, Brunehaut's stone near Tournay, and Brunehaut's fort nearCahors. In the royal domains and wheresoever she went she showedabundant charity to the poor, and many ages after her death the people ofthose districts still spoke of Brunehaut's alms. She liked and protectedmen of letters, rare and mediocre indeed at that time, but the onlybeings, such as they were, with a notion of seeking and giving any kindof intellectual enjoyment; and they in turn took pleasure in celebratingher name and her deserts. The most renowned of all during that age, Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, dedicated nearly all his little poems totwo queens; one, Brunehaut, plunging amidst all the struggles andpleasures of the world, the other St. Radegonde, sometime wife ofClotaire I. , who had fled in all haste from a throne, to bury herself atPoitiers, in the convent she had founded there. To compensate, Brunehautwas detested by the majority of the Austrasian chiefs, those Leudes, landowners and warriors, whose sturdy and turbulent independence she wascontinually fighting against. She supported against them, withindomitable courage, the royal officers, the servants of the palace, heragents, and frequently her favorites. One of these, Lupus, a Roman byorigin, and Duke of Champagne, "was being constantly insulted andplundered by his enemies, especially by Ursion Bertfried. At last, they, having agreed to slay him, marched against him with an army. At thesight, Brunehaut, compassionating the evil case of one of her liegesunjustly persecuted, assumed quite a manly courage, and threw herselfamongst the hostile battalions, crying, "'Stay, warriors; refrain fromthis wicked deed; persecute not the innocent; engage not, for a singleman's sake, in a battle which will desolate the country!' 'Back, woman, 'said Ursion to her; 'let it suffice thee to have ruled under thyhusband's sway; now 'tis thy son who reigns, and his kingdom is under ourprotection, not thine. Back! if thou wouldest not that the hoofs of ourhorses trample thee under as the dust of the ground!' After the disputehad lasted some time in this strain, the queen, by her address, at lastprevented the battle from taking place. " (Gregory of Tours, VI. Iv. ) Itwas but a momentary success for Brunehaut; and the last words of Ursioncontained a sad presage of the death awaiting her. Intoxicated withpower, pride, hate, and revenge, she entered more violently every dayinto strife not only with the Austrasian laic chieftains, but with someof the principal bishops of Austrasia and Burgundy, among the rest withSt. Didier, bishop of Vienne, who, at her instigation, was brutallymurdered, and with the great Irish missionary St. Columba, who would notsanction by his blessing the fruits of the royal irregularities. In 614, after thirty-nine years of wars, plots, murders, and political andpersonal vicissitudes, from the death of her husband Sigebert I. , andunder the reigns of her son Theodebert, and her grandsons Theodebert II. And Thierry II. , Queen Brunehaut, at the age of eighty years, fell intothe hands of her mortal enemy, Clotaire II. , son of Fredegonde, now soleking of the Franks. After having grossly insulted her, he had herparaded, seated on a camel, in front of his whole army, and then orderedher to be tied by the hair, one foot, and one arm to the tail of anunbroken horse, that carried her away, and dashed her in pieces as hegalloped and kicked, beneath the eyes of the ferocious spectators. 

[Illustration: The Execution of Brunehaut----175]

After the execution of Brunehaut and the death of Clotaire II. , thehistory of the Franks becomes a little less dark and less bloody. Notthat murders and great irregularities, in the court and amongst thepeople, disappear altogether. Dagobert I. , for instance, the successorof Clotaire II. , and grandson of Chilperic and Fredegonde, had noscruple, under the pressure of self-interest, in committing an iniquitousand barbarous act. After having consented to leave to his youngerbrother Charibert the kingdom of Aquitania, he retook it by force in 631, at the death of Charibert, seizing at the same time his treasures, andcausing or permitting to be murdered his young nephew Chilperic, rightfulheir of his father. About the same time Dagobert had assigned amongstthe Bavarians, subjects of his beyond the Rhine, an asylum to ninethousand Bulgarians, who had been driven with their wives and childrenfrom Pannonia. Not knowing, afterwards, where to put or how to feedthese refugees, he ordered them all to be massacred in one night; andscarcely seven hundred of them succeeded in escaping by flight. Theprivate morals of Dagobert were not more scrupulous than his public acts. "A slave to incontinence as King Solomon was, " says his biographerFredegaire, "he had three queens and a host of concubines. " Given up toextravagance and pomp, it pleased him to imitate the magnificence of theimperial court at Constantinople, and at one time he laid hands for thatpurpose, upon the possessions of certain of his "leudes" or of certainchurches; at another he gave to his favorite church, the Abbey of St. Denis, "so many precious stones, articles of value, and domains invarious places, that all the world, " says Fredegaire, "was stricken withadmiration. " But, despite of these excesses and scandals, Dagobert wasthe most wisely energetic, the least cruel in feeling, the most prudentin enterprise, and the most capable of governing with some littleregularity and effectiveness, of all the kings furnished, since Clovis, by the Merovingian race. He had, on ascending the throne, this immenseadvantage, that the three Frankish dominions, Austrasia, Neustria, andBurgundy were re-united under his sway; and at the death of his brotherCharibert, he added thereto Aquitania. The unity of the vast Frankishmonarchy was thus re-established, and Dagobert retained it by hismoderation at home and abroad. He was brave, and he made war onoccasion; but, he did not permit himself to be dragged into it either byhis own passions or by the unlimited taste of his lieges for adventureand plunder. He found, on this point, salutary warnings in the historyof his predecessors. It was very often the Franks themselves, the royal"leudes, " who plunged their kings into civil or foreign wars. In 530, two sons of Clovis, Childebert and Clotaire, arranged to attack Burgundyand its king Godomar. They asked aid of their brother Theodoric, whorefused to join them. However, the Franks who formed his party said, "Ifthou refuse to march into Burgundy with thy brethren, we give thee up, and prefer to follow them. " But Theodoric, considering that theArvernians had been faithless to him, said to the Franks, "Follow me, andI will lead you into a country where ye shall seize of gold and silver asmuch as ye can desire, and whence ye shall take away flocks and slavesand vestments in abundance!" The Franks, overcome by these words, promised to do whatsoever he should desire. So Theodoric enteredAuvergne with his army, and wrought devastation and ruin in the province. 

"In 555, Clotaire I. Had made an expedition against the Saxons, whodemanded peace; but the Frankish warriors would not hear of it. 'Cease, I pray you, ' said Clotaire to them, 'to be evil-minded against these men;they speak us fair; let us not go and attack them, for fear we bring downupon us the anger of God. ' But the Franks would not listen to him. TheSaxons again came with offerings of vestments, flocks, even all theirpossessions, saying, 'Take all this, together with half our country;leave us but our wives and little children; only let there be no warbetween us. ' But the Franks again refused all terms. 'Hold, I adjureyou, ' said Clotaire again to them; 'we have not right on our side; if yebe thoroughly minded to enter upon a war in which ye may find your loss, as for me, I will not follow ye. ' Then the Franks, enraged againstClotaire, threw themselves upon him, tore his tent to pieces as theyheaped reproaches upon him, and bore him away by force, determined tokill him if he hesitated to march with them. So Clotaire, in spite ofhimself, departed with them. But when they joined battle they were cutto pieces by their adversaries, and on both sides so many fell that itwas impossible to estimate or count the number of the dead. ThenClotaire with shame demanded peace of the Saxons, saying that it was notof his own will that he had attacked them; and, having obtained it, returned to his own dominions. " (Gregory of Tours, III. Xi. , xii. ; IV. Xiv. )

King Dagobert was not thus under the yoke of his "leudes. " Either by hisown energy, or by surrounding himself with wise and influentialcounsellors, such as Pepin of Landen, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, St. Arnoul, bishop of Metz, St. Eligius, bishop of Noyon, and St. Andoenus, bishop of Rouen, he applied himself to and succeeded inassuring to himself, in the exercise of his power, a pretty large measureof independence and popularity. At the beginning of his reign he held, in Austrasia and Burgundy, a sort of administrative and judicialinspection, halting at the principal towns, listening to complaints, andchecking, sometimes with a rigor arbitrary indeed, but approved of by thepeople, the violence and irregularities of the grandees. At Langres, Dijon, St. Jean-de, Losne, Chalons-sur-Saline, Auxerre, Autun, and Sens, "he rendered justice, " says Fredegaire, "to rich and poor alike, withoutany charges, and without any respect of persons, taking little sleep andlittle food, caring only so to act that all should withdraw from hispresence full of joy and admiration. " Nor did he confine himself to thisunceremonious exercise of the royal authority. Some of his predecessors, and amongst them Childebert I. , Clotaire I. , and Clotaire II. , had causedto be drawn up, in Latin and by scholars, digests more or less completeof the laws and customs handed down by tradition, amongst certain of theGermanic peoples established on Roman soil, notably the laws of theSalian Franks and Ripuarian Franks; and Dagobert ordered a continuationof these first legislative labors amongst the newborn nations. It was, apparently, in his reign that a digest was made of the laws of theAllemannians and Bavarians. He had also some taste for the arts, and thepious talents displayed by Saints Eloi and Ouen in goldsmith's-work andsculpture, applied to the service of religion or the decoration ofchurches, received from him the support of the royal favor andmunificence. Dagobert was neither a great warrior nor a greatlegislator, and there is nothing to make him recognized as a great mindor a great character. His private life, too, was scandalous; andextortions were a sad feature of its close. Nevertheless his authoritywas maintained in his dominions, his reputation spread far and wide, andthe name of great King Dagobert was his abiding title in the memory ofthe people. Taken all in all, he was, next to Clovis, the mostdistinguished of Frankish kings, and the last really king in the line ofthe Merovingians. After him, from 638 to 732, twelve princes of thisline, one named Sigebert, two Clovis, two Childeric, one Clotaire, twoDagobert, one Childebert, one Chilperic, and two Throdoric or Thierry, bore, in Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy, or in the three kingdomsunited, the title of king, without deserving in history more than roomfor their names. There was already heard the rumbling of great events tocome around the Frankish dominion; and in the very womb of this dominionwas being formed a new race of kings more able to bear, in accordancewith the spirit and wants of their times, the burden of power. 

CHAPTER IX. ----THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. --THE PEPINS AND THE CHANGE OFDYNASTY. 

There is a certain amount of sound sense, of intelligent activity andpractical efficiency, which even the least civilized and least exactingcommunities absolutely must look for in their governing body. When thisnecessary share of ability and influence of a political kind aredecidedly wanting in the men who have the titles and the official postsof power, communities seek elsewhere the qualities (and theirconsequences) which they cannot do without. The sluggard Merovingiansdrove the Franks, Neustrians, and Austrasians to this imperativenecessity. The last of the kings sprung from Clovis acquitted themselvestoo ill or not at all of their task; and the mayors of the palace werenaturally summoned to supply their deficiencies, and to give thepopulations assurance of more intelligence and energy in the exercise ofpower. The origin and primitive character of these supplements ofroyalty were different according to circumstances; at one time, conformably with their title, the mayors of the palace really came intoexistence in the palace of the Frankish kings, amongst the "leudes, "charged, under the style of antrustions (lieges in the confidence of theking: in truste regia), with the internal management of the royal affairsand household, or amongst the superior chiefs of the army; at another, onthe contrary, it was to resist the violence and usurpation of the kingsthat the "leudes, " landholders or warriors, themselves chose a chief ableto defend their interests and their rights against the royal tyranny orincapacity. Thus we meet, at this time, with mayors of the palace ofvery different political origin and intention, some appointed by thekings to support royalty against the "leudes, " others chosen by the"leudes" against the kings. It was especially between the Neustrian andAustrasian mayors of the palace that this difference became striking. Gallo-Roman feeling was more prevalent in Neustria, Germanic inAustrasia. The majority of the Neustrian mayors supported the interestsof royalty, the Austrasian those of the aristocracy of landholders andwarriors. The last years of the Merovingian line were full of theirstruggles; but a cause far more general and more powerful than thesedifferences and conflicts in the very heart of the Frankish dominionsdetermined the definitive fall of that line and the accession of anotherdynasty. When in 687 the battle fought at Testry, on the banks of theSomme, left Pepin of Heristal, duke and mayor of the palace of Austrasia, victorious over Bertaire, mayor of the palace of Neustria, it was aquestion of something very different from mere rivalry between the twoFrankish dominions and their chiefs. 

At their entrance and settlement upon the left bank of the Rhine and inGaul, the Franks had not abandoned the right bank and Germany; there alsothey remained settled and incessantly at strife with their neighbors ofGermanic race, Thuringians, Bavarians, the confederation of Allemannians, Frisons, and Saxons, people frequently vanquished and subdued to allappearance, but always ready to rise either for the recovery of theirindependence, or, again, under the pressure of that grand movement which, in the third century, had determined the general invasion by thebarbarians of the Roman empire. After the defeat of the Huns at Chalons, and the founding of the Visigothic, Burgundian, and Frankish kingdoms inGaul, that movement had been, if not arrested, at any rate modified, andfor the moment suspended. In the sixth century it received a freshimpulse; new nations, Avars, Tartars, Bulgarians, Slavons, and Lombardsthrust one another with mutual pressure from Asia into Europe, fromEastern Europe into Western; from the North to the South, into Italy andinto Gaul. Driven by the Ouigour Tartars from Pannonia and Noricum(nowadays Austria), the Lombards threw themselves first upon Italy, crossed before long the Alps, and penetrated into Burgundy and Provence, to the very gates of Avignon. On the Rhine and along the Jura the Frankshad to struggle on their own account against the new comers; and theywere, further, summoned into Italy by the Emperors of the East, whowanted their aid against the Lombards. Everywhere resistance to theinvasion of barbarians became the national attitude of the Franks, andthey proudly proclaimed themselves the defenders of that West of whichthey had but lately been the conquerors. 

When the Merovingians were indisputably nothing but sluggard kings, andwhen Ebroin, the last great mayor of the palace of Neustria, had beenassassinated (in 681), and the army of the Neustrians destroyed at thebattle of Testry (in 687), the ascendency in the heart of the whole ofFrankish Gaul passed to the Franks of Austrasia, already bound by theirgeographical position to the defence of their nation in its newsettlement. There had risen up among them a family, powerful from itsvast domains, from its military and political services, and already alsofrom the prestige belonging to the hereditary transmission of name andpower. Its first chief known in history had been Pepin of Landen, calledThe Ancient, one of the foes of Queen Brunehaut, who was so hateful tothe Austrasians, and afterwards one of the privy councillors and mayor ofthe palace of Austrasia, under Dagobert I. And his son Sigebert II. Hedied in 639, leaving to his family an influence already extensive. Hisson Grimoald succeeded him as mayor of the palace, ingloriously; but hisgrandson, by his daughter Bega, Pepin of Heristal, was for twenty-sevenyears not only virtually, as mayor of the palace, but ostensibly and withthe title of duke, the real sovereign of Austrasia and all the Frankishdominion. He did not, however, take the name of king; and fourdescendants of Clovis, Thierry III. , Clovis III. , Childebert III. , andDagobert III. Continued to bear that title in Neustria and Burgundy, under the preponderating influence of Pepin of Heristal. He did, duringhis long sway, three things of importance. He struggled withoutcessation to keep or bring back under the rule of the Franks the Germanicnations on the right bank of the Rhine, --Frisons, Saxons, Thuringians, Bavarians, and Allemannians; and thus to make the Frankish dominion abulwark against the new flood of barbarians who were pressing one anotherwestwards. 

He rekindled in Austrasia the national spirit and some political life bybeginning again the old March parades of the Franks, which had falleninto desuetude under the last Merovingians. Lastly, and this was, perhaps, his most original merit, he understood of what importance, forthe Frankish kingdom, was the conversion to Christianity of the Germanicpeoples over the Rhine, and he abetted with all his might the zeal of thepopes and missionaries, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and Gallo-Roman, devoted tothis great work. The two apostles of Friesland, St. Willfried and St. Willibrod, especially the latter, had intimate relations with Pepin ofHeristal, and received from him effectual support. More than twentybishoprics, amongst others those of Utrecht, Mayence, Ratisbonne, Worms, and Spire, were founded at this epoch; and one of those ardent pioneersof Christian civilization, the Irish bishop, St. Lievin, martyred in 656near Ghent, of which he has remained the patron saint, wrote in verse tohis friend Herbert, a little before his martyrdom, "I have seen a sunwithout rays, days without light, and nights without repose. Around merageth a people impious and clamorous for my blood. O people, what harmhave I done thee? 'Tis peace that I bring thee; wherefore declare waragainst me? But thy barbarism will bring my triumph and give me the palmof martyrdom. I know in whom I trust, and my hope shall not beconfounded. Whilst I am pouring forth these verses, there cometh unto methe tired driver of the ass that beareth me the usual provisions: hebringeth that which maketh the delights of the country, even milk andbutter and eggs; the cheeses stretch the wicker-work of the far toonarrow panniers. Why tarriest thou, good carrier? Quicken thy step;collect thy riches, thou that this morning art so poor. As for me I amno longer what I was, and have lost the gift of joyous verse. How couldit be other-wise when I am witness of such cruelties?"

It were difficult to describe with more pious, graceful, and melancholyfeeling a holier and a simpler life. 

After so many firm and glorious acts of authority abroad, Pepin ofHeristal at his death, December 16, 714, did a deed of weakness at home. He had two wives, Plectrude and Alpaide; he had repudiated the former toespouse the latter, and the church, considering the second marriageunlawful, had constantly urged him to take back Plectrude. He had by hera son, Grimoald, who was assassinated on his way to join his father lyingill near Liege. This son left a child, Theodoald, only six years old. This child it was whom Pepin, either from a grandfather's blind fondness, or through the influence of his wife Plectrude, appointed to succeed him, to the detriment of his two sons by Alpaide, Charles and Childebrand. Charles, at that time twenty-five years of age, had already a name forcapacity and valor. On the death of Pepin, his widow Plectrude lost notime in arresting and imprisoning at Cologne this son of her rivalAlpaide; but, some months afterwards, in 715, the Austrasians, havingrisen against Plectrude, took Charles out of prison and set him at theirhead, proclaiming him Duke of Austrasia. He was destined to becomeCharles Martel. 

He first of all took care to extend and secure his own authority over allthe Franks. At the death of Pepin of Heristal, the Neustrians, vexed atthe long domination of the Austrasians, had taken one of themselves, Ragenfried, as mayor of the palace, and had placed at his side aMerovingian sluggard king, Chilperic II. , whom they had dragged from amonastery. Charles, at the head of the Austrasians, twice succeeded inbeating, first near Cambrai and then near Soissons, the Neustrian kingand mayor of the palace, pursued them to Paris, returned to Cologne, gothimself accepted by his old enemy Queen Plectrude, and remainingtemperate amidst the triumph of his ambition, he, too, took from amongstthe surviving Merovingians a sluggard king, whom he installed under thename of Clotaire IV. , himself becoming, with the simple title of Duke ofAustrasia, master of the Frankish dominion. 

Being in tranquillity on the left bank of the Rhine, Charles directedtowards the right bank--towards the Frisons and the Saxons--his attentionand his efforts. After having experienced, in a first encounter, asomewhat severe check, he took, from 715 to 718, ample revenge upon them, repressed their attempts at invasion of Frankish territory, and pursuedthem on their own, imposed tribute upon them, and commenced with vigor, against the Saxons in particular, that struggle, at first defensive andafterwards aggressive, which was to hold so prominent a place in the lifeand glorious but blood-stained annals of his grandson Charlemagne. 

In the war against the Neustrians, at the battle of Soissons in 719, Charles had encountered in their ranks Eudes or Eudon, Duke of Aquitaniaand Vasconia, that beautiful portion of Southern Gaul situated betweenthe Pyrenees, the Ocean, the Garonne, and the Rhone, who had been for along time trying to shake off the dominion of the barbarians, Visigothsor Franks. At the death of Pepin of Heristal, the Neustrians had drawninto alliance with them, for their war against the Austrasians, this DukeElides, to whom they gave, as it appears, the title of king. After theircommon defeat at Soissons, the Aquitanian prince withdrew precipitatelyinto his own country, taking with him the sluggard king of theNeustrians, Chilperic II. Charles pursued him to the Loire, and sentword to him, a few months afterwards, that he would enter into friendshipwith him if he would deliver up Chilperic and his treasures; otherwise hewould invade and ravage Aquitania. Eudes delivered up Chilperic and histreasures; and Charles, satisfied with having in his power thisMerovingian phantom, treated him generously, kept up his royal rank, andat his death, which happened soon afterwards, replaced him by anotherphantom of the same line, Theodoric or Thierry IV. ; whom he dragged fromthe abbey of Chelles, founded by Queen St. Bathilde, wife of Clovis II. , and who for seventeen years bore the title of king, whilst Charles Martelwas ruling gloriously, and was, perhaps, the savior of the Frankishdominions. When he contracted his alliance with the Duke of Aquitania, Charles Martel did not know against what enemies and perils he would soonhave to struggle. 

In the earlier years of the eighth century, less than a hundred yearsfrom the death of Mahomet, the Mussulman Arabs, after having conqueredSyria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Northern Africa, had passed into Europe, invaded Spain, overthrown the kingdom of the Visigoths, driven back theremnants of the nation and their chief, Pelagius, to the north of thePeninsula, into the Asturias and Galicia, and pushed even beyond thePyrenees, into old Narbonness, then called Septimania, their limitlessincursions. These fiery conquerors did not amount at that time, according to the most probable estimates, to more than fifty thousand;but they were under the influence of religious and warlike enthusiasm atone and the same time; they were fanatics in the cause of Deism and ofglory. "The Arab warrior during campaigns was not excused from any oneof the essential duties of Islamism; he was bound to pray at least once aday, on rising in the morning, at the blush of dawn. The general of thearmy was its priest; he it was who, at the head of the ranks, gave thesignal for prayer, uttered the words, reminded the troops of the preceptsof the Koran, and enjoined upon them forgetfulness of personal quarrels. "One day, on the point of engaging in a decisive battle, Moussaben-Nossair, first governor of Mussulman Africa, was praying, according tousage, at the head of the troops; and he omitted the invocation of thename of the Khalif, a respectful formality indispensable on the occasion. One of his officers, persuaded that it was a mere slip on Moussa's part, made a point of admonishing him. "Know thou, " said Moussa, "that we arein such a position and at such an hour that no other name must be invokedsave that of the most high God. " Moussa was, apparently, the first Arabchief to cross the Pyrenees and march, plundering as he went, intoNarbonness. The Arabs had but very confused ideas of Gaul; they calledit _Frandjas, _ and gave to all its inhabitants, without distinction, thename of Frandj. The Khalif Abdelmelek, having recalled Moussa, questioned him about the different peoples with which he had beenconcerned. "And of these Frandj, " said he, "what hast thou to tell me?""They are a people, " answered Moussa, "very many in number and abundantlyprovided with everything, brave and impetuous in attack, but spiritlessand timid under reverses. " "And how went the war betwixt them and thee?"added Abdelmelek: "was it favorable to thee or the contrary?" "Thecontrary! Nay, by Allah and the Prophet; never was my army vanquished;never was a battalion beaten; and never did the Mussulmans hesitate tofollow me when I led them forty against fourscore. " (Fauriel, _Histoirede la Gaule, _ &c. , t. III. , pp. 48, 67. )

In 719, under El-Idaur-ben-Abdel-Rhaman, a valiant and able leader, saythe Arab writers, but greedy, harsh, and cruel, the Arabs pursued theirincursions into Southern Gaul, took Narbonne, dispersed the inhabitants, spread themselves abroad in search of plunder as far as the borders ofthe Garonne, and went and laid siege to Toulouse. Eudes, Duke ofAquitania, happened to be at Bordeaux, and he hastily summoned all theforces of his towns and all the populations from the Pyrenees to theLoire, and hurried to the relief of his capital. The Arabs, commandedby a new chieftain, El-Samah, more popular amongst them than El-Haur, awaited him beneath the walls of the city determined to give him battle. "Have ye no fear of this multitude, " said El-Samah to his warriors; "ifGod be with us, who shall be against us? "Elides had taken equally greatpains to kindle the pious courage of the Aquitanians; he spread amongsthis troops a rumor that he had but lately received as a present from PopeGregory II. Three sponges that had served to wipe down the table at whichthe sovereign pontiffs were accustomed to celebrate the communion; he hadthem cut into little strips which he had distributed to all those of thecombatants who wished for them, and thereupon gave the sword to sound thecharge. The victory of the Aquitanians was complete; the Arab army wascut in pieces; El-Samah was slain, and with him, according to thevictors' accounts, full three hundred and seventy-five thousand of histroops. The most truth-like testimonies and calculations do not put downat more than from fifty to seventy thousand men, in fighting trim, thenumber of Arabs that entered Spain eight or ten years previously, evenwith the additions it must have received by means of the emigrations fromAfrica; and undoubtedly El-Samah could not have led into Aquitania morethan from forty to forty-five thousand. However that may be, the defeatof the Arabs before Toulouse was so serious that, four or five centuriesafterwards, Ibn-Hayan, the best of their historians, still spoke of it asthe object of solemn commemoration, and affirmed that the Arab army hadentirely perished there, without the escape of a single man. The spot inthe Roman road, between Carcassonne and Toulouse, where the battle wasfought, was one heap of dead bodies, and continued to be mentioned in theArab chronicles under the name of Martyrs' Causeway. But the Arabs ofSpain were then in that unstable social condition and in that heyday ofimpulsive youthfulness as a people, when men are more apt to be excitedand attracted by the prospect of bold adventures than discouraged byreverses. El-Samah, on crossing the Pyrenees to go plundering andconquering in the country of the Frandj, had left as his lieutenant inthe Iberian peninsula Anbessa-ben-Sohim, one of the most able, mostpious, most just, and most humane chieftains, say the Arab chronicles, that Islamism ever produced in Europe. He, being informed of El-Samah'sdeath before Toulouse, resolved to resume his enterprise and avenge hisdefeat. In 725, he entered Gaul with a strong army; took Carcassonne;reduced, either by force or by treaty, the principal towns of Septimaniato submission; and even carried the Arab arms, for the first time, beyondthe Rhone into Provence. At the news of this fresh invasion Duke Eudeshurried from Aquitania, collecting on his march the forces of thecountry, and, after having waited some time for a favorable opportunity, gave the Arabs battle in Provence. It was indecisive at first, butultimately won by the Christians without other result than the retreat ofAnbessa, mortally wounded, upon the right bank of the Rhone, where hedied without having been able himself to recross the Pyrenees, butleaving the Arabs masters of Septimania, where they establishedthemselves in force, taking Narbonne for capital and a starting-pointfor their future enterprises. 

The struggle had now begun in earnest, from the Rhone to the Garonne andthe Ocean, between the Christians of Southern Gaul and the Mussulmans ofSpain. Duke Eudes saw with profound anxiety his enemies settled inSeptimania, and ever on the point of invading and devastating Aquitania. He had been informed that the Khalif Hashem had just appointed to thegovernor-generalship of Spain Abdel-Rhaman (the Abderame of theChristian chronicles), regarded as the most valiant of the Spanish Arabs, and that this chieftain was making great preparations for resuming theircourse of invasion. Another peril at the same time pressed heavily onDuke Eudes: his northern neighbor, Charles, sovereign duke of the Franks, the conqueror, beyond the Rhine, of the Frisons and Saxons, was directingglances full of regret towards those beautiful countries of SouthernGaul, which in former days Clovis had won from the Visigoths, and whichhad been separated, little by little, from the Frankish empire. Eitherjustly or by way of ruse Charles accused Duke Eudes of not faithfullyobserving the treaty of peace they had concluded in 720; and on thispretext he crossed the Loire, and twice in the same year, 731, carriedfear and rapine into the possession of the Duke of Aquitania on the leftbank of that river. Eudes went, not unsuccessfully, to the rescue ofhis domains; but he was soon recalled to the Pyrenees by the news hereceived of the movements of Abdel-Rhaman and by the hope he hadconceived of finding, in Spain itself and under the sway of the Arabs, an ally against their invasion of his dominions. The military commandof the Spanish frontier of the Pyrenees and of the Mussulman forcesthere encamped had been intrusted to Othman-ben-Abi-Nessa, a chieftainof renown, but no Arab, either in origin or at heart, although aMussulman. He belonged to the race of Berbers, whom the Romans calledMoors, a people of the north-west of Africa, conquered and subjugated bythe Arabs, but impatient under the yoke. The greater part of Abi-Nessa's troops were likewise Berbers and devoted to their chiefs. Abi-Nessa, ambitious and audacious, conceived the project of seizing thegovernment of the Peninsula, or at the least of making himselfindependent master of the districts he governed; and he entered intonegotiations with the Duke of Aquitania to secure his support. In spiteof religious differences their interests were too similar not to make anunderstanding easy; and the secret alliance was soon concluded andconfirmed by a precious pledge. Duke Eudes had a daughter of rarebeauty, named Lampagie, and he gave her in marriage to Abi-Nessa, who, say the chronicles, became desperately enamoured of her. 

But whilst Eudes, trusting to this alliance, was putting himself inmotion towards the Loire to protect his possessions against a freshattack from the Duke of the Franks, the governor-general of Spain, Abdel-Rhaman, informed of Abi-Nessa's plot, was arriving with large forces atthe foot of the Pyrenees, to stamp out the rebellion. Its repression waseasy. "At the approach of Abdel-Rhaman, " say the chroniclers, "Abi-Nessahastened to shut himself up in Livia [the ancient capital of Cerdagne, onthe ruins of which Puycerda was built], flattering himself that he couldsustain a siege and there await succor from his father-in-law, Eudes; butthe advance-guard of Abdel-Rhaman followed him so closely and with suchardor that it left him no leisure to make the least preparation fordefence. Abi-Nessa, had scarcely time to fly from the town and gain theneighboring mountains with a few servants and his well-beloved Lampagie. Already he had penetrated into an out-of-the-way and lonely pass, whereit seemed to him he ran no more risk of being discovered. He halted, therefore, to rest himself and quench the thirst which was tormenting hislovely companion and himself, beside a waterfall which gushed from a massof lofty rocks upon a piece of fresh, green turf. They were surrenderingthemselves to the delightful feeling of being saved, when, all at once, they hear a loud sound of steps and voices; they listen; they glance inthe direction of the sound, and perceive a detachment of armed men, oneof those that were out in search of them. The servants take to flight;but Lampagie, too weary, cannot follow them, nor can Abi-Nessa abandonLampagie. In the twinkling of an eye they are surrounded by foes. Thechronicler Isidore of Bdja says that Abi-Nessa, in order not to fallalive into their hands, flung himself from top to bottom of the rocks;and an Arab historian relates that he took sword in hand, and fellpierced with twenty lance-thrusts whilst fighting in defence of her heloved. They cut off his head, which was forthwith carried to Abdel-Rhaman, to whom they led away prisoner the hapless daughter of Eudes. She was so lovely in the eyes of Abdel-Rhaman, that he thought it hisduty to send her to Damascus, to the commander of the faithful, esteemingno other mortal worthy of her. " (Fauriel, _Historie de la Gaulle, _ &c. , t. III. , p. 115. )

Abdel-Rhaman, at ease touching the interior of Spain, reassembled theforces he had prepared for his expedition, marched towards the Pyreneesby Pampeluna, crossed the summit become so famous under the name of Portde Roncevaux, and debouched by a single defile and in a single column, say the chroniclers, upon Gallic Vasconia, greater in extent than FrenchBiscay now is. M. Fauriel, after scrupulous examination, according tohis custom, estimates the army of Abdel-Rhaman, whether Mussulmanadventurers flocking from all parts, or Arabs of Spain, at fromsixty-five to seventy thousand fighting men. Duke Eudes made a gallanteffort to stop his march and hurl him back towards the mountains; butexhausted, even by certain small successes, and always forced to retire, fight after fight, up to the approaches to Bordeaux, he crossed theGaronne, and halted on the right bank of the river, to cover the city. Abdel-Rhaman who had followed him closely, forced the passage of theriver, and a battle was fought, in which the Aquitanians were defeatedwith immense loss. "God alone, " says Isidore of Beja, "knows the numberof those who fell. " The battle gained, Abdel-Rhaman took Bordeaux byassault and delivered it over to his army. The plunder, to believe thehistorians of the conquerors, surpassed all that had been preconceivedof the wealth of the vanquished: "The most insignificant soldier, " saythey, "had for his share plenty of topazes, jacinths, and emeralds, tosay nothing of gold, a somewhat vulgar article under the circumstances. "What appears certain is that, at their departure from Bordeaux, theArabs were so laden with booty that their march became less rapid andunimpeded than before. 

In the face of this disaster, the Franks and their duke were evidentlythe only support to which Eudes could have recourse; and he repaired inall haste to Charles and invoked his aid against the common enemy, who, after having crushed the Aquitanians, would soon attack the Franks, andsubject them in turn to ravages and outrages. Charles did not requiresolicitation. He took an oath of the Duke of Aquitania to acknowledgehis sovereignty and thenceforth remain faithful to him; and then, summoning all his warriors, Franks, Burgundians, Gallo-Romans, andGermans from beyond the Rhine, he set himself in motion towards theLoire. It was time. The Arabs had spread over the whole country betweenthe Garonne and the Loire; they had even crossed the latter river andpenetrated into Burgundy as far as Autun and Sens, ravaging the country, the towns, and the monasteries, and massacring or dispersing thepopulations. Abdel-Rhaman had heard tell of the city of Tours and itsrich abbey, the treasures whereof, it was said, surpassed those of anyother city and any other abbey in Gaul. Burning to possess it, herecalled towards this point his scattered forces. On arriving atPoitiers he found the gates closed and the inhabitants resolved to defendthemselves; and, after a fruitless attempt at assault, he continued hismarch towards Tours. He was already beneath the walls of the place whenhe learned that the Franks were rapidly advancing in vast numbers. Hefell back towards Poitiers, collecting the troops that were returning tohim from all quarters, embarrassed with the immense booty they weredragging in their wake. He had for a moment, say the historians, an ideaof ordering his soldiers to leave or burn their booty, to keep nothingbut their arms, and think of nothing but battle: however, he did nothingof the kind, and, to await the Franks, he fixed his camp between theVienne and the Clain, near Poitiers, not far from the spot where, twohundred and twenty-five years before, Clovis had beaten the Visigoths;or, according to others, nearer Tours, at Mire, in a plain still calledthe Landes de Charlemagne. 

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF TOURS----193]

The Franks arrived. It was in the month of September or October, 732:and the two armies passed a week face to face, at one time remaining intheir camps, at another deploying without attacking. It is quite certainthat neither Franks nor Arabs, neither Charles nor Abdel-Rhamanthemselves, took any such account, as we do in our day, of the importanceof the struggle in which they were on the point of engaging; it was astruggle between East and West, South and North, Asia and Europe, theGospel and the Koran; and we now say, on a general consideration ofevents, peoples, and ages, that the civilization of the world dependedupon it. The generations that are passing upon earth see not so far, norfrom such a height, the chances and consequences of their acts; theFranks and Arabs, leaders and followers, did not regard themselves, nownearly twelve centuries ago, as called upon to decide, near Poitiers, such future question; but vaguely, instinctively they felt the grandeurof the part they were playing, and they mutually scanned one another withthat grave curiosity which precedes a formidable encounter betweenvaliant warriors. At length, at the breaking of the seventh or eighthday, Abdel-Rhaman, at the head of his cavalry, ordered a general attack;and the Franks received it with serried ranks, astounding their enemiesby their tall stature, stout armor, and their stern immobility. "Theystood there, " says Isidore of Beja, "like solid walls or icebergs. "During the fight, a body of Franks penetrated into the enemy's camp, either for pillage or to take the Arabs in the rear. The horsemen ofAbdel-Rhaman at once left the general attack, and turned back to defendtheir camp or the booty deposited there. Disorder set in amongst them, and, before long, throughout their whole army; and the battle became aconfused melley, wherein the lofty stature and stout armor of the Frankshad the advantage. A great number of Arabs and Abdel-Rhaman himself wereslain. At the approach of night both armies retired to their camps. Thenext day, at dawn, the Franks moved out of theirs, to renew theengagement. In front of them was no stir, no noise, no Arabs out oftheir tents and reassembling in their ranks. Some Franks were sent toreconnoitre, entered the enemy's camp, and penetrated into their tents;but they were deserted. "The Arabs had decamped silently in the night, leaving the bulk of their booty, and by this precipitate retreatacknowledging a more severe defeat than they had really sustained in thefight. "

[Illustration: "The Arabs had decamped silently in the night. "----195]

Foreseeing the effect which would be produced by their reverse in thecountry they had but lately traversed as conquerors, they halted nowhere, but hastened to reenter Septimania and their stronghold Narbonne, wherethey might await reenforcements from Spain. Duke Eudes, on his side, after having, as vassal, taken the oath of allegiance to Charles, whowill be henceforth called Charles Martel (Hammer), that glorious namewhich he won by the great blow he dealt the Arabs, reentered hisdominions of Aquitania and Vasconia, and applied himself to thereestablishment there of security and of his own power. As for CharlesMartel, indefatigable alike after and before victory, he did not considerhis work in Southern Gaul as accomplished. He wished to recover andreconstitute in its entirety the Frankish dominion; and he at onceproceeded to reunite to it Provence and the portions of the old kingdomof Burgundy situated between the Alps and the Rhone, starting from Lyons. His first campaign with this object, in 733, was successful; he retookLyons, Vienne, and Valence, without any stoppage up to the Durance, andcharged chosen "leudes" to govern these provinces with a view especiallyto the repression of attempts at independence at home and incursions onthe part of the Arabs abroad. And it was not long before these twoperils showed head. The government of Charles Martel's "leudes" was hardto bear for populations accustomed for some time past to have their ownway, and for their local chieftains thus stripped of their influence. Maurontius, patrician of Arles, was the most powerful and daring of thesechieftains; and he had at heart the independence of his country and hisown power far more than Frankish grandeur. Caring little, no doubt, forthe interests of religion, he entered into negotiations with Youssouf-ben-Abdel-Rhaman, governor of Narbonne, and summoned the Mussulmans intoProvence. Youssouf lost no time in responding to the summons; and, from734 to 736, the Arabs conquered and were in military occupation of theleft bank of the Rhone from Arles to Lyons. But in 737 Charles Martelreturned, reentered Lyons and Avignon, and, crossing the Rhone, marchedrapidly on Narbonne, to drive the Arabs from Septimania. He succeeded inbeating them within sight of their capital; but, after a few attempts atassault, not being able to become master of it, he returned to Provence, laying waste on his march several towns of Septimania, Agde, Maguelonne, and Nimes, where he tried, but in vain, to destroy the famous Romanarenas by fire, as one blows up an enemy's fortress. A rising of theSaxons recalled him to Northern Gaul; and scarcely had he set out fromProvence, when national insurrection and Arab invasion recommenced. Charles Martel waited patiently as long as the Saxons resisted; but assoon as he was at liberty on their score, in 739, he collected a strongarmy, made a third campaign along the Rhone, retook Avignon, crossed theDurance, pushed on as far as the sea, took Marseilles, and then Arles, and drove the Arabs definitively from Provence. Some Mussulman bandsattempted to establish themselves about St. Tropez, on the rugged heightsand among the forests of the Alps; but Charles Martel carried his pursuiteven into those wild retreats, and all Southern Gaul, on the left bank ofthe Rhone, was incorporated in the Frankish dominion, which will behenceforth called France. 

The ordinary revenues of Charles Martel clearly could not suffice for somany expeditions and wars. He was obliged to attract or retain by richpresents, particularly by gifts of lands, the warriors, old and new"leudes, " who formed his strength. He therefore laid hands on a greatnumber of the domains of the Church, and gave them, with the title ofbenefices, in temporary holding, often converted into proprietorship, and under the style of precarious tenure, to the chiefs in his service. There was nothing new in this: the Merovingian kings and the mayors ofthe palace had more than once thus made free with ecclesiasticalproperty; but Charles Martel carried this practice much farther than hispredecessors had. He did more: he sometimes gave his warriorsecclesiastical offices and dignities. His liege Milo received from himthe archbishoprics of Rheims and Troves; and his nephew Hugh those ofParis, Rouen, and Bayeux, with the abbeys of Fontenelle and Jumieges. The Church protested with all her might against such violations of hermission and her interest, her duties and her rights. She was sospecially set against Charles Martel that, more than a century after hisdeath, in 858, the bishops of France, addressing themselves to Louis theGermanic on this subject, wrote to him, "St. Eucherius, bishop ofOrleans, who now reposeth in the monastery of St. Trudon, being atprayer, was transported into the realms of eternity; and there, amongstother things which the Lord did show unto him, he saw Prince Charlesdelivered over to the torments of the damned in the lowest regions ofhell. And St. Eucherius demanding of the angel, his guide, what was thereason thereof, the angel answered that it was by sentence of the saintswhom he had robbed of their possessions, and who, at the day of the lastjudgment, will sit with God to judge the world. "

Whilst thus making use, at the expense of the Church, and for politicalinterests, of material force, Charles Martel was far frommisunderstanding her moral influence and the need he had of her supportat the very time when he was incurring her anathemas. Not content withdefending Christianity against Islamism, he aided it against Paganism bylending the Christian missionaries in Germany and the north-west ofEurope, amongst others St. Willibrod and St. Boniface, the most effectualassistance. In 724, he addressed to all religious and politicalauthorities that could be reached by his influence, not only to thebishops, "but to the dukes, counts, their vicars, our palatines, all ouragents, our envoys, and our friends this circular letter: 'Know that asuccessor of the Apostles, our father in Christ, Boniface, bishop, hathcome unto us saying that we ought to take him under our safeguard andprotection. We do you to wit that we do so very willingly. Wherefore wehave thought proper to give him confirmation thereof under our own hand, in order that, whithersoever he may go, he may there be in peace andsafety in the name of our affection and under our safeguard; in such sortthat he may be able everywhere to render, do, and receive justice. Andif he come to find himself in any pass or necessity which cannot bedetermined by law, that he may remain in peace and safety until he become into our presence, he and all who shall have hope in him ordependence on him. That none may dare to be contrary-minded towards himor do him damage; and that he may rest at all times in tranquillity andsafety under our safeguard and protection. And in order that this may beregarded as certified, we have subscribed these letters with our own handand sealed them with our ring. '"

Here were clearly no vague and meaningless words, written to satisfysolicitation, and without a thought of their consequences: they wereurgent recommendations and precise injunctions, the most proper forsecuring success to the protected in the name of the protector. Accordingly St. Boniface wrote, soon after, from the heart of Germany, "Without the patronage of the prince of the Franks, without his order andthe fear of his power, I could not guide the people, or defend thepriests, deacons, monks, or handmaids of God, or forbid in this countrythe rites of the Pagans and their sacrilegious worship of idols. "

At the same time that he protected the Christian missionaries launchedinto the midst of Pagan Germany, Charles Martel showed himself equallyready to protect, but with as much prudence as good-will, the head of theChristian Church. In 741, Pope Gregory III. Sent to him two nuncios, thefirst that ever entered France in such a character, to demand of himsuccor against the Lombards, the Pope's neighbors, who were threateningto besiege Rome. These envoys took Charles Martel "so many presents thatnone had ever seen or heard tell of the like, " and amongst them the keysof St. Peter's tomb, with a letter in which the Pope conjured CharlesMartel not to attach any credit to the representations or words ofLuitprandt, king of the Lombards, and to lend the Roman Church thateffectual support which, for some time past, she had been vainlyexpecting from the Franks and their chief. "Let them come, we are told, "wrote the Pope, piteously, "this Charles with whom ye have sought refuge, and the armies of the Franks; let them sustain ye, if they can, and wrestye from our hands. " Charles Martel was in fact on good terms withLuitprandt, who had come to his aid in his expeditions against the Arabsin Provence. He, however, received the Pope's nuncios with livelysatisfaction and the most striking proofs of respect; and he promisedthem, not to make war on the Lombards, but to employ his influence withKing Luitprandt to make him cease from threatening Rome. He sent, in histurn, to the Pope two envoys of distinction, Sigebert, abbot of St. Denis, and Grimon, abbot of Corbie, with instructions to offer him richpresents and to really exert themselves with the king of the Lombards toremove the dangers dreaded by the Holy See. He wished to do something infavor of the Papacy to show sincere good-will, without making hisrelations with useful allies subordinate to the desires of the Pope. 

Charles Martel had not time to carry out effectually with respect to thePapacy this policy of protection and at the same time of independence; hedied at the close of this same year, October 22, 741, at Kiersy-sur-Oise, aged fifty-two years, and his last act was the least wise of his life. He had spent it entirely in two great works, the reestablishmentthroughout the whole of Gaul of the Franco-Gallo-Roman empire, and thedriving back from the frontiers of this empire, of the Germans in thenorth and the Arabs in the south. The consequence, as also thecondition, of this double success was the victory of Christianity overPaganism and Islamism. Charles Martel endangered these results byfalling back into the groove of those Merovingian kings whose shadow hehad allowed to remain on the throne. He divided between his twolegitimate sons, Pepin, called the Short, from his small stature, andCarloman, this sole dominion which he had with so much toil reconstitutedand defended. Pepin had Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and the suzeraintyof Aquitaine; Carloman, Austrasia, Thuringia, and Allemannia. They both, at their father's death, took only the title of mayor of the palace, and, perhaps, of duke. The last but one of the Merovingians, Thierry IV. , haddied in 737. For four years there had been no king at all. 

But when the works of men are wise and true, that is, in conformity withthe lasting wants of peoples, and the natural tendency of social facts, they get over even the mistakes of their authors. Immediately after thedeath of Charles Martel, the consequences of dividing his empire becamemanifest. In the north, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Allemanniansrenewed their insurrections. In the south, the Arabs of Septimaniarecovered their hopes of effecting an invasion; and Hunald, Duke ofAquitaine, who had succeeded his father Eudes, after his death in 735, made a fresh attempt to break away from Frankish sovereignty and win hisindependence. Charles Martel had left a young son, Grippo, whoselegitimacy had been disputed, but who was not slow to set up pretensionsand to commence intriguing against his brothers. Everywhere there burstout that reactionary movement which arises against grand and difficultworks when the strong hand that undertook them is no longer by tomaintain them; but this movement was of short duration and to littlepurpose. Brought up in the school and in the fear of their father, histwo sons, Pepin and Carloman, were inoculated with his ideas and example;they remained united in spite of the division of dominions, and laboredtogether, successfully, to keep down, in the north the Saxons andBavarians, in the south the Arabs and Aquitanians, supplying want ofunity by union, and pursuing with one accord the constant aim of CharlesMartel--abroad the security and grandeur of the Frankish dominion, athome the cohesion of all its parts and the efficacy of its government. Events came to the aid of this wise conduct. Five years after the deathof Charles Martel, in 746 in fact, Carloman, already weary of the burdenof power, and seized with a fit of religious zeal, abdicated his share ofsovereignty, left his dominions to his brother Pepin, had himself shornby the hands of Pope Zachary, and withdrew into Italy to the monastery ofMonte Cassino. The preceding year, in 745, Hunald, Duke of Aquitaine, with more patriotic and equally pious views, also abdicated in favor ofhis son Waifre, whom he thought more capable than himself of winning theindependence of Aquitaine, and went and shut himself up in a monastery inthe island of Rhe, where was the tomb of his father Eudes. In the courseof divers attempts at conspiracy and insurrection, the Frankish princes'young brother, Grippo, was killed in combat whilst crossing the Alps. The furious internal dissensions amongst the Arabs of Spain and theirincessant wars with the Berbers did not allow them to pursue any greatenterprise in Gaul. Thanks to all these circumstances, Pepin foundhimself, in 747, sole master of the heritage of Clovis and with the solecharge of pursuing, in State and Church, his father's work, which was theunity and grandeur of Christian France. 

Pepin, less enterprising than his father, but judicious, persevering, andcapable of discerning what was at the same time necessary and possible, was well fitted to continue and consolidate what he would, probably, never have begun and created. 

Like his father, he, on arriving at power, showed pretensions tomoderation, or, it might be said, modesty. He did not take the title ofking; and, in concert with his brother Carloman, he went to seek, Heavenknows in what obscure asylum, a forgotten Merovingian, son of ChilpericII. , the last but one of the sluggard kings, and made him king, the lastof his line, with the title of Childeric III. , himself, as well as hisbrother, taking only the style of mayor of the palace. But at the end often years, and when he saw himself alone at the head of the Frankishdominion, Pepin considered the moment arrived for putting an end to thisfiction. In 751, he sent to Pope Zachary at Rome, Burchard, bishop ofWurtzhurg, and Fulrad, abbot of St. Denis, "to consult the Pontiff, " saysEginhard, "on the subject of the kings then existing amongst the Franks, and who bore only the name of king without enjoying a tittle of royalauthority. " The Pope, whom St. Boniface, the great missionary ofGermany, had prepared for the question, answered that "it was better togive the title of king to him who exercised the sovereign power;" andnext year, in March, 752, in the presence and with the assent of thegeneral assembly of "leudes" and bishops gathered together at Soissons, Pepin was proclaimed king of the Franks, and received from the hand ofSt. Boniface the sacred anointment. They cut off the hair of the lastMerovingian phantom, Childeric III. , and put him away in the monastery ofSt. Sithiu, at St. Omer. Two years later, July 28, 754, Pope StephenII. , having come to France to claim Pepin's support against the Lombards, after receiving from him assurance of it, "anointed him afresh with theholy oil in the church of St. Denis to do honor in his person to thedignity of royalty, " and conferred the same honor on the king's two sons, Charles and Carloman. The new Gallo-Frankish kingship and the Papacy, inthe name of their common faith and common interests, thus contracted anintimate alliance. The young Charles was hereafter to becomeCharlemagne. 

The same year, Boniface, whom, six years before, Pope Zachary had madeArchbishop of Mayence, gave up one day the episcopal dignity to hisdisciple Lullus, charging him to carry on the different works himself hadcommenced amongst the churches of Germany, and to uphold the faith of thepeople. "As for me, " he added, "I will put myself on my road, for thetime of my passing away approacheth. I have longed for this departure, and none can turn me from it; wherefore, my son, get all things ready, and place in the chest with my books the winding-sheet to wrap up my oldbody. " And so he departed with some of his priests and servants to goand evangelize the Frisons, the majority of whom were still pagans andbarbarians. He pitched his tent on their territory and was arranging tocelebrate there the Lord's Supper, when a band of natives came down andrushed upon the archbishop's retinue. The servitors surrounded him, todefend him and themselves; and a battle began. "Hold, hold, mychildren, " cried the arch-bishop; "Scripture biddeth us return good forevil. This is the day I have long desired, and the hour of ourdeliverance is at hand. Be strong in the Lord: hope in Him, and He willsave your souls. " The barbarians slew the holy man and the majority ofhis company. A little while after, the Christians of the neighborhoodcame in arms and recovered the body of St. Boniface. Near him was abook, which was stained with blood, and seemed to have dropped from hishands; it contained several works of the Fathers, and amongst others awriting of St. Ambrose "on the Blessing of Death. " The death of thepious missionary was as powerful as his preaching in convertingFriesland. It was a mode of conquest worthy of the Christian faith, andone of which the history of Christianity had already proved theeffectiveness. 

St. Boniface did not confine himself to the evangelization of the pagans;he labored ardently in the Christian Gallo-Frankish Church, to reform themanners and ecclesiastical discipline, and to assure, whilst justifying, the moral influence of the clergy by example as well as precept. TheCouncils, which had almost fallen into desuetude in Gaul, became oncemore frequent and active there; from 742 to 753 there may be countedseven, presided over by St. Boniface, which exercised within the Churcha salutary action. King Pepin, recognizing the services which theArchbishop of Mayence had rendered him, seconded his reformatory effortsat one time by giving the support of his royal authority to the canons ofthe Councils, held often simultaneously with and almost confounded withthe laic assemblies of the Franks, at another by doing justice to theprotests of the churches against the violence and spoliation to whichthey were subjected. "There was an important point, " says M. Fauriel, "in respect of which the position of Charles Martel's sons turned out tobe pretty nearly the same as that of their father: it was touching thenecessity of assigning to warriors a portion of the ecclesiasticalrevenues. But they, being more religious, perhaps, than Charles Martel, or more impressed with the importance of humoring the priestly power, were more vexed and more anxious about the necessity under which theyfound themselves of continuing to despoil the churches and of persistingin a system which was putting the finishing stroke to the ruin of allecclesiastical discipline. They were more eager to mitigate the evil andto offer the Church compensation for their share in this evil to which itwas not in their power to put a stop. Accordingly at the March paradeheld at Leptines in 743, it was decided, in reference to ecclesiasticallands applied to the military service: 1st, that the churches having theownership of those lands should share the revenue with the lay holder;2d, that on the death of a warrior in enjoyment of an ecclesiasticalbenefice, the benefice should revert to the Church; 3d, that everybenefice by deprivation whereof any church would be reduced to povertyshould be at once restored to her. That this capitular was carried out, or even capable of being carried out, is very doubtful; but the lessCarloman and Pepin succeeded in repairing the material losses incurred bythe Church since the accession of the Carlovingians, the more zealousthey were in promoting the growth of her moral power and the restorationof her discipline. . . . That was the time at which there began to beseen the spectacle of the national assemblies of the Franks, thegatherings of the March parades transformed into ecclesiastical synodsunder the presidency of the titular legate of the Roman Pontiff, anddictating, by the mouth of the political authority, regulations and lawswith the direct and formal aim of restoring divine worship andecclesiastical discipline, and of assuring the spiritual welfare of thepeople. " (Fauriel, _Histoire de la Gaule, _ &c. , t. III. , p. 224. )

Pepin, after he had been proclaimed king and had settled matters with theChurch as well as the warlike questions remaining for him to solvepermitted, directed all his efforts towards the two countries which, after his father's example, he longed to reunite to the Gallo-Frankishmonarchy, that is, Septimania, still occupied by the Arabs, andAquitaine, the independence of which was stoutly and ably defended byDuke Eudes' grandson, Duke Waifre. The conquest of Septimania was rathertedious than difficult. The Franks, after having victoriously scouredthe open country of the district, kept invested during three years itscapital, Narbonne, where the Arabs of Spain, much weakened by theirdissensions, vainly tried to throw in re-enforcements. Besides theMussulman Arabs the population of the town numbered many Christian Goths, who were tired of suffering for the defence of their oppressors, and whoentered into secret negotiations with the chiefs of Pepin's army, the endof which was, that they opened the gates of the town. In 759, then, after forty years of Arab rule, Narbonne passed definitively under thatof the Franks, who guaranteed to the inhabitants free enjoyment of theirGothic or Roman law and of their local institutions. It even appearsthat, in the province of Spain bordering on Septimania, an Arab chief, called Soliman, who was in command at Gerona and Barcelona, between theEbro and the Pyrenees, submitted to Pepin, himself and the country underhim. This was an important event indeed in the reign of Pepin, for herewas the point at which Islamism, but lately aggressive and victorious inSouthern Europe, began to feel definitively beaten and to recoil beforeChristianity. 

The conquest of Aquitaine and Vasconia was much more keenly disputed andfor a much longer time uncertain. Duke Waifre was as able in negotiationas in war: at one time he seemed to accept the pacific overtures ofPepin, or, perhaps, himself made similar, without bringing about anyresult, at another he went to seek and found even in Germany allies whocaused Pepin much embarrassment and peril. The population of Aquitainehated the Franks; and the war, which for their duke was a question ofindependent sovereignty, was for themselves a question of passionatenational feeling. Pepin, who was naturally more humane and even moregenerous, it may be said, in war than his predecessors had usually been, was nevertheless induced, in his struggle against the Duke of Aquitaine, to ravage without mercy the countries he scoured, and to treat thevanquished with great harshness. It was only after nine years' war andseven campaigns full of vicissitudes that he succeeded, not in conqueringhis enemy in a decisive battle, but in gaining over some servants whobetrayed their master. In the month of July, 759, "Duke Waifre was slainby his own folk, by the king's advice, " says Fredegaire; and the conquestof all Southern Gaul carried the extent and power of the Gallo-Frankishmonarchy farther and higher than it had ever yet been, even under Clovis. 

In 753, Pepin had made an expedition against the Britons of Armorica, hadtaken Vannes, and "subjugated, " add certain chroniclers, "the whole ofBrittany. " In point of fact Brittany was no more subjugated by Pepinthan by his predecessors; all that can be said is, that the Franksresumed, under him, an aggressive attitude towards the Britons, as if tovindicate a right of sovereignty. 

Exactly at this epoch Pepin was engaging in a matter which did not allowhim to scatter his forces hither and thither. It has been statedalready, that in 741 Pope Gregory III. Had asked aid of the Franksagainst the Lombards who were threatening Rome, and that, whilst fullyentertaining the Pope's wishes, Charles Martel had been in no hurry tointerfere by deed in the quarrel. Twelve years later, in 753, PopeStephen, in his turn threatened by Astolphus, king of the Lombards, aftervain attempts to obtain guarantees of peace, repaired to Paris, andrenewed to Pepin the entreaties used by Zachary. It was difficult forPepin to turn a deaf ear; it was Zachary who had declared that he oughtto be made king; Stephen showed readiness to anoint him a second time, himself and his sons; and it was the eldest of these sons, Charles, scarcely twelve years old, whom Pepin, on learning the near arrival ofthe Pope, had sent to meet him and give brilliancy to his reception. Stephen passed the winter at St. Denis, and gained the favor of thepeople as well as that of the king. Astolphus peremptorily refused tolisten to the remonstrances of Pepin, who called upon him to evacuate thetowns in the exarchate of Ravenna, and to leave the Pope unmolested inthe environs of Rome as well as in Rome itself. At the March parade heldat Braine, in the spring of 754, the Franks approved of the war againstthe Lombards; and at the end of the summer Pepin and his army descendedinto Italy by Mount Cenis, the Lombards trying in vain to stop them asthey debouched into the valley of Suza. Astolphus beaten, and, beforelong, shut up in Pavia, promised all that was demanded of him; and Pepinand his warriors, laden with booty, returned to France, leaving at Romethe Pope, who conjured them to remain a while in Italy, for to acertainty, he said, king Astolphus would not keep his promises. The Popewas right. So soon as the Franks had gone, the King of the Lombardscontinued occupying the places in the exarchate and molesting theneighborhood of Rome. The Pope, in despair and doubtful of hisauxiliaries' return, conceived the idea of sending "to the king, thechiefs, and the people of the Franks, a letter written, he said, byPeter, Apostle of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, to announce tothem that, if they came in haste, he would aid them as if he were aliveaccording to the flesh amongst them, that they would conquer all theirenemies and make themselves sure of eternal life!" The plan wasperfectly successful: the Franks once more crossed the Alps withenthusiasm, once more succeeded in beating the Lombards, and once moreshut up in Pavia King Astolphus, who was eager to purchase peace at anyprice. He obtained it on two principal conditions: 1st, that he wouldnot again make a hostile attack on Roman territory or wage war againstthe Pope or people of Rome; 2d, that he would henceforth recognize thesovereignty of the Franks, pay them tribute, and cede forthwith to Pepinthe towns and all the lands, belonging to the jurisdiction of the Romanempire, which were at that time occupied by the Lombards. By virtue ofthese conditions, Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, that is to say, the Romagna, the Duchy of Urbino and a portion of the Marches of Ancona, were at oncegiven up to Pepin, who, regarding them as his own direct conquest, thefruit of victory, disposed of them forthwith, in favor of the Popes, bythat famous deed of gift which comprehended pretty nearly what has sinceformed the Roman States, and which founded the temporal independence ofthe Papacy, the guarantee of its independence in the exercise of thespiritual power. 

At the head of the Franks as mayor of the palace from 741, and as kingfrom 752, Pepin had completed in France and extended in Italy the workwhich his father, Charles Martel, had begun and carried on, from 714 to741, in State and Church. He left France reunited in one and placed atthe head of Christian Europe. He died at the monastery of St. Denis, September 18, 768, leaving his kingdom and his dynasty thus ready to thehands of his son, whom history has dubbed Charlemagne. 

CHAPTER X----CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS. 

The most judicious minds are sometimes led blindly by tradition andhabit, rather than enlightened by reflection and experience. Pepin theShort committed at his death the same mistake that his father, CharlesMartel, had committed: he divided his dominions between his two sons, Charles and Carloman, thus destroying again that unity of the Gallo-Frankish monarchy which his father and he had been at so much pains toestablish. But, just as had already happened in 746 through theabdication of Pepin's brother, events discharged the duty of repairingthe mistake of men. After the death of Pepin, and notwithstanding thatof Duke Waifre, insurrection broke out once more in Aquitaine; and theold duke, Hunald, issued from his monastery in the island of Rhe to tryand recover power and independence. Charles and Carloman marched againsthim; but, on the march, Carloman, who was jealous and thoughtless, fellout with his brother, and suddenly quitted the expedition, taking awayhis troops. Charles was obliged to continue it alone, which he did withcomplete success. At the end of this first campaign, Pepin's widow, theQueen-mother Bertha, reconciled her two sons; but an unexpected incident, the death of Carloman two years afterwards in 771, re-established unitymore surely than the reconciliation had re-established harmony. For, although Carloman left sons, the grandees of his dominions, whether laicor ecclesiastical, assembled at Corbeny, between Laon and Rheims, andproclaimed in his stead his brother Charles, who thus became sole king ofthe Gallo-Franco-Germanic monarchy. And as ambition and manners hadbecome less tinged with ferocity than they had been under theMerovingians, the sons of Carloman were not killed or shorn or even shutup in a monastery: they retired with their mother, Gerberge, to the courtof Didier, king of the Lombards. "King Charles, " says Eginhard, "tooktheir departure patiently, regarding it as of no importance. " Thuscommenced the reign of Charlemagne. 

The original and dominant characteristic of the hero of this reign, thatwhich won for him, and keeps for him after more than ten centuries, thename of Great, is the striking variety of his ambition, his faculties, and his deeds. Charlemagne aspired to and attained to every sort ofgreatness, military greatness, political greatness, and intellectualgreatness; he was an able warrior, an energetic legislator, a hero ofpoetry. And he united, he displayed all these merits in a time ofgeneral and monotonous barbarism, when, save in the Church, the minds ofmen were dull and barren. Those men, few in number, who made themselvesa name at that epoch, rallied round Charlemagne and were developed underhis patronage. To know him well and appreciate him justly, he must beexamined under those various grand aspects, abroad and at home, in hiswars and in his government. 

In Guizot's _History of Civilization in France_ is to be found a completetable of the wars of Charlemagne, of his many different expeditions inGermany, Italy, Spain, all the countries, in fact, that became hisdominion. A summary will here suffice. From 769 to 813, in Germany andWestern and Northern Europe, Charlemagne conducted thirty-one campaignsagainst the Saxons, Frisons, Bavarians, Avars, Slavons, and Danes; inItaly, five against the Lombards; in Spain, Corsica, and Sardinia, twelveagainst the Arabs; two against the Greeks; and three in Gaul itself, against the Aquitanians and the Britons; in all, fifty-three expeditions;amongst which those he undertook against the Saxons, the Lombards, andthe Arabs, were long and difficult wars. It is undesirable to recountthem in detail, for the relation would be monotonous and useless; but itis obligatory to make fully known their causes, their characteristicincidents, and their results. 

It has already been seen that, under the last Merovingian kings, theSaxons were, on the right bank of the Rhine, in frequent collision withthe Franks, especially with the Austrasian Franks, whose territory theywere continually threatening and often invading. Pepin the Short hadmore than once hurled them back far from the very uncertain frontiers ofGermanic Austrasia; and, on becoming king, he dealt his blows stillfarther, and entered, in his turn, Saxony itself. "In spite of theSaxons' stout resistance, " says Eginhard (_Annales, _ t. I. , p. 135), "hepierced through the points they had fortified to bar entrance into theircountry, and, after having fought here and there battles wherein fellmany Saxons, he forced them to promise that they would submit to hisrule; and that, every year, to do him honor, they would send to thegeneral assembly of the Franks a present of three hundred horses. Whenthese conventions were once settled, he insisted, to insure theirperformance, upon placing them under the guarantee of rites peculiar tothe Saxons; then he returned with his army to Gaul. "

[Illustration: Charlemagne at the Head of his Army----212]

Charlemagne did not confine himself to resuming his father's work; hebefore long changed its character and its scope. In 772, being left solemaster of France after the death of his brother Carloman, he convoked atWorms the general assembly of the Franks, "and took, " says Eginhard, "theresolution of going and carrying war into Saxony. He invaded it withoutdelay, laid it waste with fire and sword, made himself master of the fortof Ehresburg, and threw down the idol that the Saxons called _Irminsul_. "And in what place was this first victory of Charlemagne won? Near thesources of the Lippe, just where, more than seven centuries before, theGerman Arminius (Herrmann) had destroyed the legions of Varus, andwhither Germanicus had come to avenge the disaster of Varus. This groundbelonged to Saxon territory; and this idol, called _Irminsul, _ which wasthrown down by Charlemagne, was probably a monument raised in honor ofArminius (Herrmann-Saule, or Herrmann's pillar), whose name it called tomind. The patriotic and hereditary pride of the Saxons was passionatelyroused by this blow; and, the following year, "thinking to find in theabsence of the king the most favorable opportunity, " says Eginhard, theyentered the lands of the Franks, laid them waste in their turn, and, paying back outrage for outrage, set fire to the church not long sincebuilt at Fritzlar, by Boniface, martyr. From that time the questionchanged its object as well as its aspect; it was no longer the repressionof Saxon invasions of France, but the conquest of Saxony by the Franks, that was to be dealt with; it was between the Christianity of the Franksand the national Paganism of the Saxons that the struggle was to takeplace. 

For thirty years such was its character. Charlemagne regarded theconquest of Saxony as indispensable for putting a stop to the incursionsof the Saxons, and the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity asindispensable for assuring the conquest of Saxony. The Saxons weredefending at one and the same time the independence of their country andthe gods of their fathers. Here was wherewithal to stir up and foment, on both sides, the profoundest passions; and they burst forth, on bothsides, with equal fury. Whithersoever Charlemagne penetrated he builtstrong castles and churches; and, at his departure, left garrisons andmissionaries. When he was gone the Saxons returned, attacked the fortsand massacred the garrisons and the missionaries. At the commencement ofthe struggle, a priest of Anglo-Saxon origin, whom St. Willibrod, bishopof Utrecht, had but lately consecrated, St. Liebwin in fact, undertook togo and preach the Christian religion in the very heart of Saxony, on thebanks of the Weser, amidst the general assembly of the Saxons. "What doye" said he, cross in hand; "the idols ye worship live not, neither dothey perceive: they are the work of men's hands; they can do noughteither for themselves or for others. Wherefore the one God, good andjust, having compassion on your errors, hath sent me unto you. If ye putnot away your iniquity, I foretell unto you a trouble that ye do notexpect, and that the King of Heaven hath ordained aforetime; there shallcome a prince, strong and wise and indefatigable, not from afar, but fromnigh at hand, to fall upon you like a torrent, in order to soften yourhard hearts and bow down your proud heads. At one rush he shall invadethe country; he shall lay it waste with fire and sword, and carry awayyour wives and children into captivity. " A thrill of rage ran throughthe assembly; and already many of those present had begun to cut, in theneighboring woods, stakes sharpened to a point to pierce the priest, whenone of the chieftains named Buto cried aloud, "Listen, ye who are themost wise. There have often come unto us ambassadors from neighboringpeoples, Northmen, Slavons or Frisons; we have received them in peace, and when their messages have been heard, they have been sent away with apresent. Here is an ambassador from a great God, and ye would slay him!"Whether it were from sentiment or from prudence, the multitude wascalmed, or at any rate restrained; and for this time the priest retiredsafe and sound. 

Just as the pious zeal of the missionaries was of service to Charlemagne, so did the power of Charlemagne support and sometimes preserve themissionaries. The mob, even in the midst of its passions, is notthroughout or at all times inaccessible to fear. The Saxons were not oneand the same nation, constantly united in one and the same assembly andgoverned by a single chieftain. Three populations of the same race, distinguished by names borrowed from their geographical situation, justas had happened amongst the Franks in the case of the Austrasians andNeustrians, to wit, Eastphalian or eastern Saxons, Westphalian orwestern, and Angrians, formed the Saxon confederation. And to them wasoften added a fourth peoplet of the same origin, closer to the Danes andcalled North-Albingians, inhabitants of the northern district of theElbe. These four principal Saxon populations were sub-divided into alarge number of tribes, who had their own particular chieftains, and whooften decided, each for itself, their conduct and their fate. Charlemagne, knowing how to profit by this want of cohesion and unityamongst his foes, attacked now one and now another of the large Saxonpeoplets or the small Saxon tribes, and dealt separately with each ofthem, according as he found them inclined to submission or resistance. After having, in four or five successive expeditions, gained victoriesand sustained checks, he thought himself sufficiently advanced in hisconquest to put his relations with the Saxons to a grand trial. In 777, he resolved, says Eginhard, "to go and hold, at the place calledPaderborn (close to Saxony) the general assembly of his people. On hisarrival he found there assembled the senate and people of this perfidiousnation, who, conformably to his orders, had repaired thither, seeking todeceive him by a false show of submission and devotion. . . . Theyearned their pardon, but on this condition, however, that, if hereafterthey broke their engagements, they would be deprived of country andliberty. A great number amongst them had themselves baptized on thisoccasion; but it was with far from sincere intentions that they hadtestified a desire to become Christians. "

[Illustration: Charlemagne inflicting Baptism upon the Saxons----215]

There had been absent from this great meeting a Saxon chieftain calledWittikind, son of Wernekind, king of the Saxons at the north of the Elbe. He had espoused the sister of Siegfried, king of the Danes; and he wasthe friend of Ratbod, king of the Frisons. A true chieftain at heart aswell as by descent, he was made to be the hero of the Saxons just as, seven centuries before, the Cheruscan Herrmann (Arminius) had been thehero of the Germans. Instead of repairing to Paderborn, Wittikind hadleft Saxony, and taken refuge with his brother-in-law, the king of theDanes. Thence he encouraged his Saxon compatriots, some to persevere intheir resistance, others to repent them of their show of submission. Warbegan again; and Wittikind hastened back to take part in it. In 778 theSaxons advanced as far as the Rhine; but, "not having been able to crossthis river, " says Eginhard, "they set themselves to lay waste with fireand sword all the towns and all the villages from the city of Duitz(opposite Cologne) as far as the confluence of the Moselle. The churchesas well as the houses were laid in ruins from top to bottom. The enemy, in his frenzy, spared neither age nor sex, wishing to show thereby thathe had invaded the territory of the Franks, not for plunder, but forrevenge!" For three years the struggle continued, more confined in area, but more and more obstinate. Many of the Saxon tribes submitted; manySaxons were baptized; and Siegfried, king of the Danes, sent toCharlemagne a deputation, as if to treat for peace. Wittikind had leftDenmark; but he had gone across to her neighbors, the Northmen; and, thence re-entering Saxony, he kindled there an insurrection as fierce asit was unexpected. In 782 two of Charlemagne's lieutenants were beatenon the banks of the Weser, and killed in the battle, together with fourcounts and twenty leaders, the noblest in the army; indeed the Frankswere nearly all exterminated. "At news of this disaster, " says Eginhard, "Charlemagne, without losing a moment, re-assembled an army and set outfor Saxony. He summoned into his presence all the chieftains of theSaxons and demanded of them who had been the promoters of the revolt. All agreed in denouncing Wittikind as the author of this treason. But asthey could not deliver him up, because immediately after his suddenattack he had taken refuge with the Northmen, those who, at hisinstigation, had been accomplices in the crime, were placed, to thenumber of four thousand five hundred, in the hands of the king; and, byhis order, all had their heads cut off the same day, at a place calledWerden, on the river Aller. After this deed of vengeance the kingretired to Thionville to pass the winter there. "

[Illustration: A Battle between Franks and Saxons----216]

But the vengeance did not put an end to the war. "Blood calls forblood, " were words spoken in the English parliament, in 1643, by SirBenjamin Rudyard, one of the best citizens of his country in her hour ofrevolution. For three years Charlemagne had to redouble his efforts toaccomplish in Saxony, at the cost of Frankish as well as Saxon blood, hiswork of conquest and conversion: "Saxony, " he often repeated, "must bechristianized or wiped out. " At last, in 785, after several victorieswhich seemed decisive, he went and settled down in his strong castle ofEhresburg, "whither he made his wife and children come, being resolved toremain there all the bad season, " says Eginhard, and applying himselfwithout cessation to scouring the country of the Saxons and wearing themout by his strong and indomitable determination. But determination didnot blind him to prudence and policy. "Having learned that Wittikind andAbbio (another great Saxon chieftain) were abiding in the part of Saxonysituated on the other side of the Elbe, he sent to them Saxon envoys toprevail upon them to renounce their perfidy, and come, withouthesitation, and trust themselves to him. They, conscious of what theyhad attempted, dared not at first trust to the king's word; but havingobtained from him the promise they desired of impunity, and, besides, thehostages they demanded as guarantee of their safety, and who were broughtto them, on the king's behalf, by Amalwin, one of the officers of hiscourt, they came with the said lord and presented themselves before theking in his palace of Attigny [Attigny-sur-Aisne, whither Charlemagne hadnow returned] and there received baptism. "

Charlemagne did more than amnesty Wittikind; he named him Duke of Saxony, but without attaching to the title any right of sovereignty. Wittikind, on his side, did more than come to Attigny and get baptized there; hegave up the struggle, remained faithful to his new engagements, and led, they say, so Christian a life, that some chroniclers have placed him onthe list of saints. He was killed in 807, in a battle against Gerold, duke of Suabia, and his tomb is still to be seen at Ratisbonne. Severalfamilies of Germany hold him for their ancestor; and some Frenchgenealogists have, without solid ground, discovered in him thegrandfather of Robert the Strong, great-grandfather of Hugh Capet. However that may be, after making peace with Wittikind, Charlemagne hadstill, for several years, many insurrections to repress and much rigor toexercise in Saxony, including the removal of certain Saxon peoplets outof their country and the establishment of foreign colonists in theterritories thus become vacant; but the great war was at an end, andCharlemagne might consider Saxony incorporated in his dominions. 

[Illustration: THE SUBMISSION OF WITTIKIND----218]

He had still, in Germany and all around, many enemies to fight and manycampaigns to re-open. Even amongst the Germanic populations, which wereregarded as reduced under the sway of the king of the Franks, some, theFrisons and Saxons as well as others, were continually agitating for therecovery of their independence. Farther off towards the north, east, andsouth, people differing in origin and language--Avars, Huns, Slavons, Bulgarians, Danes, and Northmen--were still pressing or beginning topress upon the frontiers of the Frankish dominion, for the purpose ofeither penetrating within or settling at the threshold as powerful andformidable neighbors. Charlemagne had plenty to do, with the view at onetime of checking their incursions and at another of destroying or hurlingback to a distance their settlements; and he brought his usual vigor andperseverance to bear on this second struggle. But by the conquest ofSaxony he had attained his direct national object: the great flood ofpopulation from East to West came, and broke against the Gallo-Franco-Germanic dominion as against an insurmountable rampart. 

This was not, however, Charlemagne's only great enterprise at this epoch, nor the only great struggle he had to maintain. Whilst he wasincessantly fighting in Germany, the work of policy commenced by hisfather Pepin in Italy called for his care and his exertions. The newking of the Lombards, Didier, and the new Pope, Adrian I. , had enteredupon a new war; and Dither was besieging Rome, which was energeticallydefended by the Pope and its inhabitants. In 773, Adrian invoked the aidof the king of the Franks, whom his envoys succeeded, not withoutdifficulty, in finding at Thionville. Charlemagne could not abandon thegrand position left him by his father as protector of the Papacy and aspatrician of Rome. The possessions, moreover, wrested by Didier from thePope were exactly those which Pepin had won by conquest from KingAstolphus, and had presented to the Papacy. Charlemagne was, besides, onhis own account, on bad terms with the king of the Lombards, whosedaughter, Desiree, he had married, and afterwards repudiated and senthome to her father, in order to marry Hildegarde, a Suabian by nation. Didier, in dudgeon, had given an asylum to Carloman's widow and sons, onwhose intrigues Charlemagne kept a watchful eye. Being prudent andcareful of appearances, even when he was preparing to strike a heavyblow, Charlemagne tried, by means of special envoys, to obtain from theking of the Lombards what the Pope demanded. On Didier's refusal he atonce set to work, convoked the general meeting of the Franks, at Geneva, in the autumn of 773, gained them over, not without encountering someobjections, to the projected Italian expedition, and forthwith commencedthe campaign with two armies. One was to cross the Valais and descendupon Lombardy by Mount St. Bernard; Charlemagne in person led the other, by Mount Cenis. The Lombards, at the outlet of the passes of the Alps, offered a vigorous resistance; but when the second army had penetratedinto Italy by Mount St. Bernard, Didier, threatened in his rear, retiredprecipitately, and, driven from position to position, was obliged to goand shut himself up in Pavia, the strongest place in his kingdom, whitherCharlemagne, having received on the march the submission of the principalcounts and nearly all the towns of Lombardy, came promptly to besiegehim. 

To place textually before the reader a fragment of an old chronicle willserve better than any modern description to show the impression ofadmiration and fear produced upon his contemporaries by Charlemagne, hisperson and his power. At the close of this ninth century a monk of theabbey of St. Gall, in Switzerland, had collected, direct from the mouthof one of Charlemagne's warriors, Adalbert, numerous stories of hiscampaigns and his life. These stories are full of fabulous legends, puerile anecdotes, distorted reminiscences, and chronological errors, andthey are written sometimes with a credulity and exaggeration of languagewhich raise a smile; but they reveal the state of men's minds and fancieswithin the circle of Charlemagne's influence and at the sight of him. This monk gives a naive account of Charlemagne's arrival before Pavia andof the king of the Lombards' disquietude at his approach. Didier hadwith him at that time one of Charlemagne's most famous comrades, Ogierthe Dane, who fills a prominent place in the romances and epopoeas, relating to chivalry, of that age. Ogier had quarrelled with his greatchief and taken refuge with the king of the Lombards. It is probablethat his Danish origin and his relations with the king of the Danes, Gottfried, for a long time an enemy of the Franks, had something to dowith his misunderstanding with Charlemagne. However that may have been, "when Didier and Ogger (for so the monk calls him) heard that the dreadmonarch was coming, they ascended a tower of vast height, whence theycould watch his arrival from afar off and from every quarter. They saw, first of all, engines of war such as must have been necessary for thearmies of Darius or Julius Caesar. 'Is not Charles, ' asked Didier ofOgger, 'with this great army?' But the other answered, 'No. ' TheLombard, seeing afterwards an immense body of soldiery gathered from allquarters of the vast empire, said to Ogger, 'Certes, Charles advanceth intriumph in the midst of this throng. ' 'No, not yet; he will not appearso soon, ' was the answer. 'What should we do, then, ' rejoined Didier, who began to be perturbed, 'should he come accompanied by a larger bandof warriors?' 'You will see what he is when he comes, ' replied Ogger, 'but as to what will become of us I know nothing. ' As they were thusparleying appeared the body of guards that knew no repose; and at thissight the Lombard, overcome with dread, cried, 'This time 'tis surelyCharles. ' 'No, ' answered Ogger, 'not yet. ' In their wake came thebishops, the abbots, the ordinaries of the chapels royal, and the counts;and then Didier, no longer able to bear the light of day or to facedeath, cried out with groans, 'Let us descend and hide ourselves in thebowels of the earth, far from the face and the fury of so terrible a foe. Trembling the while, Ogger, who knew by experience what were the powerand might of Charles, and who had learned the lesson by long consuetudein better days, then said, 'When ye shall behold the crops shaking forfear in the fields, and the gloomy Po and the Ticino overflowing thewalls of the city with their waves blackened with steel (iron), then mayye think that Charles is coming. ' He had not ended these words whenthere began to be seen in the west, as it were a black cloud, raised bythe north-west wind or by Boreas, which turned the brightest day intoawful shadows. But as the emperor drew nearer and nearer, the gleam ofarms caused to shine on the people shut up within the city a day moregloomy than any kind of night. And then appeared Charles himself, thatman of steel, with his head encased in a helmet of steel, his handsgarnished with gauntlets of steel, his heart of steel and his shouldersof marble protected by a cuirass of steel, and his left hand armed with alance of steel which he held aloft in the air, for as to his right handhe kept that continually on the hilt of his invincible sword. Theoutside of his thighs, which the rest, for their greater ease in mountinga horseback, were wont to leave unshackled even by straps, he woreencircled by plates of steel. What shall I say concerning his boots?All the army were wont to have them invariably of steel; on his bucklerthere was nought to be seen but steel; his horse was of the color and thestrength of steel. All those who went before the monarch, all those whomarched at his side, all those who followed after, even the whole mass ofthe army, had armor of the like sort, so far as the means of eachpermitted. The fields and the highways were covered with steel: thepoints of steel reflected the rays of the sun; and this steel, so hard, was borne by a people with hearts still harder. The flash of steelspread terror through-out the streets of the city. 'What steel! alack, what steel!' Such were the bewildered cries the citizens raised. Thefirmness of manhood and of youth gave way at sight of the steel; and thesteel paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I, poortale-teller, mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a longdescription, Ogger perceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier, 'Here is what ye have so anxiously sought:' and whilst uttering thesewords he fell down almost lifeless. "

The monk of St. Gall does King Didier and his people wrong. They showedmore firmness and valor than he ascribes to them: they resistedCharlemagne obstinately, and repulsed his first assaults so well that hechanged the siege into an investment and settled down before Pavia, as ifmaking up his mind for a long operation. His camp became a town; he sentfor Queen Hildegarde and her court; and he had a chapel built, where hecelebrated the festival of Christmas. But on the arrival of spring, close upon the festival of Easter, 774, wearied with the duration of theinvestment, he left to his lieutenants the duty of keeping it up, and, attended by a numerous and brilliant following, set off for Rome, whitherthe Pope was urgently pressing him to come. 

On Holy Saturday, April 1, 774, Charlemagne found, at three miles fromRome, the magistrates and the banner of the city, sent forward by thePope to meet him; at one mile all the municipal bodies and the pupils ofthe schools carrying palm-branches and singing hymns; and at the gate ofthe city, the cross, which was never taken out save for exarchs andpatricians. At sight of the cross Charlemagne dismounted, entered Romeon foot, ascended the steps of the ancient basilica of St. Peter, repeating at each step a sign of respectful piety, and was received atthe top by the Pope himself. All around him and in the streets a chantwas sung, "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" At hisentry and during his sojourn at Rome Charlemagne gave the most strikingproofs of Christian faith and respect for the head of the Church. According to the custom of pilgrims he visited all the basilicas, and inthat of St. Maria Maggiore he performed his solemn devotions. Then, passing to temporal matters, he caused to be brought and read over, inhis private conferences with the Pope, the deed of territorial gift madeby his father Pepin to Stephen II. , and with his own lips dictated theconfirmation of it, adding thereto a new gift of certain territorieswhich he was in course of wresting by conquest from the Lombards. PopeAdrian, on his side, rendered to him, with a mixture of affection anddignity, all the honors and all the services which could at one and thesame time satisfy and exalt the king and the priest, the protector andthe protected. He presented to Charlemagne a book containing acollection of the canons written by the pontiffs from the origin of theChurch, and he put at the beginning of the book, which was dedicated toCharlemagne, an address in forty-five irregular verses, written with hisown hand, which formed an anagram: "Pope Adrian to his most excellent sonCharlemagne, king. " (_Domino excellentissimo filio Carolo Magno regiIpadrianus papa_). At the same time he encouraged him to push hisvictory to the utmost and make himself king of the Lombards, advisinghim, however, not to incorporate his conquest with the Frankishdominions, as it would wound the pride of the conquered people to be thusabsorbed by the conquerors, and to take merely the title of "King of theFranks and Lombards. " Charlemagne appreciated and accepted this wiseadvice; for he could preserve proper limits in his ambition and in thehour of victory. Three years afterwards he even did more than PopeAdrian had advised. In 777 Queen Hildegarde bore him a son, Pepin, whomin 781 Charlemagne had baptized and anointed king of Italy at Rome by thePope, thus separating not only the two titles, but also the two kingdoms, and restoring to the Lombards a national existence, feeling quite surethat, so long as he lived, the unity of his different dominions would notbe imperilled. Having thus regulated at Rome his own affairs and thoseof the Church, he returned to his camp, took Pavia, received thesubmission of all the Lombard dukes and counts, save one only, Aregisius, duke of Beneventum, and entered France again, taking with him as prisonerKing Didier, whom he banished to a monastery, first at Liege and then atCorbie, where the dethroned Lombard, say the chroniclers, ended his daysin saintly fashion. 

The prompt success of this war in Italy, undertaken at the appeal of theHead of the Church, this first sojourn of Charlemagne at Rome, thespectacles he had witnessed, and the homage he had received, exercisedover him, his plans, and his deeds, a powerful influence. This roughFrankish warrior, chief of a people who were beginning to make abrilliant appearance upon the stage of the world, and issue himselfof a new line, had a taste for what was grand, splendid, ancient, andconsecrated by time and public respect; he understood and estimated atits full worth the moral force and importance of such allies. Hedeparted from Rome in 774, more determined than ever to subdue Saxony, tothe advantage of the Church as well as of his own power, and to promote, in the South as in the North, the triumph of the Frankish Christiandominion. 

Three years afterwards, in 777, he had convoked at Paderborn, inWestphalia, that general assembly of his different peoples at whichWittikind did not attend, and which was destined to bring upon the Saxonsa more and more obstinate war. "The Saracen Ibn-al-Arabi, " saysEginhard, "came to this town, to present himself before the king. Hehad arrived from Spain, together with other Saracens in his train, tosurrender to the king of the Franks himself and all the towns which theking of the Saracens had confided to his keeping. " For a long time pastthe Christians of the West had given the Mussulmans, Arab or other, thename of Saracens. Ibn-al-Arabi was governor of Saragossa, and one of theSpanish Arab chieftains in league against Abdel-Rhaman, the last offshootof the Ommiad khalifs, who, with the assistance of the Berbers, hadseized the government of Spain. Amidst the troubles of his country andhis nation, Ibn-al-Arabi summoned to his aid, against Abdel-Rhaman, theFranks and the Christians, just as, but lately, Maurontius, duke ofArles, had summoned to Provence, against Charles Martel, the Arabs andthe Mussulmans. 

Charlemagne accepted the summons with alacrity. With the coming ofspring in the following year, 778, and with the full assent of his chiefwarriors, he began his march towards the Pyrenees, crossed the Loire, and halted at Casseneuil, at the confluence of the Lot and the Garonne, to celebrate there the festival of Easter, and to make preparations forhis expedition thence. As he had but lately done for his campaign inItaly against the Lombards, he divided his forces into two armies onecomposed of Austrasians, Neustrians, Burgundians, and divers Germancontingents, and commanded by Charlemagne in person, was to enter Spainby the valley of Roncesvalles, in the western Pyrenees, and make forPampeluna; the other, consisting of Provenccals, Septimanians, Lombards, and other populations of the South, under the command of Duke Bernard, who had already distinguished himself in Italy, had orders to penetrateinto Spain by the eastern Pyrenees, to receive on the march thesubmission of Gerona and Barcelona, and not to halt till they were beforeSaragossa, where the two armies were to form a junction, and which Ibn-al-Arabi had promised to give up to the king of the Franks. According tothis plan, Charlemagne had to traverse the territories of Aquitaine andVasconia, domains of Duke Lupus II. , son of Duke Waifre, so long the foeof Pepin the Short, a Merovingian by descent, and in all these qualitieslittle disposed to favor Charlemagne. However, the march wasaccomplished without difficulty. The king of the Franks treated hispowerful vassal well; and Duke Lupus swore to him afresh, "or for thefirst time, " says M. Fauriel, "submission and fidelity; but the eventsoon proved that it was not without umbrage or without all the feelingsof a true son of Waifre that he saw the Franks and the son of Pepin soclose to him. "

The aggressive campaign was an easy and a brilliant one. Charles withhis army entered Spain by the valley of Roncesvalles without encounteringany obstacle. On his arrival before Pampeluna the Arab governorsurrendered the place to him, and Charlemagne pushed forward vigorouslyto Saragossa. But there fortune changed. The presence of foreigners andChristians on the soil of Spain caused a suspension of interior quarrelsamongst the Arabs, who rose in mass, at all points, to succor Saragossa. The besieged defended themselves with obstinacy; there was more scarcityof provisions amongst the besiegers than inside the place; sickness brokeout amongst them; they were incessantly harassed from without; and rumorsof a fresh rising amongst the Saxons reached Charlemagne. The Arabsdemanded negotiation. To decide the king of the Franks upon anabandonment of the siege, they offered him "an immense quantity of gold, "say the chroniclers, hostages, and promises of homage and fidelity. Appearances had been saved; Charlemagne could say, and even perhapsbelieve, that he had pushed his conquests as far as the Ebro; he decidedon retreat, and all the army was set in motion to recross the Pyrenees. On arriving before Pampeluna, Charlemagne had its walls completely razedto the ground, "in order that, " as he said, "that city might not be ableto revolt. " The troops entered those same passes of Roncesvalles whichthey had traversed without obstacle a few weeks before; and theadvance-guard and the main body of the army were already clear of them. The account of what happened shall be given in the words of Eginhard, the only contemporary historian whose account, free from allexaggeration, can be considered authentic. "The king, " he says, "brought back his army without experiencing any loss, save that at thesummit of the Pyrenees he suffered somewhat from the perfidy of theVascons (Basques). Whilst the army of the Franks, embarrassed in anarrow defile, was forced by the nature of the ground to advance in onelong, close line, the Basques, who were in ambush on the crest of themountain (for the thickness of the forest with which these parts arecovered is favorable to ambuscade), descend and fall suddenly on thebaggage-train and on the troops of the rear-guard, whose duty it was tocover all in their front, and precipitate them to the bottom of thevalley. There took place a fight in which the Franks were killed to aman. The Basques, after having plundered the baggage-train, profited bythe night, which had come on, to disperse rapidly. They owed all theirsuccess in this engagement to the lightness of their equipment and tothe nature of the spot where the action took place; the Franks, on thecontrary, being heavily armed and in an unfavorable position, struggledagainst too many disadvantages. Eginhard, master of the household of theking; Anselm, count of the palace; and Roland, prefect of the marches ofBrittany, fell in this engagement. There were no means, at the time, oftaking revenge for this cheek; for after their sudden attack, the enemydispersed to such good purpose that there was no gaining any trace ofthe direction in which they should be sought for. "

[Illustration: Death of Roland at Roncesvalles----227]

History says no more; but in the poetry of the people there is a longerand a more faithful memory than in the court of kings. The disaster ofRoncesvalles and the heroism of the warriors who perished there became, in France, the object of popular sympathy and the favorite topic for theexercise of the popular fancy. The _Song of Roland, _ a real Homeric poemin its great beauty, and yet rude and simple as became its nationalcharacter, bears witness to the prolonged importance attained in Europeby this incident in the history of Charlemagne. Three centuries laterthe comrades of William the Conqueror, marching to battle at Hastings forthe possession of England, struck up _The Song of Roland_ "to preparethemselves for victory or death, " says M. Vitel, in his vivid estimateand able translation of this poetical monument of the manners and firstimpulses towards chivalry of the middle ages. There is no determininghow far history must be made to participate in these reminiscences ofnational feeling; but, assuredly, the figures of Roland and Oliver, andArchbishop Turpin, and the pious, unsophisticated and tender character oftheir heroism are not pure fables invented by the fancy of a poet, or thecredulity of a monk. If the accuracy of historical narrative must not belooked for in them, their moral truth must be recognized in theirportrayal of a people and an age. 

The political genius of Charlemagne comprehended more fully than would beimagined from his panegyrist's brief and dry account all the gravity ofthe affair of Roncesvalles. Not only did he take immediate vengeance byhanging Duke Lupus of Aquitaine, whose treason had brought down thismishap, and by reducing his two sons, Adairic and Sancho, to a morefeeble and precarious condition, but he resolved to treat Aquitaine as hehad but lately treated Italy, that is to say, to make of it, according tothe correct definition of M. Fauriel, "a special kingdom, " an integralportion, indeed, of the Frankish empire, but with an especialdestination, which was that of resisting the invasions of the AndalusianArabs, and confining them as much as possible to the soil of thePeninsula. This was, in some sort, giving back to the country itsprimary task as an independent duchy; and it was the most natural andmost certain way of making the Aquitanians useful subjects by giving playto their national vanity, to their pretensions of forming a separatepeople, and to their hopes of once more becoming, sooner or later, anindependent nation. Queen Hildegarde, during her husband's sojourn atCasseneuil, in 778, had borne him a son, whom he called Louis, and whowas, afterwards, Louis the Debonnair. Charlemagne, summoned a secondtime to Rome, in 781, by the quarrels of Pope Adrian I. With the imperialcourt of Constantinople, brought with him his two sons, Pepin aged onlyfour years, and Louis only three years, and had them anointed by thePope, the former King of Italy, and the latter King of Aquitaine. "Onreturning from Rome to Austrasia, Charlemagne sent Louis at once to takepossession of his kingdom. From the banks of the Meuse to Orleans thelittle prince was carried in his cradle; but once on the Loire, thismanner of travelling beseemed him no longer; his conductors would thathis entry into his dominions should have a manly and warrior-likeappearance; they clad him in arms proportioned to his height and age;they put him and held him on horseback; and it was in such guise that heentered Aquitaine. He came thither accompanied by the officers who wereto form his council of guardians, men chosen by Charlemagne, with care, amongst the Frankish 'leudes, ' distinguished not only for bravery andfirmness, but also for adroitness, and such as they should be to beneither deceived nor seared by the cunning, fickle, and turbulentpopulations with whom they would have to deal. " From this period to thedeath of Charlemagne, and by his sovereign influence, though all thewhile under his son's name, the government of Aquitaine was a series ofcontinued efforts to hurl back the Arabs of Spain beyond the Ebro, toextend to that river the dominion of the Franks, to divert to that endthe forces as well as the feelings of the populations of Southern Gaul, and thus to pursue, in the South as in the North, against the Arabs aswell as against the Saxons and Huns, the grand design of Charlemagne, which was the repression of foreign invasions and the triumph ofChristian France over Asiatic Paganism and Islamism. 

Although continually obliged to watch, and often still to fight, Charlemagne might well believe that he had nearly gained his end. He hadeverywhere greatly extended the frontiers of the Frankish dominions andsubjugated the populations comprised in his conquests. He had provedthat his new frontiers would be vigorously defended against new invasionsor dangerous neighbors. He had pursued the Huns and the Saxons to theconfines of the empire of the East, and the Saracens to the islands ofCorsica and Sardinia. The centre of the dominion was no longer inancient Gaul; he had transferred it to a point not far from the Rhine, inthe midst and within reach of the Germanic populations, at the town ofAix-la-Chapelle, which he had founded, and which was his favoriteresidence; but the principal parts of the Gallo-Frankish kingdom, Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy, were effectually welded in one singlemass. What he had done with Southern Gaul has but just been pointed out:how he had both separated it from his own kingdom and still retained itunder his control. Two expeditions into Armorica, without takingentirely from the Britons their independence, had taught them realdeference, and the great warrior Roland, installed as count upon theirfrontier, warned them of the peril any rising would encounter. The moralinfluence of Charlemagne was on a par with his material power; he hadeverywhere protected the missionaries of Christianity; he had twiceentered Rome, also in the character of protector, and he could count onthe faithful support of the Pope at least as much as the Pope could counton him. He had received embassies and presents from the sovereigns ofthe East, Christian and Mussulman, from the emperors at Constantinopleand the khalifs at Bagdad. Everywhere, in Europe, in Africa, and inAsia, he was feared and respected by kings and people. Such, at theclose of the eighth century, were, so far as he was concerned, theresults of his wars, of the superior capacity he had displayed, and ofthe successes he had won and kept. 

In 799 he received, at Aix-la-Chapelle, news of serious disturbanceswhich had broken out at Rome; that Pope Leo III. Had been attacked byconspirators, who, after pulling out, it was said, his eyes and histongue, had shut him up in the monastery of St. Erasmus, whence he hadwith great difficulty escaped, and that he had taken refuge withWinigisius, duke of Spoleto, announcing his intention of repairing thenceto the Frankish king. Leo was already known to Charlemagne; at hisaccession to the pontificate, in 795, he had sent to him, as to thepatrician and defender of Rome, the keys of the prison of St. Peter andthe banner of the city. Charlemagne showed a disposition to receive himwith equal kindness and respect. The Pope arrived, in fact, atPaderborn, passed some days there, according to Eginhard, and returned toRome on the 30th of November, 799, at ease regarding his future, butwithout knowledge on the part of any one of what had been settled betweenthe king of the Franks and him. Charlemagne remained all the winter atAix-la-Chapelle, spent the first months of the year 800 on affairsconnected with Western France, at Rouen, Tours, Orleans, and Paris, and, returning to Mayence in the month of August, then for the first timeannounced to the general assembly of Franks his design of making ajourney to Italy. He repaired thither, in fact, and arrived on the 23dof November, 800, at the gates of Rome. The Pope received him there ashe was dismounting; then, the next day, standing on the steps of thebasilica of St. Peter and amidst general hallelujahs, he introduced theking into the sanctuary of the blessed apostle, glorifying and thankingthe Lord for this happy event. Some days were spent in examining intothe grievances which had been set down to the Pope's account, and inreceiving two monks arrived from Jerusalem to present to the king, withthe patriarch's blessing, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary, aswell as the sacred standard. Lastly, on the 25th of December, 800, "theday of the Nativity of our Lord, " says Eginhard, "the king came into thebasilica of the blessed St. Peter, apostle, to attend the celebration ofmass. At the moment when, in his place before the altar, he was bowingdown to pray, Pope Leo placed on his head a crown, and all the Romanpeople shouted, 'Long life and victory to Charles Augustus, crowned byGod, the great and pacific emperor of the Romans!' After thisproclamation the pontiff prostrated himself before him and paid himadoration, according to the custom established in the days of the oldemperors; and thenceforward Charles, giving up the title of patrician, bore that of Emperor and Augustus. "

Eginhard adds, in his Life of Charlemagne, "The king at first testifiedgreat aversion for this dignity, for he declared that, notwithstandingthe importance of the festival, he would not on that day have entered thechurch, if he could have foreseen the intentions of the sovereignpontiff. However, this event excited the jealousy of the Roman emperors(of Constantinople), who showed great vexation at it; but Charles mettheir bad graces with nothing but great patience, and thanks to thismagnanimity, which raised him so far above them, he managed, by sendingto them frequent embassies and giving them in his letters the name ofbrother, to triumph over their conceit. "

No one, probably, believed in the ninth century, and no one, assuredly, will nowadays believe, that Charlemagne was innocent beforehand of whattook place on the 25th of December, 800, in the basilica of St. Peter. It is doubtful, also, if he were seriously concerned about the ill-temperof the emperors of the East. He had wit enough to understand the valuewhich always remains attached to old traditions, and he might have takensome pains to secure their countenance to his title of emperor; but allhis contemporaries believed, and he also undoubtedly believed, that hehad on that day really won and set up again the Roman empire. 

CHAPTER XI. ----CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS GOVERNMENT. 

What, then, was the government of this empire of which Charlemagne wasproud to assume the old title? How did this German warrior govern thatvast dominion which, thanks to his conquests, extended from the Elbe tothe Ebro, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean; which comprised nearlyall Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and the north of Italy and ofSpain, and which, sooth to say, was still, when Charlemagne causedhimself to be made emperor, scarce more than the hunting-ground and thebattle-field of all the swarms of barbarians who tried to settle on theruins of the Roman world they had invaded and broken to pieces? Thegovernment of Charlemagne in the midst of this chaos is the striking, complicated, and transitory fact which is now to be passed in review. 

A word of warning must be first of all given touching this wordgovernment, with which it is impossible to dispense. For a long timepast the word has entailed ideas of national unity, general organization, and regular and efficient power. There has been no lack of revolutionswhich have changed dynasties and the principles and forms of the supremepower in the State; but they have always left existing, under differentnames, the practical machinery whereby the supreme power makes itselffelt and exercises its various functions over the whole country. Openthe Almanac, whether it be called the Imperial, the Royal, or theNational, and you will find there always the working system of thegovernment of France; all the powers and their agents, from the lowest tothe highest, are there indicated and classed according to theirprerogatives and relations. Nor have we there a mere empty nomenclature, a phantom of theory; things go on actually as they are described--thebook is the reflex of the reality. It were easy to construct, for theempire of Charlemagne, a similar list of officers; there might be setdown in it dukes, counts, vicars, centeniers, and sheriffs (seabini), andthey might be distributed, in regular gradation, over the wholeterritory; but it would be one huge lie; for most frequently, in themajority of places, these magistracies were utterly powerless andthemselves in complete disorder. The efforts of Charlemagne, either toestablish them on a firm footing or to make them act with regularity, were continual, but unavailing. In spite of the fixity of his purposeand the energy of his action, the disorder around him was measureless andinsurmountable. He might check it for a moment at one point; but theevil existed wherever his terrible will did not reach, and wherever itdid the evil broke out again so soon as it had been withdrawn. How couldit be otherwise? Charlemagne had not to grapple with one single nationor with one single system of institutions; he had to deal with differentnations, without cohesion, and foreign one to another. The authoritybelonged, at one and the same time, to assemblies of free men, tolandholders over the dwellers on their domains, and to the king over the"leudes" and their following. These three powers appeared and acted sideby side in every locality as well as in the totality of the State. Theirrelations and their prerogatives were not governed by any generally-recognized principle, and none of the three was invested with sufficientmight to prevail habitually against the independence or resistance of itsrivals. Force alone, varying according to circumstances and alwaysuncertain decided matters between them. Such was France at the accessionof the second line. The co-existence of and the struggle between thethree systems of institutions and the three powers just alluded to had asyet had no other result. Out of this chaos Charlemagne caused to issue amonarchy, strong through him alone and so long as he was by, butpowerless and gone like a shadow when the man was lost to theinstitution. 

Whoever is astonished either at this triumph of absolute monarchy throughthe personal movement of Charlemagne, or at the speedy fall of the fabricon the disappearance of the moving spirit, understands neither what canbe done by a great man, when without him society sees itself given overto deadly peril, nor how unsubstantial and frail is absolute power whenthe great man is no longer by, or when society has no longer need of him. 

It has just been shown how Charlemagne by his wars, which had for theirobject and result permanent and well-secured conquests, had stopped thefresh incursions of barbarians, that is, had stopped disorder coming fromwithout. An attempt will now be made to show by what means he set aboutsuppressing disorder from within and putting his own rule in the place ofthe anarchy that prevailed in the Roman world which lay in ruins, and inthe barbaric world which was a prey to blind and ill-regulated force. 

A distinction must be drawn between the local and central governments. 

Far from the centre of the State, in what have since been called theprovinces, the power of the emperor was exercised by the medium of twoclasses of agents, one local and permanent, the other despatched from thecentre and transitory. 

In the first class we find:--

1st. The dukes, counts, vicars of counts, centeniers, sheriffs(scabini), officers or magistrates residing on the spot, nominated by theemperor himself or by his delegates, and charged with the duty of actingin his name for the levying of troops, rendering of justice, maintenanceof order, and receipt of imposts. 

2d. The beneficiaries or vassals of the emperor, who held of him, sometimes as hereditaments, more often for life, and more often stillwithout fixed rule or stipulation, lands; domains, throughout the extentof which they exercised, a little bit in their own name and a little bitin the name of the emperor, a certain jurisdiction and nearly all therights of sovereignty. There was nothing very fixed or clear in theposition of the beneficiaries and in the nature of their power; they wereat one and the same time delegates and independent, owners and enjoyersof usufruct, and the former or the latter character prevailed amongstthem according to circumstances. But, altogether, they were closelybound to Charlemagne, who, in a great number of cases, charged them withthe execution of his orders in the lands they occupied. 

Above these agents, local and resident, magistrates or beneficiaries, were the _missi dominici, _ temporary commissioners, charged to inspect, in the emperor's name, the condition of the provinces; authorized topenetrate into the interior of the free lands as well as of the domainsgranted with the title of benefices; having the right to reform certainabuses, and bound to render an account of all to their master. The_missi dominici_ were the principal instruments Charlemagne had, throughout the vast territory of his empire, of order and administration. 

As to the central government, setting aside for a moment the personalaction of Charlemagne and of his counsellors, the general assemblies, to judge by appearances and to believe nearly all the modern historians, occupied a prominent place in it. They were, in fact, during his reign, numerous and active; from the year 776 to the year 813 we may countthirty-five of these national assemblies, March-parades and May-parades, held at Worms, Valenciennes, Geneva, Paderborn, Aix-la-Chapelle, Thionville, and several other towns, the majority situated round aboutthe two banks of the Rhine. The number and periodical nature of thesegreat political reunions are undoubtedly a noticeable fact. What, then, went on in their midst? What character and weight must be attached totheir intervention in the government of the State? It is important tosift this matter thoroughly. 

There is extant, touching this subject, a very curious document. Acontemporary and counsellor of Charlemagne, his cousin-german Adalbert, abbot of Corbic, had written a treatise entitled _Of the Ordering of thePalace (De Ordine Palatii), _ and designed to give an insight into thegovernment of Charlemagne, with especial reference to the nationalassemblies. This treatise was lost; but towards the close of the ninthcentury, Hincmar, the celebrated archbishop of Rheims, reproduced italmost in its entirety, in the form of a letter or of instructions, written at the request of certain grandees of the kingdom who had askedcounsel of him with respect to the government of Carloman, one of thesons of Charles the Stutterer. We read therein, "It was the custom at this time to hold two assemblies every year. . . In both, that they might not seem to have been convoked without motive, there were submitted to the examination and deliberation of the grandees. . . And by virtue of orders from the king, the fragments of lawcalled _capitula, _ which the king himself had drawn up under theinspiration of God or the necessity for which had been made manifest tohim in the intervals between the meetings. "

Two striking facts are to be gathered from these words: the first, thatthe majority of the members composing these assemblies probably regardedas a burden the necessity for being present at them, since Charlemagnetook care to explain their convocation by declaring to them the motivefor it and by always giving them something to do; the second, that theproposal of the capitularies, or, in modern phrase, the initiative, proceeded from the emperor. The initiative is naturally exercised by himwho wishes to regulate or reform, and in his time it was especiallyCharlemagne who conceived this design. There is no doubt, however, butthat the members of the assembly might make on their side such proposalsas appeared to them suitable; the constitutional distrusts and artificesof our times were assuredly unknown to Charlemagne, who saw in theseassemblies a means of government rather than a barrier to his authority. To resume the text of Hincmar:--

"After having received these communications, they deliberated on themtwo or three days or more, according to the importance of the business. Palace-messengers, going and coming, took their questions and carriedback the answers. No stranger came near the place of their meeting untilthe result of their deliberations had been able to be submitted to thescrutiny of the great prince, who then, with the wisdom he had receivedfrom God, adopted a resolution which all obeyed. "

The definitive resolution, therefore, depended upon Charlemagne alone;the assembly contributed only information and counsel. 

Hinemar continues, and supplies details worthy of reproduction, for theygive an insight into the imperial government and the action ofCharlemagne himself amidst those most ancient of the national assemblies. 

"Things went on thus for one or two capitularies, or a greater number, until, with God's help, all the necessities of the occasion wereregulated. 

"Whilst these matters were thus proceeding out of the king's presence, the prince himself, in the midst of the multitude, came to the generalassembly, was occupied in receiving the presents, saluting the men ofmost note, conversing with those he saw seldom, showing towards theelders a tender interest, disporting himself with the youngsters, anddoing the same thing, or something like it, with the ecclesiastics aswell as the seculars. However, if those who were deliberating about thematter submitted to their examination showed a desire for it, the kingrepaired to them and remained with them as long as they wished; and thenthey reported to him with perfect familiarity what they thought about allmatters, and what were the friendly discussions that had arisen amongstthem. I must not forget to say that, if the weather were fine, everything took place in the open air; otherwise, in several distinctbuildings, where those who had to deliberate on the king's proposals wereseparated from the multitude of persons come to the assembly, and thenthe men of greater note were admitted. The places appointed for themeeting of the lords were divided into two parts, in such sort that thebishops, the abbots, and the clerics of high rank might meet withoutmixture with the laity. In the same way the counts and other chiefs ofthe State underwent separation, in the morning, until, whether the kingwas present or absent, all were gathered together; then the lords abovespecified, the clerics on their side, and the laics on theirs, repairedto the hall which had been assigned to them, and where seats had beenwith due honor prepared for them. When the lords laical andecclesiastical were thus separated from the multitude, it remained intheir power to sit separately or together, according to the nature of thebusiness they had to deal with, ecclesiastical, secular, or mixed. Inthe same way, if they wished to send for any one, either to demandrefreshment, or to put any question and to dismiss him after getting whatthey wanted, it was at their option. Thus took place the examination ofaffairs proposed to them by the king for deliberation. 

[Illustration: Charlemagne and the General Assembly----239]

"The second business of the king was to ask of each what there was toreport to him, or enlighten him touching the part of the kingdom each hadcome from. Not only was this permitted to all, but they were strictlyenjoined to make inquiries, during the interval between the assemblies, about what happened within or without the kingdom; and they were bound toseek knowledge from foreigners as well as natives, enemies as well asfriends, sometimes by employing emissaries, and without troublingthemselves much about the manner in which they acquired theirinformation. The king wished to know whether in any part, in any cornerof the kingdom, the people were restless, and what was the cause of theirrestlessness; or whether there had happened any disturbance to which itwas necessary to draw the attention of the council-general, and othersimilar matters. He sought also to know whether any of the subjugatednations were inclined to revolt; whether any of those that had revoltedseemed disposed towards submission; and whether those that were stillindependent were threatening the kingdom with any attack. On all thesesubjects, whenever there was any manifestation of disorder or danger, hedemanded chiefly what were the motives or occasion of them. "

There is need of no great reflection to recognize the true character ofthese assemblies: it is clearly imprinted upon the sketch drawn byHincmar. The figure of Charlemagne alone fills the picture: he is thecentre-piece of it and the soul of everything. 'Tis he who wills thatthe national assemblies should meet and deliberate; 'tis he who inquiresinto the state of the country; 'tis he who proposes and approves of orrejects the laws; with him rest will and motive, initiative and decision. He has a mind sufficiently judicious, unshackled, and elevated tounderstand that the nation ought not to be left in darkness about itsaffairs, and that he himself has need of communicating with it, ofgathering information from it, and of learning its opinions. But we havehere no exhibition of great political liberties, no people discussing itsinterests and its business, interfering effectually in the adoption ofresolutions, and, in fact, taking in its government so active anddecisive a part as to have a right to say that it is self-governing, or, in other words, a free people. It is Charlemagne, and he alone, who governs; it is absolute government marked by prudence, ability, and grandeur. 

When the mind dwells upon the state of Gallo-Frankish society in theeighth century, there is nothing astonishing in such a fact. Whether itbe civilized or barbarian, that which every society needs, that which itseeks and demands first of all in its government, is a certain degree ofgood sense and strong will, of intelligence and innate influence, so faras the public interests are concerned; qualities, in fact, which sufficeto keep social order maintained or make it realized, and to promoterespect for individual rights and the progress of the general well-being. This is the essential aim of every community of men; and the institutionsand guarantees of free government are the means of attaining it. It isclear that, in the eighth century, on the ruins of the Roman and beneaththe blows of the barbaric world, the Gallo-Frankish nation, vast andwithout cohesion, brutish and ignorant, was incapable of bringing forth, so to speak, from its own womb, with the aid of its own wisdom andvirtue, a government of the kind. A host of different forces, withoutenlightenment and without restraint, were everywhere and incessantlystruggling for dominion, or, in other words, were ever troubling andendangering the social condition. Let there but arise, in the midst ofthis chaos of unruly forces and selfish passions, a great man, one ofthose elevated minds and strong characters that can understand theessential aim of society and then urge it forward, and at the same timekeep it well in hand on the roads that lead thereto, and such a man willsoon seize and exercise the personal power almost of a despot, and peoplewill not only make him welcome, but even celebrate his praises, for theydo not quit the substance for the shadow, or sacrifice the end to themeans. Such was the empire of Charlemagne. Amongst annalists andhistorians, some, treating him as a mere conqueror and despot, haveignored his merits and his glory; others, that they might admire himwithout scruple, have made of him a founder of free institutions, aconstitutional monarch. Both are equally mistaken. Charlemagne was, indeed, a conqueror and a despot; but by his conquests and his personalpower he, so long as he was by, that is, for six and forty years, savedGallo-Frankish society from barbaric invasion without and anarchy within. That is the characteristic of his government and his title to glory. 

What he was in his wars and his general relations with his nation hasjust been seen; he shall now be exhibited in all his administrativeactivity and his intellectual life, as a legislator and as a friend tothe human mind. The same man will be recognized in every ease; he willgrow in greatness, without changing, as he appears under his variousaspects. 

There are often joined together, under the title of Capitularies(_capitula, _ small chapters, articles) a mass of Acts, very different inpoint of dates and objects, which are attributed indiscriminately toCharlemagne. This is a mistake. The Capitularies are the laws orlegislative measures of the Frankish kings, Merovingian as well asCarlovingian. Those of the Merovingians are few in number and of slightimportance, and amongst those of the Carlovingians, which amount to onehundred and fifty-two, sixty-five only are due to Charlemagne. When anattempt is made to classify these last according to their object, it isimpossible not to be struck with their incoherent variety; and several ofthem are such as we should nowadays be surprised to meet with in a codeor in a special law. Amongst Charlemagne's sixty-five Capitularies, which contain eleven hundred and fifty-one articles, may be countedeighty-seven of moral, two hundred and ninety-three of political, onehundred and thirty of penal, one hundred and ten of civil, eighty-five ofreligious, three hundred and five of canonical, seventy-three ofdomestic, and twelve of incidental legislation. And it must not besupposed that all these articles are really acts of legislation, lawsproperly so called; we find amongst them the texts of ancient nationallaws revised and promulgated afresh; extracts from and additions to thesesame ancient laws, Salle, Lombard, and Bavarian; extracts from acts ofcouncils; instructions given by Charlemagne to his envoys in theprovinces; questions that he proposed to put to the bishops or countswhen they came to the national assembly; answers given by Charlemagneto questions addressed to him by the bishops, counts, or commissioners(_missi dominici_); judgments, decrees, royal pardons, and simple notesthat Charlemagne seems to have had written down for himself alone, toremind him of what he proposed to do; in a word, nearly all the variousacts which could possibly have to be framed by an earnest, far-sightedand active government. Often, indeed, these Capitularies have noimperative or prohibitive character; they are simple counsels, purelymoral precepts. We read therein, for example, --

"Covetousness doth consist in desiring that which others possess, and ingiving away nought of that which one's self possesseth; according to theApostle it is the root of all evil. "

And, --

"Hospitality must be practised. "

The Capitularies which have been classed under the heads of political, penal, and canonical legislation are the most numerous, and are thosewhich bear most decidedly an imperative or prohibitive stamp; amongstthem a prominent place is held by measures of political economy, administration, and police; you will find therein an attempt to put afixed price on provisions, a real trial of a maximum for cereals, and aprohibition of mendicity, with the following clause:--

"If such mendicants be met with, and they labor not with their hands, letnone take thought about giving unto them. "

The interior police of the palace was regulated thereby, as well as thatof the empire:

"We do will and decree that none of those who serve in our palace shalltake leave to receive therein any man who seeketh refuge there and comethto hide there, by reason of theft, homicide, adultery, or any othercrime. That if any free man do break through our interdicts, and hidesuch malefactor in our palace, he shall be bound to carry him on hisshoulders to the public quarter, and be there tied to the same stake asthe malefactor. "

Certain Capitularies have been termed religious legislation incontradistinction to canonical legislation, because they are reallyadmonitions, religious exhortations, addressed not to ecclesiasticsalone, but to the faithful, the Christian people in general, and notablycharacterized by good sense, and, one might almost say, freedom ofthought. 

For example, "Beware of venerating the names of martyrs falsely so called, and thememory of dubious saints. "

"Let none suppose that prayer cannot be made to God save in three tongues[probably Latin, Greek, and Germanic, or perhaps the vulgar tongue; forthe last was really beginning to take form], for God is adored in alltongues, and man is heard if he do but ask for the things that be right. "

These details are put forward that a proper idea may be obtained ofCharlemagne as a legislator, and of what are called his laws. We havehere, it will be seen, no ordinary legislator and no ordinary laws: wesee the work, with infinite variations and in disconnected form, of aprodigiously energetic and watchful master, who had to think and providefor everything, who had to be everywhere the moving and the regulatingspirit. This universal and untiring energy is the grand characteristicof Charlemagne's government, and was, perhaps, what made his superioritymost incontestable and his power most efficient. 

It is noticeable that the majority of Charlemagne's Capitularies belongto that epoch of his reign when he was Emperor of the West, when he wasinvested with all the splendor of sovereign power. Of the sixty-fiveCapitularies classed under different heads, thirteen only are previous tothe 25th of December, 800, the date of his coronation as emperor at Rome;fifty-two are comprised between the years 801 and 804. 

The energy of Charlemagne as a warrior and a politician having thus beenexhibited, it remains to say a few words about his intellectual energy. For that is by no means the least original or least grand feature of hischaracter and his influence. 

Modern times and civilized society have more than once seen despoticsovereigns filled with distrust towards scholars of exalted intellect, especially such as cultivated the moral and political sciences, andlittle inclined to admit them to their favor or to public office. Thereis no knowing whether, in our days, with our freedom of thought and ofthe press, Charlemagne would have been a stranger to this feeling ofantipathy; but what is certain is, that in his day, in the midst of abarbaric society, there was no inducement to it, and that, by nature, hewas not disposed to it. His power was not in any respect questioned;distinguished intellects were very rare; Charlemagne had too much need oftheir services to fear their criticisms, and they, on their part, weremore anxious to second his efforts than to show towards him anything likeexaction or independence. He gave rein, therefore, without anyembarrassment or misgiving, to his spontaneous inclination towards them, their studies, their labors, and their influence. He drew them into themanagement of affairs. In Guizot's _History of Civilization in France_there is a list of the names and works of twenty-three men of the eighthand ninth centuries who have escaped oblivion, and they are all foundgrouped about Charlemagne as his own habitual advisers, or assigned byhim as advisers to his sons Pepin and Louis in Italy and Aquitania, orsent by him to all points of his empire as his commissioners (_missidominici_), or charged in his name with important negotiations. Andthose whom he did not employ at a distance formed, in his immediateneighborhood, a learned and industrious society, a school of the palace, according to some modern commentators, but an academy, and not a school, according to others, devoted rather to conversation than to teaching. Itprobably fulfilled both missions; it attended Charlemagne at his variousresidences, at one time working for him at questions he invited them todeal with, at another giving to the regular components of his court, tohis children and to himself, lessons in the different sciences calledliberal, grammar, rhetoric, logic, astronomy, geometry, and even theologyand the great religious problems it was beginning to discuss. 

[Illustration: Charlemagne presiding at the School of the Palace----246]

Two men, Alcuin and Eginhard, have remained justly celebrated in theliterary history of the age. Alcuin was the principal director of theschool of the palace, and the favorite, the confidant, the learnedadviser of Charlemagne. "If your zeal were imitated, " said he one day tothe emperor, "perchance one might see arise in France a new Athens, farmore glorious than the ancient--the Athens of Christ. " Eginhard, who wasyounger, received his scientific education in the school of the palace, and was head of the public works to Charlemagne, before becoming hisbiographer, and, at a later period, the intimate adviser of his son Louisthe Debonnair. Other scholars of the school of the palace, Angilbert, Leidrade, Adalhard, Agobard, Theodulph, were abbots of St. Riquier orCorbie, archbishops of Lyons, and bishops of Orleans. They had allassumed, in the school itself, names illustrious in pagan antiquity;Alcuin called himself Flaeens; Angilbert, Homer; Theodulph, Pindar. Charlemagne himself had been pleased to take, in their society, a greatname of old, but he had borrowed from the history of the Hebrews--hecalled himself David; and Eginhard, animated, no doubt, by the samesentiments, was Bezaleel, that nephew of Moses to whom God had grantedthe gift of knowing how to work skilfully in wood and all the materialswhich served for the construction of the ark and the tabernacle. Eitherin the lifetime of their royal patron, or after his death, all thesescholars became great dignitaries of the Church, or ended their lives inmonasteries of note; but, so long as they lived, they served Charlemagneor his sons not only with the devotion of faithful advisers, but also asfollowers proud of the master who had known how to do them honor bymaking use of them. 

It was without effort and by natural sympathy that Charlemagne hadinspired them with such sentiments; for he, too, really loved sciences, literature, and such studies as were then possible, and he cultivatedthem on his own account and for his own pleasure, as a sort of conquest. It has been doubted whether he could write, and an expression ofEginhard's might authorize such a doubt; but, according to other evidenceand even according to the passage in Eginhard, one is inclined to believemerely that Charlemagne strove painfully, and without much success, towrite a good hand. He had learned Latin, and he understood Greek. Hecaused to be commenced, and, perhaps, himself commenced the drawing up ofthe first Germanic grammar. He ordered that the old barbaric poems, inwhich the deeds and wars of the ancient kings were celebrated, should becollected for posterity. He gave Germanic names to the twelve months ofthe year. He distinguished the winds by twelve special terms, whereasbefore his time they had but four designations. He paid great attentionto astronomy. Being troubled one day at no longer seeing in thefirmament one of the known planets, he wrote to Alcuin, "What thinkestthou of this Mars, which, last year, being concealed in the sign ofCancer, was intercepted from the sight of men by the light of the sun?Is it the regular course of his revolution? Is it the influence of thesun? Is it a miracle? Could he have been two years about performing thecourse of a single one?" In theological studies and discussions heexhibited a particular and grave interest. "It is to him, " say M. M. Ampere and Haureau, "that we must refer the honor of the decision takenin 794 by the Council of Frankfort in the great dispute about images; atemperate decision which is as far removed from the infatuation of theimage-worshippers as from the frenzy of the image-breakers. " And at thesame time that he thus took part in the great ecclesiastical questions, Charlemagne paid zealous attention to the instruction of the clergy, whose ignorance he deplored. "Ah, " said he one day, "if only I had aboutme a dozen clerics learned in all the sciences, as Jerome and Augustinwere!" With all his puissance it was not in his power to make Jeromesand Augustins; but he laid the foundation, in the cathedral churches andthe great monasteries, of episcopal and cloistral schools for theeducation of ecclesiastics, and carrying his solicitude still farther, he recommended to the bishops and abbots that, in those schools, "theyshould take care to make no difference between the sons of serfs and offree men, so that they might come and sit on the same benches to studygrammar, music, and arithmetic. " (_Capitularies_ of 789, art. 70. ) Thus, in the eighth century, he foreshadowed the extension which, in thenineteenth, was to be accorded to primary instruction, to the advantageand honor not only of the clergy, but also of the whole people. 

After so much of war and toil at a distance, Charlemagne was now at Aix-la-Chapelle, finding rest in this work of peaceful civilization. He wasembellishing the capital which he had founded, and which was called theking's court. He had built there a grand basilica, magnificentlyadorned. He was completing his own palace there. He fetched from Italyclerics skilled in church music, a pious joyance to which he was muchdevoted, and which he recommended to the bishops of his empire. In theoutskirts of Aix-la-Chapelle "he gave full scope, " said Eginhard, "to hisdelight in riding and hunting. Baths of naturally-tepid water gave himgreat pleasure. Being passionately fond of swimming, he became sodexterous that none could be compared with him. He invited not only hissons, but also his friends, the grandees of his court, and sometimes eventhe soldiers of his guard, to bathe with him, insomuch that there wereoften a hundred and more persons bathing at a time. When age arrived hemade no alteration in his bodily habits; but, at the same time, insteadof putting away from him the thought of death, he was much taken up withit, and prepared himself for it with stern severity. He drew up, modified, and completed his will several times over. Three years beforehis death he made out the distribution of his treasures, his money, hiswardrobe, and all his furniture, in the presence of his friends and hisofficers, in order that their voice might insure, after his death, theexecution of this partition, and he set down his intentions in thisrespect in a written summary, in which he massed all his riches in threegrand lots. The first two were divided into twenty-one portions, whichwere to be distributed amongst the twenty-one metropolitan churches ofhis empire. After having put these first two lots under seal, he willedto preserve to himself his usual enjoyment of the third so long as helived. But after his death or voluntary renunciation of the things ofthis world, this same lot was to be subdivided into four portions. Hisintention was, that the first should be added to the twenty-one portionswhich were to go to the metropolitan churches; the second set aside forhis sons and daughters, and for the sons and daughters of his sons, andredivided amongst them in a just and proportionate manner; the thirddedicated, according to the usage of Christians, to the necessities ofthe poor; and, lastly, the fourth distributed in the same way, under thename of alms, amongst the servants, of both sexes, of the palace fortheir lifetime. . . . As for the books, of which he had amassed alarge number in his library, he decided that those who wished to havethem might buy them at their proper value, and that the money which theyproduced should be distributed amongst the poor. "

Having thus carefully regulated his own private affairs and bounty, he, two years later, in 813, took the measures necessary for the regulation, after his death, of public affairs. He had lost, in 811, his eldest sonCharles, who had been his constant companion in his wars, and, in 810, his second son Pepin, whom he had made king of Italy; and he summoned tohis side his third son Louis, king of Aquitaine, who was destined tosucceed him. He ordered the convocation of five local councils whichwere to assemble at Mayence, Rheims, Chalons, Tours, and Arles, for thepurpose of bringing about, subject to the king's ratification, thereforms necessary in the Church. Passing from the affairs of the Churchto those of the State, he convoked at Aix-la-Chapelle a general assemblyof bishops, abbots, counts, laic grandees, and of the entire people, and, holding council in his palace with the chief amongst them, "he invitedthem to make his son Louis king-emperor; whereto all assented, sayingthat it was very expedient, and pleasing, also, to the people. On Sundayin the next month, August 813, Charlemagne repaired, crown on head, withhis son Louis, to the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, laid upon the altaranother crown, and, after praying, addressed to his son a solemnexhortation respecting all his duties as king towards God and the Church, towards his family and his people, asked him if he were fully resolved tofulfil them, and, at the answer that he was, bade him take the crown thatlay upon the altar, and place it with his own hands upon his head, whichLouis did amidst the acclamations of all present, who cried, 'Long livethe emperor Louis!' Charlemagne then declared his son emperor jointlywith him, and ended the solemnity with these words: 'Blessed be Thou, OLord God, who hast granted me grace to see with mine own eyes my sonseated on my throne!'" And Louis set out again immediately forAquitaine. 

He was never to see his father again. Charlemagne, after his son'sdeparture, went out hunting, according to his custom, in the forest ofArdenne, and continued during the whole autumn his usual mode of life. "But in January, 814, he was taken ill, " says Eginhard, "of a violentfever, which kept him to his bed. Recurring forthwith to the remedy heordinarily employed against fever, he abstained from all nourishment, persuaded that this diet would suffice to drive away or at the leastassuage the malady; but added to the fever came that pain in the sidewhich the Greeks call pleurisy; nevertheless the emperor persisted in hisabstinence, supporting his body only by drinks taken at long intervals;and on the seventh day after that he had taken to his bed, havingreceived the holy communion, " he expired about nine A. M. , on Saturday, the 28th of January, 814, in his seventy-first year. 

"After performance of ablutions and funeral duties, the corpse wascarried away and buried, amidst the profound mourning of all the people, in the church he himself had built; and above his tomb there was put up agilded arcade with his image and this superscription: 'In this tombreposeth the body of Charles, great and orthodox emperor, who didgloriously extend the kingdom of the Franks, and did govern it happilyfor forty-seven years. He died at the age of seventy years, in the yearof the Lord 814, in the seventh year of the Indiction, on the 5th of theKalends of February. '"

If we sum up his designs and his achievements, we find an admirably soundidea and a vain dream, a great success and a great failure. 

Charlemagne took in hand the work of placing upon a solid foundation theFrankish-Christian dominion by stopping, in the north and south, theflood of barbarians and Arabs--Paganism and Islamism. In that hesucceeded: the inundations of Asiatic populations spent their force invain against the Gallic frontier. Western and Christian Europe wasplaced, territorially, beyond reach of attacks from the foreigner andinfidel. No sovereign, no human being, perhaps, ever rendered greaterservice to the civilization of the world. 

Charlemagne formed another conception and made another attempt. Likemore than one great barbaric warrior, he admired the Roman empire thathad fallen, its vastness all in one, and its powerful organization underthe hand of a single master. He thought he could resuscitate it, durably, through the victory of a new people and a new faith, by the handof Franks and Christians. With this view he labored to conquer, convert, and govern. He tried to be, at one and the same time, Caesar, Augustus, and Constantine. And for a moment he appeared to have succeeded; but theappearance passed away with himself. The unity of the empire and theabsolute power of the emperor were buried in his grave. The Christianreligion and human liberty set to work to prepare for Europe othergovernments and other destinies. 

Great men do great things which would not get done without them; they settheir mark plainly upon history, which realizes a portion of their ideasand wishes; but they are far from doing all they meditate, and they knownot all they do. They are at one and the same time instruments and freeagents in a general design which is infinitely above their ken, andwhich, even if a glimpse of it be caught, remains inscrutable to them--the design of God towards mankind. When great men understand that suchis their position and accept it, they show sense, and they work to somepurpose. When they do not recognize the limits of their free agency, andthe veil which hides from their eyes the future they are laboring for, they become the dupes, and frequently the victims, of a blind pride, which events, in the long run, always end by exposing and punishing. 

Amongst men of his rank, Charlemagne has had this singular good fortune, that his error, his misguided attempt at imperialism, perished with him, whilst his salutary achievement, the territorial security of ChristianEurope, has been durable, to the great honor, as well as great profit, ofEuropean civilization. 

CHAPTER XII. ----DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS. 

From the death of Charlemagne to the accession of Hugh Capet, --that is, from 814 to 987, --thirteen kings sat upon the throne of France. Whatthen became, under their reign and in the course of those hundred andseventy-three years, of the two great facts which swayed the mind andoccupied the life of Charlemagne? What became, that is, of the solidterritorial foundation of the kingdom of Christian France, throughefficient repression of foreign invasion, and of the unity of that vastempire wherein Charlemagne had attempted and hoped to resuscitate theRoman empire?

The fate of those two facts is the very history of France under theCarlovingian dynasty; it is the only portion of the events of that epochwhich still deserves attention nowadays, for it is the only one which hasexercised any great and lasting influence on the general history ofFrance. 

Attempts at foreign invasion of France were renewed very often, and inmany parts of Gallo-Frankish territory, during the whole duration of theCarlovingian dynasty, and, even though they failed, they caused thepopulation of the kingdom to suffer from cruel ravages. Charlemagne, even after his successes against the different barbaric invaders, hadforeseen the evils which would be inflicted on France by the mostformidable and most determined of them, the Northmen, coming by sea, andlanding on the coast. The most closely contemporaneous and most given todetail of his chroniclers, the monk of St. Gall, tells in prolix andpompous, but evidently heartfelt and sincere terms, the tale of the greatemperor's far-sightedness. "Charles, who was ever astir, " says he, "arrived by mere hap and unexpectedly, in a certain town of NarbonneseGaul. Whilst he was at dinner, and was as yet unrecognized of any, somecorsairs of the Northmen came to ply their piracies in the very port. When their vessels were descried, they were supposed to be Jewish tradersaccording to some, African according to others, and British in theopinion of others; but the gifted monarch, perceiving, by the build andlightness of the craft, that they bare not merchandise, but foes, said tohis own folk, 'These vessels be not laden with merchandise, but mannedwith cruel foes. ' At these words all the Franks, in rivalry one withanother, run to their ships, but uselessly: for the Northmen, indeed, hearing that yonder was he whom it was still their wont to call Charlesthe Hammer, feared lest all their fleet should be taken or destroyed inthe port, and they avoided, by a flight of inconceivable rapidity, notonly the glaives, but even the eyes of those who were pursuing then. 

[Illustration: Northmen on an Expedition??----254]

"Pious Charles, however, a prey to well-grounded fear, rose up fromtable, stationed himself at a window looking eastward, and there remaineda long while, and his eyes were filled with tears. As none durstquestion him, this warlike prince explained to the grandees who wereabout his person the cause of his movement and of his tears: 'Know ye, mylieges, wherefore I weep so bitterly? Of a surety I fear not lest thesefellows should succeed in injuring me by their miserable piracies; but itgrieveth me deeply that, whilst I live, they should have been nigh totouching at this shore, and I am a prey to violent sorrow when I foreseewhat evils they will heap upon my descendants and their people. '"

[Illustration: He remained there a long while, and his eyes were filledwith tears. ----255]

The forecast and the dejection of Charles were not unreasonable. It willbe found that there is special mention made, in the chronicles of theninth and tenth centuries, of forty-seven incursions into France ofNorwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Irish pirates, all comprised under thename of Northmen; and, doubtless, many other incursions of less gravityhave left no trace in history. "The Northmen, " says M. Fauriel, "descended from the north to the south by a sort of natural gradation orladder. The Scheldt was the first river by the mouth of which theypenetrated inland; the Seine was the second; the Loire the third. Theadvance was threatening for the countries traversed by the Garonne; andit was in 844 that vessels freighted with Northmen for the first timeascended this last river to a considerable distance inland, and theretook immense booty. . . . The following year they pillaged and burntSaintes. In 846 they got as far as Limoges. The inhabitants, findingthemselves unable to make head against the dauntless pirates, abandonedtheir hearths, together with all they had not time to carry away. Encouraged by these successes, the Northmen reappeared next year upon thecoasts and in the rivers of Aquitaine, and they attempted to takeBordeaux, whence they were valorously repulsed by the inhabitants; but in848, having once more laid siege to that city, they were admitted into itat night by the Jews, who were there in great force; the city was givenup to plunder and conflagration; a portion of the people was scatteredabroad, and the rest put to the sword. " Tours, Rouen, Angers, Orleans, Meaux, Toulouse, Saint-Lo, Bayeux, Evreux, Nantes, and Beauvais, some ofthem more than once, met the fate of Saintes, Limoges, and Bordeaux. Themonasteries and churches, wherein they hoped to find treasures, were thefavorite objects of the Nortlimen's enterprises; in particular, theyplundered, at the gates of Paris, the abbey of St. Germain des Pres andthat of St. Denis, whence they carried off the abbot, who could notpurchase his freedom, save by a heavy ransom. They penetrated more thanonce into Paris itself, and subjected many of its quarters tocontributions or pillage. The populations grew into the habit ofsuffering and fleeing; and the local lords, and even the kings, madearrangement sometimes with the pirates either for saving the royaldomains from the ravages, or for having their own share therein. In 850, Pepin, king of Aquitaine, and brother of Charles the Bald, came to anunderstanding with the Northmen who had ascended the Garonne, and werethreatening Toulouse. "They arrived under his guidance, " says M. Fauriel, "they laid siege to it, took it and plundered it, not halfwise, not hastily, as folks who feared to be surprised, but leisurely, with allsecurity, by virtue of a treaty of alliance with one of the kings of thecountry. " Throughout Aquitaine there was but one cry of indignationagainst Pepin, and the popularity of Charles was increased in proportionto all the horror inspired by the ineffable misdeed of his adversary. Charles the Bald himself, if he did not ally himself, as Pepin did, withthe invaders, took scarce any interest in the fate of the populations, and scarcely more trouble to protect them, for Hincmar, archbishop ofRheims, wrote to him in 859, "Many folks say that you are incessantlyrepeating that it is not for you to mix yourself up with thesedepredations and robberies, and that every one has but to defend himselfas best he may. "

It were tedious to relate or even to enumerate all these incursions ofthe Northmen, with their monotonous incidents. When their frequency andtheir general character have been notified, all has been done that is dueto them from history. However, there are three on which it may be worthwhile to dwell particularly, by reason of their grave historicalconsequences, as well as of the dramatic details which have beentransmitted to us about them. 

In the middle and during the last half of the ninth century, a chief ofthe Northmen, named Hastenc or Hastings, appeared several times over onthe coasts and in the rivers of France, with numerous vessels and afollowing. He had also with him, say the chronicles, a young Norwegianor Danish prince, Bieern, called Ironsides, whom he had educated, and whohad preferred sharing the fortunes of his governor to living quietly withthe king, his father. After several expeditions into Western France, Hastings became the theme of terrible, and very probably fabulousstories. He extended his cruises, they say, to the Mediterranean, and, having arrived at the coasts of Tuscany, within sight of a city which inhis ignorance he took for Rome, he resolved to pillage it; but, notfeeling strong enough to attack it by assault, he sent to the bishop tosay he was very ill, felt a wish to become a Christian, and begged to bebaptized. Some days afterwards, his comrades spread a report that he wasdead, and claimed for him the honors of a solemn burial. The bishopconsented; the coffin of Hastings was carried into the church, attendedby a large number of his followers, without visible weapons; but, in themiddle of the ceremony, Hastings suddenly leaped up, sword in hand, fromhis coffin; his followers displayed the weapons they had concealed, closed the doors, slew the priests, pillaged the ecclesiasticaltreasures, and re-embarked before the very eyes of the stupefiedpopulation, to go and resume, on the coasts of France, their incursionsand their ravages. 

Whether they were true or false, these rumors of bold artifices anddistant expeditions on the part of Hastings aggravated the dismayinspired by his appearance. He penetrated into the interior of thecountry in Poitou, Anjou, Brittany, and along the Seine; pillaged themonasteries of Jumieges, St. Vaudrille, and St. Evroul; took possessionof Chartres, and appeared before Paris, where Charles the Bald, intrenched at St. Denis, was deliberating with his prelates and barons asto how he might resist the Northmen or treat with them. The chroniclesays that the barons advised resistance, but that the king preferrednegotiation, and "sent the Abbot of St. Denis, the which was an exceedingwise man, " to Hastings, who, "after long parley, and by reason of largegifts and promises, " consented to stop his cruisings, to become aChristian, and to settle in the count-ship of Chartres, "which the kinggave him as an hereditary possession, with all its appurtenances. "According to other accounts, it was only some years later, under theyoung king Louis III. , grandson of Charles the Bald, that Hastings wasinduced, either by reverses or by payment of money, to cease from hispiracies, and accept in recompense the countship of Chartres. Whatevermay have been the date, he was, it is believed, the first chieftain ofthe Northmen who renounced a life of adventure and plunder, to become, inFrance, a great landed proprietor and a count of the king's. PrinceBieern then separated from his governor, and put again to sea, "ladenwith so rich a booty that he could never feel any want of wealth; but atempest swallowed up a great part of his fleet, and cast him upon thecoasts of Friesland, where he died soon after, for which Hastings wasexceeding sorry. "

A greater chieftain of the Northmen than Hastings was soon to follow hisexample, and found Normandy in France; but before Rolf, that is, Rollo, came and gave the name of his race to a French province, the piratical. Northmen were again to attempt a greater blow against France, and tosuffer a great reverse. 

In November, 885, under the reign of Charles the Fat, after having, formore than forty years, irregularly ravaged France, they resolved to unitetheir forces in order at length to obtain possession of Paris, whoseoutskirts they had so often pillaged without having been able to enterthe heart of the place, in the Ile de la Cite, which had originally beenand still was the real Paris. Two bodies of troops were set in motion;one, under the command of Rollo, who was already famous amongst hiscomrades, marched on Rouen; the other went right up the course of theSeine, under the orders of Siegfried, whom the Northmen called theirking. Rollo took Rouen, and pushed on at once for Paris. Duke Renaud, general of the Gallo-Frankish troops, went to encounter him on the banksof the Eure, and sent to him, to sound his intentions, Hastings, thenewly-made count of Chartres. "Valiant warriors, " said Hastings toRollo, "whence come ye? What seek ye here? What is the name of yourlord and master? Tell us this; for we be sent unto you by the king ofthe Franks. " "We be Danes, " answered Rollo, "and all be equally mastersamongst us. We be come to drive out the inhabitants of this land, and tosubject it as our own country. But who art thou, thou who speakest soglibly?" "Ye have sometime heard tell of one Hastings, who, issuingforth from amongst you, came hither with much shipping and made desert agreat part of the kingdom of the Franks?" "Yes, " said Rollo, "we haveheard tell of him; Hastings began well and ended ill. " "Will ye yieldyou to King Charles?" asked Hastings. "We yield, " was the answer, "tonone; all that we shall take by our arms we will keep as our right. Goand tell this, if thou wilt, to the king, whose envoy thou boastest tobe. " Hastings returned to the Gallo-Frankish army, and Rollo prepared tomarch on Paris. Hastings had gone back somewhat troubled in mind. Nowthere was amongst the Franks one Count Tetbold (Thibault), who greatlycoveted the countship of Chartres, and he said to Hastings, "Whyslumberest thou softly? Knowest thou not that King Charles doth purposethy death by cause of all the Christian blood that thou didst aforetimeunjustly shed? Bethink thee of all the evil thou hast done him, byreason whereof he purposeth to drive thee from his land. Take heed tothyself that thou be not smitten unawares. " Hastings, dismayed, at oncesold to Tetbold the town of Chartres, and, removing all that belonged tohim, departed to go and resume, for all that appears, his old course oflife. 

[Illustration: PARIS BESIEGED BY THE NORMANS----259]

On the 25th of November, 885, all the forces of the North-men formed ajunction before Paris; seven hundred huge barks covered two leagues ofthe Seine, bringing, it is said, more than thirty thousand men. Thechieftains were astonished at sight of the new fortifications of thecity, a double wall of circumvallation, the bridges crowned with towers, and in the environs the ramparts of the abbeys of St. Denis and St. Germain solidly rebuilt. Siegfried hesitated to attack a town so welldefended. He demanded to enter alone and have an interview with thebishop, Gozlin. "Take pity on thyself and thy flock, " said he to him;"let us but pass through this city; we will in no wise touch the town; wewill do our best to preserve for thee and Count Eudes, all yourpossessions. " "This city, " replied the bishop, "hath been confided untous by the Emperor Charles, king and ruler, under God, of the powers ofthe earth. He hath confided it unto us not that it should cause the ruinbut the salvation of the kingdom. If peradventure these walls had beenconfided to thy keeping, as they have been to mine, wouldst thou do asthou biddest me?" "If ever I do so, " answered Siegfried, "may my head becondemned to fall by the sword and serve as food to the dogs! But ifthou yield not to our prayers, so soon as the sun shall commence hiscourse, our armies will launch upon thee their poisoned arrows; and whenthe sun shall end his course, they will give thee over to all the horrorsof famine; and this will they do from year to year. " The bishop, however, persisted, without further discussion; being as certain of CountEudes as he was of himself. Eudes, who was young and but recently madecount of Paris, was the eldest son of Robert the Strong, count of Anjou, of the same line as Charlemagne, and but lately slain in battle againstthe Northmen. Paris had for defenders two heroes, one of the Church andthe other of the Empire: the faith of the Christian and the fealty of thevassal; the conscientiousness of the priest and the honor of the warrior. 

[Illustration: The Barks of the Northmen before Paris----260]

The siege lasted thirteen months, whiles pushed vigorously forward witheight several assaults, whiles maintained by close investment, and withall the alternations of success and reverse, all the intermixture ofbrilliant daring and obscure sufferings, that can occur when theassailants are determined and the defenders devoted. Not only acontemporary but an eye-witness, Abbo, a monk of St. Germain des Pres, has recounted the details in a long poem, wherein the writer, devoid oftalent, adds nothing to the simple representation of events; it ishistory itself which gives to Abbo's poem a high degree of interest. Wedo not possess, in reference to these continual struggles of the Northmenwith the Gallo-Frankish populations, any other document which is equallyprecise and complete, or which could make us so well acquainted with allthe incidents, all the phases of this irregular warfare between twopeoples, one without a government, the other without a country. Thebishop, Gozlin, died during the siege. Count Eudes quitted Paris for atime to go and beg aid of the emperor; but the Parisians soon saw himreappear on the heights of Montmartre with three battalions of troops, and he re-entered the town, spurring on his horse and striking light andleft with his battle-axe through the ranks of the dumfounded besiegers. The struggle was prolonged throughout the summer; and when, in November, 886, Charles the Fat at last appeared before Paris, "with a large army ofall nations, " it was to purchase the retreat of the Northmen at the costof a heavy ransom, and by allowing them to go and winter in Burgundy, "whereof the inhabitants obeyed not the emperor. "

Some months afterwards, in 887, Charles the Fat was deposed, at a dietheld on the banks of the Rhine, by the grandees of Germanic France; andArnulf, a natural son of Carloman, the brother of Louis III. , wasproclaimed emperor in his stead. At the same time Count Eudes, thegallant defender of Paris, was elected king at Compiegne and crowned bythe Archbishop of Sens. Guy, duke of Spoleto, descended from Charlemagnein the female line, hastened to France and was declared king at Langresby the bishop of that town, but returned with precipitation to Italy, seeing no chance of maintaining himself in his French kingship. Elsewhere, Boso, duke of Arles, became king of Provence, and theBurgundian Count Rodolph had himself crowned at St. Maurice, in theValais, king of transjuran Burgundy. There was still in France alegitimate Carlovingian, a son of Louis the Stutterer, who was hereafterto become Charles the Simple; but being only a child, he had beenrejected or completely forgotten, and, in the interval that was to elapseere his time should arrive, kings were being made in all directions. 

[Illustration: Count Eudes re-entering Paris right through the Besiegers----262]

In the midst of this confusion, the Northmen, though they kept at adistance from Paris, pursued in Western France their cruising andplundering. In Rollo they had a chieftain far superior to his vagabondpredecessors. Though he still led the same life that they had, hedisplayed therein other faculties, other inclinations, other views. Inhis youth he had made an expedition to England, and had there contracteda real friendship with the wise King Alfred the Great. During a campaignin Friesland he had taken prisoner Rainier, count of Hainault; andAlberade, countess of Brabant, made a request to Rollo for her husband'srelease, offering in return to set free twelve captains of the Northmen, her prisoners, and to give up all the gold she possessed. Rollo tookonly half the gold, and restored to the countess her husband. When, in885, he became master of Rouen, instead of devastating the city, afterthe fashion of his kind, he respected the buildings, had the wallsrepaired, and humored the inhabitants. In spite of his violent andextortionate practices where he met with obstinate resistance, there wereto be discerned in him symptoms of more noble sentiments and of aninstinctive leaning towards order, civilization, and government. Afterthe deposition of Charles the Fat and during the reign of Eudes, a livelystruggle was maintained between the Frankish king and the chieftain ofthe Northmen, who had neither of them forgotten their early encounters. They strove, one against the other, with varied fortunes; Eudes succeededin beating the Northmen at Montfaucon, but was beaten in Vermandois byanother band, commanded, it is said, by the veteran Hastings, sometimecount of Chartres. Rollo, too, had his share at one time of success, atanother of reverse; but he made himself master of several importanttowns, showed a disposition to treat the quiet populations gently, andmade a fresh trip to England, during which he renewed friendly relationswith her king, Athelstan, the successor of Alfred the Great. He thusbecame, from day to day, more reputable as well as more formidable inFrance, insomuch that Eudes himself was obliged to have recourse, indealing with him, to negotiations and presents. When, in 898, Eudes wasdead, and Charles the Simple, at hardly nineteen years of age, had beenrecognized sole king of France, the ascendency of Rollo became such thatthe necessity of treating with him was clear. In 911, Charles, by theadvice of his councillors, and, amongst them, of Robert, brother of thelate king, Eudes, who had himself become count of Paris and duke ofFrance, sent to the chieftain of the Northmen Franco, archbishop ofRouen, with orders to offer him the cession of a considerable portion ofNeustria and the hand of his young daughter Giscle, on condition that hebecame a Christian and acknowledged himself the king's vassal. Rollo, bythe advice of his comrades, received these overtures with a good grace, and agreed to a truce for three months, during which they might treatabout peace. On the day fixed, Charles accompanied by Duke Robert, andRollo, surrounded by his warriors, repaired to St. Clair-sur-Epte, on theopposite banks of the river, and exchanged numerous messages. Charlesoffered Rollo Flanders, which the Northman refused, considering it tooswampy; as to the maritime portion of Neustria, he would not be contentedwith it; it was, he said, covered with forests, and had become quite astranger to the plough-share by reason of the Northmen's incessantincursions; he demanded the addition of territories taken from Brittany, and that the princes of that province, Berenger and Alan, lords, respectively, of Redon and Del, should take the oath of fidelity to him. When matters had been arranged on this basis, "the bishops told Rollothat he who received such a gift as the duchy of Normandy was bound tokiss the king's foot. 'Never, ' quoth Rollo, 'will I bend the knee beforethe knees of any, and I will kiss the foot of none. ' At the solicitationof the Franks he then ordered one of his warriors to kiss the king'sfoot. The Northman, remaining bolt upright, took hold of the king'sfoot, raised it to his mouth, and so made the king fall backward, whichcaused great bursts of laughter and much disturbance amongst the throng. Then the king and all the grandees who were about him, prelates, abbots, dukes, and counts, swore, in the name of the Catholic faith, that theywould protect the patrician Rollo in his life, his members, and his folk, and would guarantee to him the possession of the aforesaid land, to himand his descendants forever. After which the king, well satisfied, returned to his domains; and Rollo departed with Duke Robert for the townof Rouen. "

The dignity of Charles the Simple had no reason to be well satisfied; butthe great political question which, a century before, caused Charlemagnesuch lively anxiety, was solved; the most dangerous, the most incessantlyrenewed of all foreign invasions, those of the Northmen, ceased tothreaten France. The vagabond pirates had a country to cultivate anddefend; the Northmen were becoming French. 

No such transformation was near taking place in the case of the invasionsof the Saracens in Southern Gaul; they continued to infest Aquitania, Septimania, and Provence; their robber-hordes appeared frequently on thecoasts of the Mediterranean and the banks of the Rhone, at Aigues-Mortes, at Marseilles, at Arles, and in Camargue; they sometimes penetrated intoDauphine, Rouergue, Limousin, and Saintonge. The author of this historysaw, at the commencement of the present century, in the mountains of theCevennes, the ruins of the towers built, a thousand years ago, by theinhabitants of those rugged countries, to put their families and theirflocks under shelter from the incursions of the Saracens. But theseincursions were of short duration, and most frequently undertaken byplunderers few in number, who retreated precipitately with their booty. Africa was not, as Asia was, an inexhaustible source of nations burningto push onward, one upon another, to go wandering and settling elsewhere. The people of the north move willingly towards the south, where living iseasier and pleasanter; but the people of the south are not much disposedto migrate to the north, with its soil so hard to cultivate, and itsleaden skies, and into the midst of its fogs and frosts. After a courseof plundering in Aquitania or in Provence, the Arabs of Spain and ofAfrica were eager to recross the Pyrenees or the Mediterranean, andregain their own lovely climate, and their life of easefulness that neverpalled. Furthermore, between Christians and Mussulmans the religiousantipathy was profound. The Christian missionaries were not much givento carrying their pious zeal into the home of the Mussulman; and theMussulmans were far less disposed than the pagans to become Christians. To preserve their conquests, the Arabs of Spain had to struggle againstthe refugee Goths in the Asturias; and Charlemagne, by extending those ofthe Franks to the Ebro, had given the Christian Goths a powerful allianceagainst the Spanish Mussulmans. For all these reasons, the invasions ofthe Saracens in the south of France did not threaten, as those of theNorthmen did in the north, the security of the Gallo-Frankish monarchy, and the Gallo-Roman populations of the south were able to defend theirnational independence at the same time against the Saracens and theFranks. They did so successfully in the ninth and tenth centuries; andthe French monarchy, which was being founded between the Loire and theRhine, had thus for some time a breach in it, without ever sufferingserious displacement. 

A new people, the Hungarians, which was the only name then given to theMagyars, appeared at this epoch, for the first time, amongst thedevastators of Western Europe. From 910 to 954, as a consequence ofmovements and wars on the Danube, Hungarian hordes, after scouringCentral Germany, penetrated into Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne, Burgundy, Berry, Dauphine, Provence, and even Aquitaine; but this inundation wastransitory, and if the populations of those countries had much to sufferfrom it, the Gallo-Frankish dominion, in spite of inward disorder and thefeebleness of the latter Carlovingians, was not seriously endangeredthereby. 

And so the first of Charlemagne's grand designs, the territorial securityof the Gallo-Frankish and Christian dominion, was accomplished. In theeast and the north, the Germanic and Asiatic populations, which had solong upset it, were partly arrested at its frontiers, partly incorporatedregularly in its midst. In the south, the Mussulman populations which, in the eighth century, had appeared so near overwhelming it, werepowerless to deal it any heavy blow. Substantially France was founded. But what had become of Charlemagne's second grand design, theresuscitation of the Roman empire at the hands of the barbariansthat had conquered it and become Christians?

Let us leave Louis the Debonnair his traditional name, although it is notan exact rendering of that which was given him by his contemporaries. They called him Louis the Pious. And so indeed he was, sincerely andeven scrupulously pious; but he was still more weak than pious, as weakin heart and character as in mind, as destitute of ruling ideas as ofstrength of will; fluctuating at the mercy of transitory impressions, orsurrounding influences, or positional embarrassments. The name ofDebonnair is suited to him; it expresses his moral worth and hispolitical incapacity, both at once. 

As king of Aquitania, in the time of Charlemagne, Louis made himselfesteemed and loved; his justice, his suavity, his probity, and his pietywere pleasing to the people, and his weaknesses disappeared under thestrong hand of his father. When he became emperor, he began his reign bya reaction against the excesses, real or supposed, of the precedingreign. Charlemagne's morals were far from regular, and he troubledhimself but little about the license prevailing in his family or hispalace. At a distance he ruled with a tight and a heavy hand. Louisestablished at his court, for his sisters as well as his servants, austere regulations. He restored to the subjugated Saxons certain of therights of which Charlemagne had deprived them. He sent out everywherehis commissioners (_missi dominici_) with orders to listen to complaintsand redress grievances, and to mitigate his father's rule, which wasrigorous in its application, and yet insufficient to repress disturbance, notwithstanding its preventive purpose and its watchful supervision. 

Almost simultaneously with his accession, Louis committed an act moreserious and compromising. He had, by his wife Hermengarde, three sons, Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis, aged respectively nineteen, eleven, andeight. In 817 Louis summoned at Aix-la-Chapelle the general assembly ofhis dominions; and there, whilst declaring that "neither to those whowere wisely-minded, nor to himself, did it appear expedient to break up, for the love he bare his sons and by the will of man, the unity of theempire, preserved by God himself, " he had resolved to share with hiseldest son, Lothaire, the imperial throne. Lothaire was in fact crownedemperor; and his two brothers, Pepin and Louis, were crowned king, "inorder that they might reign, after their father's death and under theirbrother and lord, Lothaire, to wit: Pepin, over Aquitaine and a greatpart of Southern Gaul and of Burgundy; Louis, beyond the Rhine, overBavaria and the divers peoplets in the east of Germany. " The rest ofGaul and of Germany, as well as the kingdom of Italy, was to belong toLothaire, emperor and head of the Frankish monarchy, to whom his brotherswould have to repair year by year to come to an understanding with himand receive his instructions. The last-named kingdom, the mostconsiderable of the three, remained under the direct government of Louisthe Debonnair, and at the same time of his son Lothaire, sharing thetitle of emperor. The two other sons, Pepin and Louis, entered, notwithstanding their childhood, upon immediate possession, the one ofAquitaine and the other of Bavaria, under the superior authority of theirfather and their brother, the joint emperors. 

Charlemagne had vigorously maintained the unity of the empire, for allthat he had delegated to two of his sons, Pepin and Louis, the governmentof Italy and Aquitaine, with the title of king. Louis the Debonnair, whilst regulating beforehand the division of his dominion, likewisedesired, as he said, to maintain the unity of the empire. But he forgotthat he was no Charlemagne. 

It was not long before numerous mournful experiences showed to whatextent the unity of the empire required personal superiority in theemperor, and how rapid would be the decay of the fabric when thereremained nothing but the title of the founder. 

In 816 Pope Stephen IV. Came to France to consecrate Louis the Debonnairemperor. Many a time already the Popes had rendered the Frankish kingsthis service and honor. The Franks had been proud to see their king, Charlemagne, protecting Adrian I. Against the Lombards; then crownedemperor at Rome by Leo III. , and then having his two sons, Pepin andLouis, crowned at Rome, by the same Pope, kings respectively of Italy andof Aquitaine. On these different occasions, Charlemagne, whilsttestifying the most profound respect for the Pope, had, in his relationswith him, always taken care to preserve, together with his politicalgreatness, all his personal dignity. But when, in 816, the Franks sawLouis the Pious not only go out of Rheims to meet Stephen IV. , butprostrate himself, from head to foot, and rise only when the Pope heldout a hand to him, the spectators felt saddened and humiliated at thesight of their emperor in the posture of a penitent monk. 

Several insurrections burst out in the empire; the first amongst theBasques of Aquitaine; the next in Italy, where Bernard, son of Pepin, having, after his father's death, become king in 812, with the consent ofhis grandfather Charlemagne, could not quietly see his kingdom pass intothe hands of his cousin Lothaire at the orders of his uncle Louis. Thesetwo attempts were easily repressed, but the third was more serious. Ittook place in Brittany, amongst those populations of Armorica who werestill buried in their woods, and were excessively jealous of theirindependence. In 818 they took for king one of their principalchieftains, named Morvan; and, not confining themselves to a refusal ofall tribute to the king of the Franks, they renewed their ravages uponthe Frankish territories bordering on their frontier. Louis was at thattime holding a general assembly of his dominions at Aix-la-Chapelle; andCount Lantbert, commandant of the marches of Brittany, came and reportedto him what was going on. A Frankish monk, named Ditcar, happened to beat the assembly: he was a man of piety and sense, a friend of peace, and, moreover, with some knowledge of the Breton king Morvan, as his monasteryhad property in the neighborhood. Him the emperor commissioned to conveyto the king his grievances and his demands. After some days' journey themonk passed the frontier, and arrived at a vast space enclosed on oneside by a noble river, and on all the others by forests and swamps, hedges and ditches. In the middle of this space was a large dwelling, which was Morvan's. Ditcar found it full of warriors, the king having, no doubt, some expedition on hand. The monk announced himself as amessenger from the emperor of the Franks. The style of announcementcaused some confusion, at first, to the Briton, who, however, hasted toconceal his emotion under an air of good-will and joyousness, to imposeupon his comrades. The latter were got rid of; and the king remainedalone with the monk, who explained the object of his mission. Hedescanted upon the power of the Emperor Lotus, recounted his complaints, and warned the Briton, kindly and in a private capacity, of the danger ofhis situation, a danger so much the greater in that he and his peoplewould meet with the less consideration, seeing that they kept up thereligion of their Pagan forefathers. Morvan gave attentive ear to thissermon, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his foot tapping it fromtime to time. Ditcar thought he had succeeded; but an incidentsupervened. It was the hour when Morvan's wife was accustomed to comeand look for him ere they retired to the nuptial couch. She appeared, eager to know who the stranger was, what he had come for, what he hadsaid, what answer he had received. She preluded her questions withoglings and caresses; she kissed the knees, the hands, the beard, and theface of the king, testifying her desire to be alone with him. "O kingand glory of the mighty Britons, dear spouse of mine, what tidingsbringeth this stranger? Is it peace, or is it war?" "This stranger, "answered Morvan with a smile, "is an envoy of the Franks; but bring hepeace or bring he war, is the affair of men alone; as for thee, contentthee with thy woman's duties. " Thereupon Ditcar, perceiving that he wascountered, said to Morvan, "Sir king, 'tis time that I return; tell mewhat answer I am to take back to my sovereign. " "Leave me this night totake thought thereon, " replied the Breton chief, with a wavering air. When the morning came, Ditcar presented himself once more to Morvan, whomhe found up, but still half-drunk, and full of very different sentimentsfrom those of the night before. It required some effort, stupefied andtottering as he was with the effects of wine and the pleasures of thenight, to say to Ditcar, "Go back to thy king, and tell him from me thatmy land was never his, and that I owe him nought of tribute orsubmission. Let him reign over the Franks; as for me, I reign over theBritons. If he will bring war on me, he will find me ready to pay himback. "

The monk returned to Louis the Debonnair, and rendered account of hismission. War was resolved upon; and the emperor collected his troops, Allemannians, Saxons, Thuringians, Burgundians, and Aquitanians, withoutcounting Franks or Gallo-Romans. They began their march, moving uponVannes; Louis was at their head, and the empress accompanied him, but heleft her, already ill and fatigued, at Angers. The Franks entered thecountry of the Britons, searched the woods and morasses, found no armedmen in the open country, but encountered them in scattered and scantycompanies, at the entrance of all the defiles, on the heights commandingpathways, and wherever men could hide themselves and await the moment forappearing unexpectedly. The Franks heard them, from amidst the heatherand the brushwood, uttering shrill cries, to give warning one to another, or to alarm the enemy. The Franks advanced cautiously, and at lastarrived at the entrance of the thick wood which surrounded Morvan'sabode. He had not yet set out with the pick of the warriors he had abouthim; but, at the approach of the Franks, he summoned his wife and hisdomestics, and said to them, "Defend ye well this house and these woods;as for me, I am going to march forward to collect my people; after whichto return, but not without booty and spoils. " He put on his armor, tooka javelin in each hand, and mounted his horse. "Thou seest, " said he tohis wife, "these javelins I brandish: I will bring them back to thee thisvery day dyed with the blood of Franks. Farewell. " Setting out hepierced, followed by his men, through the thickness of the forest, andadvanced to meet the Franks. 

The battle began. The large numbers of the Franks, who covered theground for some distance, dismayed the Britons, and many of them fled, seeking where they might hide themselves. Morvan, beside himself withrage, and at the head of his most devoted followers, rushed down upon theFranks as if to demolish them at a single stroke; and many fell beneathhis blows. He singled out a warrior of inferior grade, towards whom hemade at a gallop, and, insulting him by word of mouth, after the ancientfashion of the Celtic warriors, cried, "Frank, I am going to give thee myfirst present, a present which I have been keeping for thee a long while, and which I hope thou wilt bear in mind;" and launched at him a javelin, which the other received on his shield. "Proud Briton, " replied theFrank, "I have received thy present, and I am going to give thee mine. "He dug both spurs into his horse's sides, and galloped down upon Morvan, who, clad though he was in a coat of mail, fell pierced by the thrust ofa lance. The Frank had but time to dismount and cut off his head, whenhe fell himself, mortally wounded by one of Morvan's young warriors, butnot without having, in his turn, dealt the other his death-blow. 

It spreads on all sides that Morvan is dead; and the Franks comethronging to the scene of the encounter. There is picked up and passedfrom hand to hand a head all bloody and fearfully disfigured. Ditcar themonk is called to see it, and to say whether it is that of Morvan; but hehas to wash the mass of disfigurement, and to partially adjust the hair, before he can pronounce that it is really Morvan's. There is then nomore doubt; resistance is now impossible; the widow, the family, and theservants of Morvan arrive, are brought before Louis the Debonnair, acceptall the conditions imposed upon them, and the Franks withdraw with theboast that Brittany is henceforth their tributary. (_Faits et testes deLouis le Picux, _ a poem by Ermold le Noir, in M. Guizot's _Collection desMemoires relatifs L'Histoire de France, _ t. Iv. , p. 1-113. --Fauriel, _Histoire de la Gaule, _ etc. , t. Iv. , p. 77-88. )

[Illustration: Ditcar the Monk recognizing the Head of Morvan----273]

On arriving at Angers, Louis found the Empress Hermengarde dying; and twodays afterwards she was dead. He had a tender heart, which was not proofagainst sorrow; and he testified a desire to abdicate and turn monk. Buthe was dissuaded from his purpose; for it was easy to influence hisresolutions. A little later, he was advised to marry again, and heyielded. Several princesses were introduced; and he chose Judith ofBavaria, daughter of Count Welf (Guelf), a family already powerful and inlater times celebrated. Judith was young, beautiful, witty, ambitious, and skilled in the art of making the gift of pleasing subserve thepassion for ruling. Louis, during his expedition into Brittany, had justwitnessed the fatal result of a woman's empire over her husband; he wasdestined himself to offer a more striking and more long-lived example ofit. In 823, he had, by his new empress Judith, a son, whom he calledCharles, and who was hereafter to be known as Charles the Bald. This sonbecame his mother's ruling, if not exclusive, passion, and the source ofhis father's woes. His birth could not fail to cause ill-temper andmistrust in Louis's three sons by Hermengarde, who were already kings. They had but a short time previously received the first proof of theirfather's weakness. In 822, Louis, repenting of his severity towards hisnephew, Bernard of Italy, whose eyes he had caused to be put out as apunishment for rebellion, and who had died in consequence, consideredhimself bound to perform at Attigny, in the church and before the people, a solemn act of penance; which was creditable to his honesty and piety, but the details left upon the minds of the beholders an impressionunfavorable to the emperor's dignity and authority. In 829, during anassembly held at Worms, he, yielding to his wife's entreaties anddoubtless also to his own yearnings towards his youngest son, set atnought the solemn act whereby, in 817, he had shared his dominionsamongst his three elder sons; and took away from two of them, in Burgundyand Allemannia, some of the territories he had assigned to them, and gavethem to the boy Charles for his share. Lothaire, Pepin, and Louisthereupon revolted. Court rivalries were added to family differences. The emperor had summoned to his side a young Southron, Bernard by name, duke of Septimania and son of Count William of Toulouse, who hadgallantly fought the Saracens. He made him his chief chamberlain and hisfavorite counsellor. Bernard was bold, ambitious, vain, imperious, andrestless. He removed his rivals from court, and put in their places hisown creatures. He was accused not only of abusing the emperor's favor, but even of carrying on a guilty intrigue with the Empress Judith. Theregrew up against him, and, by consequence, against the emperor, theempress, and their youngest son a powerful opposition, in which certainecclesiastics, and, amongst them, Wala, abbot of Corbie, cousin-germanand but lately one of the privy counsellors of Charlemagne, joinedeagerly. Some had at heart the unity of the empire, which Louis wasbreaking up more and more; others were concerned for the spiritualinterests of the Church which Louis, in spite of his piety and by reasonof his weakness, often permitted to be attacked. Thus strengthened, theconspirators considered themselves certain of success. They had theempress Judith carried off and shut up in the convent of St. Radegonde atPoitiers; and Louis in person came to deliver himself up to them atCompiegne, where they were assembled. There they passed a decree to theeffect that the power and title of emperor were transferred from Louis toLothaire, his eldest son; that the act whereby a share of the empire hadbut lately beer assigned to Charles was annulled; and that the act of817, which had regulated the partition of Louis's dominions after hisdeath, was once more in force. But soon there was a burst of reaction infavor of the emperor; Lothaire's two brothers, jealous of his lateelevation, made overtures to their father; the ecclesiastics were alittle ashamed at being mixed up in a revolt; the people felt pity forthe poor, honest emperor; and a general assembly, meeting at Nimeguen, abolished the acts of Compiegne, and restored to Louis his title and hispower. But it was not long before there was revolt again, originatingthis time with Pepin, king of Aquitaine. Louis fought him, and gaveAquitaine to Charles the Bald. The alliance between the three sons ofHermengarde was at once renewed; they raised an army; the emperor marchedagainst them with his; and the two hosts met between Colmar and Bale, ina place called le Champ rouge (the field of red). Negotiations were seton foot; and Louis was called upon to leave his wife Judith and his sonCharles, and put himself under the guardianship of his elder sons. Herefused; but, just when the conflict was about to commence, desertiontook place in Louis's army; most of the prelates, laics, and men-at-armswho had accompanied him passed over to the camp of Lothaire; and thefield of red became the field of falsehood (_le Champ du mensonge_). Louis, left almost alone, ordered his attendants to withdraw, "beingunwilling, " he said, "that any one of them should lose life or limb onhis account, " and surrendered to his sons. They received him with greatdemonstrations of respect, but without relinquishing the prosecution oftheir enterprise. Lothaire hastily collected an assembly, whichproclaimed him emperor, with the addition of divers territories to thekingdoms of Aquitaine and Bavaria: and, three months afterwards, anotherassembly, meeting at Compiegne, declared the Emperor Louis to haveforfeited the crown, "for having, by his faults and incapacity, sufferedto sink so sadly low the empire which had been raised to grandeur andbrought into unity by Charlemagne and his predecessors. " Louis submittedto this decision; himself read out aloud, in the church of St. Medard atSoissons, but not quite unresistingly, a confession, in eight articles, of his faults, and, laying his baldric upon the altar, stripped off hisroyal robe, and received from the hands of Ebbo, archbishop of Rheims, the gray vestment of a penitent. 

Lothaire considered his father dethroned for good, and himself henceforthsole emperor; but he was mistaken. For six years longer the scenes whichhave just been described kept repeating themselves again and again;rivalries and secret plots began once more between the three victoriousbrothers and their partisans; popular feeling revived in favor of Louis;a large portion of the clergy shared it; several counts of Neustria andBurgundy appeared in arms in the name of the deposed emperor; and theseductive and able Judith came afresh upon the scene, and gained over tothe cause of her husband and her son a multitude of friends. In 834, twoassemblies, one meeting at St. Denis and the other at Thionville, annulled all the acts of the assembly of Compiegne, and for the thirdtime put Louis in possession of the imperial title and power. Hedisplayed no violence in his use of it; but he was growing more and moreirresolute and weak, when, in 838, the second of his rebellious sons, Pepin, king of Aquitaine, died suddenly. Louis, ever under the sway ofJudith, speedily convoked at Worms, in 839, once more and for the lasttime, a general assembly, whereat, leaving his son Louis of Bavariareduced to his kingdom in Eastern Europe, he divided the rest of hisdominions into two nearly equal parts, separated by the course of theMeuse and the Rhone. Between these two parts he left the choice toLothaire, who took the eastern portion, promising at the same time toguarantee the western portion to his younger brother Charles. Louis theGermanic protested against this partition, and took up arms to resist it. His father, the emperor, set himself in motion towards the Rhine, toreduce him to submission; but, on arriving close to Mayence, he caught aviolent fever, and died on the 20th of June, 840, at the castle ofIngelheim, on a little island in the river. His last acts were a freshproof of his goodness towards even his rebellious sons, and of hissolicitude for his last-born. He sent to Louis the Germanic his pardon, and to Lothaire the golden crown and sword, at the same time bidding himfulfil his father's wishes on behalf of Charles and Judith. 

There is no telling whether, in the credulousness of his good nature, Louis had, at his dying hour, any great confidence in the appeal he madeto his son Lothaire, and in the impression which would be produced on hisother son, Louis of Bavaria, by the pardon bestowed. The prayers of thedying are of little avail against violent passions and barbaric manners. Scarcely was Louis the Debonnair dead, when Lothaire was alreadyconspiring against young Charles, and was in secret alliance, for hisdespoilment, with Pepin II. , the late king of Aquitaine's son, who hadtaken up arms for the purpose of seizing his father's kingdom, in thepossession of which his grandfather Louis had not been pleased to confirmhim. Charles suddenly learned that his mother Judith was on the point ofbeing besieged in Poitiers by the Aquitanians; and, in spite of thefriendly protestations sent to him by Lothaire, it was not long before hediscovered the plot formed against him. He was not wanting in shrewdnessor energy; and, having first provided for his mother's safety, he setabout forming an alliance, in the cause of their common interests, withhis other brother, Louis the Germanic, who was equally in danger from theambition of Lothaire. The historians of the period do not say whatnegotiator was employed by Charles on this distant and delicate mission;but several circumstances indicate that the Empress Judith herselfundertook it; that she went in quest of the king of Bavaria; and that itwas she who, with her accustomed grace and address, determined him tomake common cause with his younger against their eldest brother. Diversincidents retarded for a whole year the outburst of this family plot, andof the war of which it was the precursor. The position of the young KingCharles appeared for some time a very bad one; but "certain chieftains, "says the historian Nithard, "faithful to his mother and to him, andhaving nothing more to lose than life or limb, chose rather to diegloriously than to betray their king. " The arrival of Louis the Germanicwith his troops helped to swell the forces and increase the confidence ofCharles; and it was on the 21st of June, 841, exactly a year after thedeath of Louis the Debonnair, that the two armies, that of Lothaire andPepin on the one side, and that of Charles the Bald and Louis theGermanic on the other, stood face to face in the neighborhood of thevillage of Fontenailles, six leagues from Auxerre, on the rivulet ofAudries. Never, according to such evidence as is forthcoming, since thebattle on the plains of Chalons against the Huns, and that of Poitiersagainst the Saracens, had so great masses of men been engaged. "Therewould be nothing untruthlike, " says that scrupulous authority, M. Fauriel, "in putting the whole number of combatants at three hundredthousand; and there is nothing to show that either of the two armies wasmuch less numerous than the other. " However that may be, the leadershesitated for four days to come to blows; and whilst they werehesitating, the old favorite not only of Louis the Debonnair, but also, according to several chroniclers, of the Empress Judith, held himselfaloof with his troops in the vicinity, having made equal promise ofassistance to both sides, and waiting, to govern his decision, for theprospect afforded by the first conflict. The battle began on the 25th ofJune, at daybreak, and was at first in favor of Lothaire; but the troopsof Charles the Bald recovered the advantage which had been lost by Louisthe Germanic, and the action was soon nothing but a terribly simple sceneof carnage between enormous masses of men, charging hand to hand, againand again, with a front extending over a couple of leagues. Beforemidday the slaughter, the plunder, the spoliation of the dead--all wasover; the victory of Charles and Louis was complete the victors hadretired to their camp, and there remained nothing on the field of battlebut corpses in thick heaps or a long line, according as they had fallenin the disorder of flight or steadily fighting in their ranks. . . . "Accursed be this day!" cries Angilbert, one of Lothaire's officers, inrough Latin verse; "be it unnumbered in the return of the year, but wipedout of all remembrance! Be it unlit by the light of the sun! Be itwithout either dawn or twilight! Accursed, also, be this night, thisawful night in which fell the brave, the most expert in battle! Eyene'er hath seen more fearful slaughter: in streams of blood fellChristian men; the linen vestments of the dead did whiten the champaigneven as it is whitened by the birds of autumn!"

In spite of this battle, which appeared a decisive one, Lothaire madezealous efforts to continue the struggle; he scoured the countrieswherein he hoped to find partisans: to the Saxons he promised theunrestricted re-establishment of their pagan worship, and several of theSaxon tribes responded to his appeal. Louis the Germanic and Charles theBald, having information of these preliminaries, resolved to solemnlyrenew their alliance; and, seven months after their victory atFontenailles, in February, 842, they repaired both of them, each with hisarmy, to Argentaria, on the right bank of the Rhine, between Bale andStrasbourg, and there, at an open-air meeting, Louis first, addressingthe chieftains about him in the German tongue, said, "Ye all know howoften, since our father's death, Lothaire hath attacked us, in order todestroy us, this my brother and me. Having never been able, as brothersand Christians, or in any just way, to obtain peace from him, we wereconstrained to appeal to the judgment of God. Lothaire was beaten andretired, whither he could, with his following; for we, restrained bypaternal affection and moved with compassion for Christian people, wereunwilling to pursue them to extermination. Neither then nor aforetimedid we demand ought else save that each of us should be maintained in hisrights. But he, rebelling against the judgment of God, ceaseth not toattack us as enemies, this my brother and me; and he destroyeth ourpeoples with fire and pillage and the sword. That is the cause whichhath united us afresh; and, as we trove that ye doubt the soundness ofour alliance and our fraternal union, we have resolved to bind ourselvesafresh by this oath in your presence, being led thereto by no promptingof wicked covetousness, but only that we may secure our common advantagein case that, by your aid, God should cause us to obtain peace. If, then, I violate--which God forbid--this oath that I am about to take tomy brother, I hold you all quit of submission to me and of the faith yehave sworn to me. "

Charles repeated this speech, word for word, to his own troops, in theRomance language, in that idiom derived from a mixture of Latin and ofthe tongues of ancient Gaul, and spoken, thenceforth, with varieties ofdialect and pronunciation, in nearly all parts of Frankish Gaul. Afterthis address, Louis pronounced and Charles repeated after him, each inhis own tongue, the oath couched in these terms: "For the love of God, for the Christian people, and for our common weal, from this day forthand so long as God shall grant me power and knowledge, I will defend thismy brother, and will be an aid to him in everything, as one ought todefend his brother, provided that he do likewise unto me; and I willnever make with Lothaire any covenant which may be, to my knowledge, tothe damage of this my brother. "

When the two brothers had thus sworn, the two armies, officers and men, took, in their turn, a similar oath, going bail, in a mass, for theengagements of their kings. Then they took up their quarters, all ofthem, for some time, between Worms and Mayence, and followed up theirpolitical proceeding with military fetes, precursors of the knightlytournaments of the middle ages. "A place of meeting was fixed, " says thecontemporary historian Nithard, "at a spot suitable for this kind ofexercises. Here were drawn up, on one side, a certain number ofcombatants, Saxons, Vasconians, Austrasians, or Britons; there wereranged, on the opposite side, an equal number of warriors, and the twodivisions advanced, each against the other, as if to attack. One ofthem, with their bucklers at their backs, took to flight, as if to seek, in the main body, shelter against those who were pursuing them; thensuddenly, facing about, they dashed out in pursuit of those before whomthey had just been flying. This sport lasted until the two kings, appearing with all the youth of their suites, rode up at a gallop, brandishing their spears and chasing first one lot and then the other Itwas a fine sight to see so much temper amongst so many valiant folks, forgreat as were the number and the mixture of different nationalities, noone was insulted or maltreated, though the contrary is often the caseamongst men in small numbers and known one to another. "

After four or five months of tentative measures or of incidents whichtaught both parties that they could not, either of them, hope tocompletely destroy their opponents, the two allied brothers received atVerdun, whither they had repaired to concert their next movement, amessenger from Lothaire, with peaceful proposals which they wereunwilling to reject. The principal was that, with the exception ofItaly, Aquitaine, and Bavaria, to be secured without dispute to theirthen possessors, the Frankish empire should be divided into threeportions, that the arbiters elected to preside over the partition shouldswear to make it as equal as possible, and that Lothaire should have hischoice, with the title of Emperor. About mid June, 842, the threebrothers met on an island of the Saone, near Chalons, where they began todiscuss the questions which divided them; but it was not till more than ayear after, in August, 843, that assembling all three of them, with theirumpires, at Verdun, they at last came to an agreement about the partitionof the Frankish empire, save the three countries which it had beenbeforehand agreed to except. Louis kept all the provinces of Germany ofwhich he was already in possession, and received besides, on the leftbank of the Rhine, the towns of Mayence, Worms, and Spire, with theterritory appertaining to them. Lothaire, for his part, had the easternbelt of Gaul, bounded on one side by the Rhine and the Alps, on the otherby the courses of the Meuse, the Saone, and the Rhone, starting from theconfluence of the two latter rivers, and, further, the country comprisedbetween the Meuse and the Scheldt, together with certain countships lyingto the west of that river. To Charles fell all the rest of Gaul:Vasconia or Biscaye, Septimania, the marches of Spain, beyond thePyrenees, and the other countries of Southern Gaul which had enjoyedhitherto, under the title of the Kingdom of Aquitaine, a specialgovernment subordinated to the general government of the empire, butdistinct from it, lost this last remnant of their Gallo-Romannationality, and became integral portions of Frankish Gaul, which fell bypartition to Charles the Bald, and formed one and the same kingdom underone and the same king. 

Thus fell through and disappeared, in 843, by virtue of the treaty ofVerdun, the second of Charlemagne's grand designs, the resuscitation ofthe Roman empire by means of the Frankish and Christian masters of Gaul. The name of emperor still retained a certain value in the minds of thepeople, and still remained an object of ambition to princes; but theempire was completely abolished, and in its stead sprang up threekingdoms, independent one of another, without any necessary connection orrelation. One of the three was thenceforth France. 

In this great event are comprehended two facts; the disappearance of theempire and the formation of the three kingdoms which took its place. Thefirst is easily explained. The resuscitation of the Roman empire hadbeen a dream of ambition and ignorance on the part of a great man, but abarbarian. Political unity and central absolute power had been theessential characteristics of that empire. They became introduced andestablished, through a long succession of ages, on the ruins of thesplendid Roman republic, destroyed by its own dissensions, under favor ofthe still great influence of the old Roman senate, though fallen from itshigh estate, and beneath the guardianship of the Roman legions andimperial pretorians. Not one of these conditions, not one of theseforces, was to be met with in the Roman world reigned over byCharlemagne. The nation of the Franks and Charlemagne himself were butof yesterday; the new emperor had neither ancient senate to hedge at thesame time that it obeyed him, nor old bodies of troops to support him. Political unity and absolute power were repugnant alike to theintellectual and the social condition, to the national manners andpersonal sentiments of the victorious barbarians. The necessity ofplacing their conquests beyond the reach of a new swarm of barbarians andthe personal ascendency of Charlemagne were the only things which gavehis government a momentary gleam of success in the way of unity and offactitious despotism under the name of empire. In 814, Charlemagne hadmade territorial security an accomplished fact; but the personal power hehad exercised disappeared with him. The new Gallo-Frankish communityrecovered, under the mighty but gradual influence of Christianity, itsproper and natural course, producing disruption into different localcommunities and bold struggles for individual liberties, either one withanother, or against whosoever tried to become their master. 

As for the second fact, the formation of the three kingdoms which werethe issue of the treaty of Verdun, various explanations have been givenof it. This distribution of certain peoples of Western Europe into threedistinct and independent groups, Italians, Germans, and French, has beenattributed at one time to a diversity of histories and manners; atanother to geographical causes and to what is called the rule of naturalfrontiers; and oftener still to a spirit of nationality and todifferences of language. Let none of these causes be gainsaid; theyall exercised some sort of influence, but they are all incomplete inthemselves and far too redolent of theoretical system. It is true thatGermany, France, and Italy began, at that time, to emerge from the chaosinto which they had been plunged by barbaric invasion and the conquestsof Charlemagne, and to form themselves into quite distinct nations; butthere were in each of the kingdoms of Lothaire, of Louis the Germanic, and of Charles the Bald, populations widely differing in race, language, manners, and geographical affinity, and it required many great events andthe lapse of many centuries to bring about the degree of national unitythey now possess. To say nothing touching the agency of individual andindependent forces, which is always considerable, although so many men ofintellect ignore it in the present day, what would have happened, had anyone of the three new kings, Lothaire, or Louis the Germanic, or Charlesthe Bald, been a second Charlemagne, as Charlemagne had been a secondCharles Martel? Who can say that, in such a case, the three kingdomswould have taken the form they took in 843?

Happily or unhappily, it was not so; none of Charlemagne's successors wascapable of exercising on the events of his time, by virtue of his brainand his own will, any notable influence. Not that they were allunintelligent, or timid, or indolent. It has been seen that Louis theDebonnair did not lack virtues and good intentions; and Charles the Baldwas clear-sighted, dexterous, and energetic; he had a taste forinformation and intellectual distinction; he liked and sheltered men oflearning and letters, and to such purpose that, instead of speaking, asunder Charlemagne, of the school of the palace, people called the palaceof Charles the Bald the palace of the school. Amongst the eleven kingswho after him ascended the Carlovingian throne, several, such as LouisIII. And Carloman, and, especially, Louis the Ultramarine (d'Outremer)and Lothaire, displayed, on several occasions, energy and courage; andthe kings elected, at this epoch, without the pale of the Carlovingiandynasty--Eudes in 887 and Raoul in 923--gave proofs of a valor bothdiscreet and effectual. The Carlovingians did not, as the Merovingiansdid, end in monkish retirement or shameful inactivity even the last ofthem, and the only one termed sluggard, Louis V. , was getting ready, whenhe died, for an expedition in Spain against the Saracens. The truth isthat, mediocre or undecided or addle-pated as they may have been, theyall succumbed, internally and externally, without initiating and withoutresisting, to the course of events, and that, in 987, the fall of theCarlovingian line was the natural and easily accomplished consequence ofthe new social condition which had been preparing in France under theempire. 

CHAPTER XIII. ----FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET. 

The reader has just seen that, twenty-nine years after the death ofCharlemagne, that is, in 843, when, by the treaty of Verdun, the sons ofLouis the Debonnair had divided amongst them his dominions, the greatempire split up into three distinct and independent kingdoms--thekingdoms of Italy, Germany, and France. The split did not stop there. Forty-five years later, at the end of the ninth century, shortly afterthe death of Charles the Fat, the last of the Carlovingians who appearsto have re-united for a while all the empire of Charlemagne, this empirehad begotten seven instead of three kingdoms, those of France, ofNavarre, of Provence or Cisjuran Burgundy, of Trans-juran Burgundy, orLorraine, of Allemannia, and of Italy. This is what had become of thefactitious and ephemeral unity of that Empire of the West whichCharlemagne had wished to put in the place of the Roman empire. 

We will leave where they are the three distinct and independent kingdoms, and turn our introspective gaze upon the kingdom of France. There werecognize the same fact; there the same work of dismemberment is goingon. About the end of the ninth century there were already twenty-nineprovinces or fragments of provinces which had become petty states, theformer governors of which, under the names of dukes, counts, marquises, and viscounts, were pretty nearly real sovereigns. Twenty-nine greatfiefs, which have played a special part in French history, date back tothis epoch. 

These petty states were not all of equal importance or in possession of aperfectly similar independence; there were certain ties uniting them toother states, resulting in certain reciprocal obligations which becamethe basis, or, one might say, the constitution of the feudal community;but their prevailing feature was, nevertheless, isolation, personalexistence. They were really petty states begotten from the dismembermentof a great territory; those local governments were formed at the expenseof a central power. 

From the end of the ninth pass we to the end of the tenth century, to theepoch when the Capetians take the place of the Carlovingians. Instead ofseven kingdoms to replace the empire of Charlemagne, there were then nomore than four. The kingdoms of Provence and Trans-juran Burgundy hadformed, by re-union, the kingdom of Arles. The kingdom of Lorraine wasno more than a duchy in dispute between Allemannia and France. TheEmperor Otho the Great had united the kingdom of Italy to the empire of. Allemannia. Overtures had produced their effects amongst the greatstates. But in the interior of the kingdom of France, dismemberment hadheld on its course; and instead of the twenty-nine petty states or greatfiefs observable at the end of the ninth century, we find at the end ofthe tenth, fifty-five actually established. (_Vide_ Guizot's _Histoirede la Civilisation, _ t. Ii. , pp. 238-246. )

Now, how was this ever-increasing dismemberment accomplished? Whatcauses determined it, and little by little made it the substitute for theunity of the empire? Two causes, perfectly natural and independent ofall human calculation, one moral and the other political. They were theabsence from the minds of men of any general and dominant idea; and thereflux, in social relations and manners, of the individual liberties butlately repressed or regulated by the strong hand of Charlemagne. Intimes of formation or transition, states and governments conform to themeasure, one had almost said to the height, of the men of the period, their ideas, their sentiments, and their personal force of character;when ideas are few and narrow, when sentiments spread only over aconfined circle, when means of action and expansion are wanting to men, communities become petty and local, just as the thoughts and existence oftheir members are. Such was the state of things in the ninth and tenthcenturies; there was no general and fructifying idea, save the Christiancreed; no great intellectual vent; no great national feeling; no easy andrapid means of communication; mind and life were both confined in anarrow space, and encountered, at every step, stoppages and obstacleswell nigh insurmountable. At the same time, by the fall of the empiresof Rome and of Charlemagne, men regained possession of the rough andready individual liberties which were the essential characteristic ofGermanic manners: Franks, Visigoths, Burgundians, Saxons, Lombards, noneof these new peoples had lived as the Greeks and Romans had, under thesway of an essentially political idea, the idea of city, state, andfatherland: they were free men, and not citizens; comrades, not membersof one and the same public body. They gave up their vagabond life; theysettled upon a soil conquered by themselves and partitioned amongstthemselves; and there they lived each by himself, master of himself andall that was his, family, servitors, husbandmen, and slaves: theterritorial domain became the fatherland, and the owner remained a freeman, a local and independent chieftain, at his own risk and peril. Andthis, quite naturally, grew up feudal France, when the new comers, settled in their new abodes, were no more swayed or hampered by the vainattempt to re-establish the Roman empire. 

The consequences of such a state of things and of such a disposition ofpersons were rapidly developed. Territorial ownership became thefundamental characteristic of and warranty for independence and socialimportance. Local sovereignty, if not complete and absolute, at leastin respect of its principal rights, right of making war, right ofjudicature, right of taxation, and right of regulating the police, becameone with the territorial ownership, which before long grew to behereditary, whether, under the title of _alleu (allodium)_, it had beenoriginally perfectly independent and exempt from any feudal tie, or, under the title of benefice, had arisen from grants of land made by thechieftain to his followers, on condition of certain obligations. Theoffices, that is, the divers functions, military or civil, conferred bythe king on his lieges, also ended by becoming hereditary. Having becomeestablished in fact, this heirship in lands and local powers was soonrecognized by the law. A capitulary of Charles the Bald, promulgated in877, contains the two following provisions:--

"If, after our death, any one of our lieges, moved by love for God andour person, desire to renounce the world, and if he have a son or otherrelative capable of serving the public weal, let him be free to transmitto him his benefices and his honor, according to his pleasure. "

"If a count of this kingdom happen to die, and his son be about ourperson, we will that our son; together with those of our lieges who maychance to be the nearest relatives of the deceased count, as well as withthe other officers of the said countship and the bishop of the diocesewherein it is situated, shall provide for its administration until thedeath of the heretofore count shall have been announced to us and we havebeen enabled to confer on the son, present at our court, the honorswherewith his father was invested. "

Thus the king still retained the nominal right of conferring on the sonthe offices or local functions of the father, but he recognized in theson the right to obtain them. A host of documents testify that at thisepoch, when, on the death of a governor of a province, the king attemptedto give his countship to some one else than his descendants, not only didpersonal interest resist, but such a measure was considered a violationof right. Under the reign of Louis the Stutterer, son of Charles theBald, two of his lieges, Wilhelm and Engelschalk, held two countships onthe confines of Bavaria; and, at their death, their offices were given toCount Arbo, to the prejudice of their sons. "The children and theirrelatives, " says the chronicler, "taking that as a gross injustice, saidthat matters ought to go differently, and that they would die by thesword or Arbo should give up the courtship of their family. " Heirship interritorial ownerships and their local rights, whatever may haveoriginally been their character; heirship in local offices or powers, military or civil, primarily conferred by the king; and, by consequence, hereditary union of territorial ownership and local government, under thecondition, a little confused and precarious, of subordinated relationsand duties between suzerain and vassal--such was, in law and in fact, thefeudal order of things. From the ninth to the tenth century it hadacquired full force. 

This order of things being thus well defined, we find ourselves face toface with an indisputable historic fact: no period, no system has ever, in France, remained so odious to the public instincts. And thisantipathy is not peculiar to our age, nor merely the fruit of that greatrevolution which not long since separated, as by a gulf, the Frenchpresent from its past. Go back to any portion of French history, andstop where you will; and you will everywhere find the feudal systemconsidered, by the mass of the population, a foe to be fought and foughtdown at any price. At all times, whoever dealt it a blow has beenpopular in France. 

The reasons for this fact are not all, or even the chief of them, to betraced to the evils which, in France, the people had to endure under thefeudal system. It is not evil plight which is most detested and fearedby peoples; they have more than once borne, faced, and almost wooed it, and there are woful epochs, the memory of which has remained dear. It isin the political character of feudalism, in the nature and shape of itspower, that we find lurking that element of popular aversion which, inFrance at least, it has never ceased to inspire. 

It was a confederation of petty sovereigns, of petty despots, unequalamongst themselves, and having, one towards another, certain duties andrights, but invested in their own domains, over their personal and directsubjects, with arbitrary and absolute power. That is the essentialelement of the feudal system; therein it differs from every otheraristocracy, every other form of government. 

There has been no scarcity in this world of aristocracies and despotisms. There have been peoples arbitrarily governed, nay, absolutely possessedby a single man, by a college of priests, by a body of patricians. Butnone of these despotic governments was like the feudal system. 

In the case where the sovereign power has been placed in the hands of asingle man, the condition of the people has been servile and woful. Atbottom the feudal system was somewhat better; and it will presently beexplained why. Meanwhile, it must be acknowledged that that conditionoften appeared less burdensome, and obtained more easy acceptance thanthe feudal system. It was because, under the great absolute monarchies, men did, nevertheless, obtain some sort of equality and tranquillity. Ashameful equality and a fatal tranquillity, no doubt; but such as peoplesare sometimes contented with under the dominance of certaincircumstances, or in the last gasp of their existence. Liberty, equality, and tranquillity were all alike wanting, from the tenth to thethirteenth century, to the inhabitants of each lord's domains; theirsovereign was at their very doors, and none of them was hidden from him, or beyond reach of his mighty arm. Of all tyrannies, the worst is thatwhich can thus keep account of its subjects, and which sees, from itsseat, the limits of its empire. The caprices of the human will then showthemselves in all their intolerable extravagance, and, moreover, withirresistible promptness. It is then, too, that inequality of conditionsmakes itself more rudely felt; riches, might, independence, everyadvantage and every right present themselves every instant to the gaze ofmisery, weakness, and servitude. The inhabitants of fiefs could not findconsolation in the bosom of tranquillity; incessantly mixed up in thequarrels of their lord, a prey to his neighbors' devastations, they led alife still more precarious and still more restless than that of the lordsthemselves, and they had to put up at one and the same time with thepresence of war, privilege, and absolute power. Nor did the rule offeudalism differ less from that of a college of priests or a senate ofpatricians than from the despotism of an individual. In the two formersystems we have an aristocratic body governing the mass of the people; inthe feudal system we have an aristocracy resolved into individuals, eachof whom governs on his own private account a certain number of personsdependent upon him alone. Be the aristocratic body a clergy, its powerhas its root in creeds which are common to itself and its subjects. Now, in every creed common to those who command and those who obey there is amoral tie, an element of sympathetic equality, and on the part of thosewho obey a tacit adhesion to the rule. Be it a senate of patricians thatreigns, it cannot govern so capriciously, so arbitrarily, as anindividual. There are differences and discussions in the very bosom ofthe government; there may be, nay, there always are, formed factions, parties which, in order to arrive at their own ends, strive to conciliatethe favor of the people, sometimes take in hand its interests, and, however bad may be its condition, the people, by sharing in its masters'rivalries, exercises some sort of influence over its own destiny. Feudalism was not, properly speaking, an aristocratic government, asenate of kings--to use the language used by Cineas to Pyrrhus; it was acollection of individual despotisms, exercised by isolated aristocrats, each of whom, being sovereign in his own domains, had to give no accountto another, and asked nobody's opinion about his conduct towards hissubjects. 

Is it astonishing that such a system incurred, on the part of thepeoples, more hatred than even those which had reduced them to a moremonotonous and more lasting servitude? There was despotism, just as inpure monarchies, and there was privilege, just as in the very closestaristocracies. And both obtruded themselves in the most offensive, and, so to speak, crude form. Despotism was not tapered off by means of thedistant and elevation of a throne; and privilege did not veil itselfbehind the majesty of a large body. Both were the appurtenances of anindividual ever present and ever alone, ever at his subjects' doors, andnever called upon, in dealing with their lot, to gather his peers aroundhim. 

And now we will leave the subjects in the case of feudalism, and considerthe masters, the owners of fiefs, and their relations one with another. We here behold quite a different spectacle; we see liberties, rights, andguarantees, which not only give protection and honor to those who enjoythem, but of which the tendency and effect are to open to the subjectpopulation an outlet towards a better future. 

It could not, in fact, be otherwise: for, on the one hand, feudal societywas not wanting in dignity and glory; and, on the other, the feudalsystem did not, as the theocracy of Egypt or the despotism of Asia did, condemn its subjects irretrievably to slavery. It oppressed them; butthey ended by having the power as well as the will to go free. 

It is the fault of pure monarchy to set up power so high, and encompassit with such splendor, that the possessor's head is turned, and thatthose who are beneath it dare scarcely look upon it. The sovereignthinks himself a god; and the people fall down and worship him. But itwas not so in society under owners of fiefs: the grandeur was neitherdazzling nor unapproachable; it was but a short step from vassal tosuzerain; they lived familiarly one with another, without any possibilitythat superiority should think itself illimitable, or subordination thinkitself servile. Thence came that extension of the domestic circle, thatennoblement of personal service, from which sprang one of the mostgenerous sentiments of the middle ages, fealty, which reconciled thedignity of the man with the devotion of the vassal. 

Further, it was not from a numerous aristocratic senate, but fromhimself, and almost from himself alone, that every possessor of fiefsderived his strength and his lustre. Isolated as he was in his domains, it was for him to maintain himself therein, to extend them, to keep hissubjects submissive and his vassals faithful, and to correct those whowere wanting in obedience to him, or who ignored their duties as membersof the feudal hierarchy. It was, as it were, a people consisting ofscattered citizens, of whom each, ever armed, accompanied by hisfollowing or intrenched in his castle, kept watch himself over his ownsafety and his own rights, relying far more on his own courage and hisown renown than on the protection of the public authorities. Such acondition bears less resemblance to an organized and settled society thanto a constant prospect of peril and war; but the energy and the dignityof the individual were kept up in it, and a more extended and betterregulated society might issue therefrom. 

And it did issue. This society of the future was not slow to sprout andgrow in the midst of that feudal system so turbulent, so oppressive, sodetested. For five centuries, from the invasion of the barbarians to thefall of the Carlovingians, France presents the appearance of beingstationary in the middle of chaos. Over this long, dark space ofanarchy, feudalism is slowly taking shape, at the expense, at one time, of liberty, at another, of order; not as a real rectification of thesocial condition, but as the only order of things which could possiblyacquire fixity, as, in fact, a sort of unpleasant but necessaryalternative. No sooner is the feudal system in force, than, with itsvictory scarcely secured, it is attacked in the lower grades by the massof the people attempting to regain certain liberties, ownerships, andrights, and in the highest by royalty laboring to recover its publiccharacter, to become once more the head of a nation. It is no longer thecase of free men in a vague and dubious position, unsuccessfullydefending, against the nomination of the chieftains whose lands theyinhabit, the wreck of their independence, whether Gallic, or Roman, orbarbaric; it is the case of burgesses, agriculturists, and serfs, whoknow well what their grievances and who their oppressors are, and who areworking to get free. It is no longer the case of a king doubtful abouthis title and the nature of his power, at one time a chieftain ofwarriors, at another the anointed of the Most High; here a mayor of thepalace of some sluggard barbarian, there the heir of the emperors ofRome; a sovereign tossing about confusedly amidst followers or servitorseager at one time to invade his authority, at another to renderthemselves completely isolated: it is the case of one of the premierfeudal lords exerting himself to become the master of all, to change hissuzerainty into sovereignty. Thus, in spite of the servitude into whichthe people had sunk at the end of the tenth century, from this moment theenfranchisement of the people makes way. In spite of the weakness, orrather nullity, of the regal power at the same epoch, from this momentthe regal power begins to gain ground. That monarchical system which thegenius of Charlemagne could not found, kings far inferior to Charlemagnewill little by little make triumphant. Those liberties and thoseguarantees which the German warriors were incapable of transmitting to awell-regulated society, the commonalty will regain one after another. Nothing but feudalism could have sprung from the womb of barbarism; butscarcely is feudalism established when we see monarchy and libertynascent and growing in its womb. 

From the end of the ninth to the end of the tenth century, two familieswere, in French history, the representatives and instruments of the twosystems thus confronted and conflicting at that epoch, the imperial whichwas falling, and the feudal which was rising. After the death ofCharlemagne, his descendants, to the number of ten, from Louis theDebonnair to Louis the Sluggard, strove obstinately, but in vain, tomaintain the unity of the empire and the unity of the central power. Infour generations, on the other hand, the descendants of Robert the Strongclimbed to the head of feudal France. The former, though German in race, were imbued with the maxims, the traditions, and the pretensions of thatRoman world which had been for a while resuscitated by their gloriousancestor; and they claimed it as their heritage. The latter preserved, at their settlement upon Gallo-Roman territory, Germanic sentiments, manners, and instincts, and were occupied only with the idea of gettingmore and more settled, and greater and greater in the new society whichwas little by little being formed upon the soil won by the barbarians, their forefathers. Louis the Ultra-marine and Lothaire were not, we maysuppose, less personally brave than Robert the Strong and his son Eudes;but when the Northmen put the Frankish dominions in peril, it was not tothe descendants of Charlemagne, not to the emperor Charles the Fat, butto the local and feudal chieftain, to Eudes, count of Paris, that thepopulation turned for salvation: and Eudes it was who saved them. 

In this painful parturition of French monarchy, one fact deserves to beremarked, and that is, the lasting respect attached, in the minds of thepeople, to the name and the reminiscences of the Carlovingian rule, notwithstanding its decay. It was not alone the lustre of that name, andof the memory of Charlemagne which inspired and prolonged this respect; acertain instinctive feeling about the worth of hereditary monarchy, as anelement of stability and order, already existed amongst the populations, and glimpses thereof were visible amongst the rivals of the royal familyin the hour of its dissolution. It had been consecrated by religion; thetitle of anointed of the Most High was united, in its case, to that oflawful heir. Why did Hugh the Great, duke of France, in spite offavorable opportunities and very palpable temptations, abstainperseveringly from taking the crown, and leave it tottering upon theheads of Louis the Ultramarine and Lothaire? Why did his son, Hugh Capethimself, wait, for his election as king, until Louis the Sluggard wasdead, and the Carlovingian line had only a collateral and discreditedrepresentative? In these hesitations and lingerings of the great feudalchieftains, there is a forecast of the authority already vested in theprinciple of hereditary monarchy, at the very moment when it was about tobe violated, and of the great part which would be played by thatprinciple in the history of France. 

At last the day of decision arrived for Hugh Capet. There is nothing toshow that he had conspired to hasten it, but he had foreseen theprobability of it, and, if he had done nothing to pave the way for it, hehad held himself, so far as he was concerned, in readiness for it. During a trip which he made to Rome in 981, he had entered into kindlypersonal relations with the Emperor Otho II. , king of Germany, the mostimportant of France's neighbors, and the most disposed to meddle in heraffairs. In France, Hugh Capet had formed a close friendship withAdalberon, archbishop of Rheims, the most notable and most able of theFrench prelates. The event showed the value of such a friend. On the21st of May, 987, King Louis V. Died without issue; and, after hisobsequies, the grandees of the kingdom met together at Senlis. We willhere borrow the text of a contemporary witness, Richer, the only one ofthe chroniclers of that age who deserves the name of historian, whetherfor the authenticity of his testimony or the extent and clearness of hisnarrative. "The bishop, " he says, "took his place, together with theduke, in the midst of the assembly, and said to them, 'I come and sitdown amongst you to treat of the affairs of the state. Far from me beany design of saying anything but what has for aim the advantage of thecommon weal. As I do not see here all the princes whose wisdom andenergy might be useful in the government of the kingdom, it seems to methat the choice of a king should be put off for some time, in order that, at a period fixed upon, all may be able to meet in assembly, and thatevery opinion, having been discussed and set forth in the face of day, may thus produce its full effect. May it please you, then, all of ye whoare here assembled to deliberate, to bind yourselves in conjunction withme by oath to this illustrious duke, and to promise between his hands notto engage yourselves in any way in the election of a Head, and not to doanything to this end until we be re-assembled here to deliberate uponthat choice. ' This opinion was well received and approved of by all:oath was taken between the hands of the duke, and the time was fixed atwhich the meeting should assemble again. "

Before the day fixed for re-assembling, the last of the descendants ofCharlemagne, Charles, duke of Lower Lorraine, brother of the late KingLothaire, and paternal uncle of the late King Louis, "went to Rheims inquest of the archbishop, and thus spake to him about his rights to thethrone: 'All the world knoweth, venerable father, that, by hereditaryright, I ought to succeed my brother and my nephew. I am wanting innought that should be required, before all, from those who ought toreign, to wit, birth and the courage to dare. Wherefore am I thrust outfrom the territory which all the world knows to have been possessed by myancestors? To whom could I better address myself than to you, when allthe supports of my race have disappeared? To whom, bereft as I am ofhonorable protection, should I have recourse but to you? By whom, if notby you, should I be restored to the honors of my fathers? Please Godthings turn out favorably for me and for my fortunes! Rejected, what, can become of me save to be exhibited as a spectacle to all who look onme? Suffer yourself to be moved by some feeling of humanity: becompassionate towards a man who has been tried by so many reverses!'"

Such language was more calculated to inspire contempt than compassion. "The metropolitan, firm in his resolution, gave for answer these fewwords: 'Thou hast ever been associated with the perjured, thesacrilegious, and the wicked of every sort, and now thou art stillunwilling to separate from them: how canst thou, in company with suchmen, and by means of such men, seek to attain to the sovereign power?'And when Charles replied that he must not abandon his friends, but rathergain over others, the bishop said to himself, 'Now that he possesses noposition of dignity, he hath allied himself with the wicked, whosecompanionship he will not, in any way, give up: what misfortune would itbe for the good if he were elected to the throne!' To Charles, however, he made answer that he would do nought without the consent of theprinces; and so left him. "

At the time fixed, probably the 29th or 30th of June, 987, the grandeesof Frankish Gaul who had bound themselves by oath re-assembled at Senlis. Hugh Capet was present with his brother Henry of Burgundy, and hisbrother-in-law Richard the Fearless, duke of Normandy. The majority ofthe direct vassals of the crown were also there--Foulques Nerra (theBlack), count of Anjou; Eudes, count of Blois, Chartres, and Tours;Bouchard, count of Vent-Mine and Corbeil; Gautier, count of Vexin; andHugh, count of Maine. Few counts came from beyond the Loire; and some ofthe lords in the North, amongst others Arnulf II. , count of Flanders, andthe lords of Vermandois were likewise missing. "When those present werein regular assembly, Archbishop Adalheron, with the assent of Duke Hugh, thus spake unto them: 'Louis, of blessed memory, having been taken fromus without leaving issue, it hath become necessary to engage seriously inseeking who may take his place upon the throne, to the end that thecommon weal remain not in peril, neglected and without a head. That iswhy on the last occasion we deemed it useful to put off this matter, inorder that each of ye might come hither and submit to the assembly theopinion with which God should have inspired him, and that from all thosesentiments might be drawn what is the general will. Here be weassembled: let us, then, be guided by our wisdom and our good faith toact in such sort that hatred stifle not reason, and affection distort nottruth. We be not ignorant that Charles hath his partisans, who maintainthat he ought to come to the throne transmitted to him by his relatives. But if we examine this question, the throne is not acquired by hereditaryright, and we be bound to place at the head of the kingdom none but himwho not only hath the distinction of corporeal nobility, but hath alsohonor to recommend him and magnanimity to rest upon. We read in theannals that to emperors of illustrious race, whom their own laches causedto fall from power, succeeded others, at one time similar, at anotherdifferent; but what dignity could we confer on Charles, who hath nothonor for his guide, who is enfeebled by lethargy, and who, finally, hathlost head so far that he hath no shame in serving a foreign king, and inmisuniting himself to a woman taken from the rank of the knights hisvassals? How could the puissant duke brook that a woman issuing from afamily of his vassals should become queen, and have dominion over him?How could he walk behind her whose equals and even superiors bend theknee before him and place their hands beneath his feet? Examinecarefully into the matter, and consider that Charles hath been rejectedmore through his own fault than that of others. Decide ye rather for thegood than the ill of the common weal. If ye wish it ill, make Charlessovereign; if ye hold to its prosperity, crown Hugh, the illustriousduke. Let attachment to Charles seduce nobody, and let hatred towardsthe duke distract nobody, from the common interest. . . . Give usthen, for our head, the duke, who has deeds, nobility, and troops torecommend him; the duke, in whom ye will find a defender not only ofthe common weal, but also of your private interests. Thanks to hisbenevolence, ye will have in him a father. Who hath had recourse to himand hath not found protection? Who, that hath been torn from the care ofhome, hath not been restored thereto by him?'

"This opinion having been proclaimed and well received, Duke Hugh wasunanimously raised to the throne, crowned on the 1st of July by themetropolitan and the other bishops, and recognized as king by the Gauls, the Britons, the Normans, the Aquitanians, the Goths, the Spaniards, andthe Gascons. Surrounded by the grandees of the kingdom, he passeddecrees and promulgated laws according to royal custom, regulatingsuccessfully and disposing of all matters. That he might deserve somuch good fortune, and under the inspiration of so many prosperouscircumstances, he gave himself up to deep piety. Wishing to have acertainty of leaving, after his death, an heir to the throne, heconferred with his grandees, and after holding council with them he firstsent a deputation to the metropolitan of Rheims, who was then at Orleans, and subsequently went himself to see him touching the association of hisson Robert with himself upon the throne. The archbishop having told himthat two kings could not be, regularly, created in one and the same year, he immediately showed a letter sent by Borel, duke of inner Spain, proving that that duke requested help against the barbarians. . . . The metropolitan, seeing advantage was likely to result, ultimatelyyielded to the king's reasons; and when the grandees were assembled, atthe festival of our Lord's nativity, to celebrate the coronation, Hughassumed the purple, and he crowned solemnly, in the basilica of Sainte-Croix, his son Robert, amidst the acclamations of the French. "

[Illustration: Hugh Capet elected King----300]

Thus was founded the dynasty of the Capetians, under the double influenceof German manners and feudal connections. Amongst the ancient Germansroyal heirship was generally confined to one and the same family; butelection was often joined with heirship, and had more than once thrustthe latter aside. Hugh Capet was head of the family which was the mostillustrious in his time and closest to the throne, on which the personalmerits of Counts Eudes and Robert had already twice seated it. He wasalso one of the greatest chieftains of feudal society, duke of thecountry which was already called France, and count of Paris--of that citywhich Clovis, after his victories, had chosen as the centre of hisdominions. In view of the Roman rather than Germanic pretensions of theCarlovingian heirs and of their admitted decay, the rise of Hugh Capetwas the natural consequence of the principal facts as well as of themanners of the period, and the crowning manifestation of the new socialcondition in France, that is, feudalism. Accordingly the event reachedcompletion and confirmation without any great obstacle. TheCarlovingian, Charles of Lorraine, vainly attempted to assert his rights;but after some gleams of success, he died in 992, and his descendantsfell, if not into obscurity, at least into political insignificance. Invain, again, did certain feudal lords, especially in Southern France, refuse for some time their adhesion to Hugh Capet. One of them, Adalbert, count of Perigord, has remained almost famous for having madeto Hugh Capet's question, "Who made thee count?" the proud answer, "Whomade thee king?" The pride, however, of Count Adalbert had more barkthan bite. Hugh possessed that intelligent and patient moderation, which, when a position is once acquired, is the best pledge ofcontinuance. Several facts indicate that he did not underestimate theworth and range of his title of king. At the same time that by gettinghis son Robert crowned with him he secured for his line the nextsuccession, he also performed several acts which went beyond the limitsof his feudal domains, and proclaimed to all the kingdom the presence ofthe king. But those acts were temperate and wise; and they paved the wayfor the future without anticipating it. Hugh Capet confined himselfcarefully to the sphere of his recognized rights as well as of hiseffective strength, and his government remained faithful to the characterof the revolution which had raised him to the throne, at the same timethat it gave warning of the future progress of royalty independently ofand over the head of feudalism. When he died, on the 24th of October, 996, the crown, which he hesitated, they say, to wear on his own head, passed without obstacle to his son Robert, and the course which was to befollowed for eight centuries, under the government of his descendants, bycivilization in France, began to develop itself. 

[Illustration: "Who made thee King?"----302]

It has already been pointed out, in the case of Adalberon, archbishop ofRheims, what part was taken by the clergy in this second change ofdynasty; but the part played by it was so important and novel that wemust make a somewhat more detailed acquaintance with the real characterof it and the principal actor in it. When, in 751, Pepin the Shortbecame king in the place of the last Merovingian, it was, as we haveseen, Pope Zachary who decided that "it was better to give the title ofking to him who really exercised the sovereign power than to him who boreonly its name. " Three years later, in 754, it was Pope Stephen II. Whocame over to France to anoint King Pepin, and, forty-six yearsafterwards, in 800, it was Pope Leo III. Who proclaimed Charlemagneemperor of the West. From the Papacy, then, on the accession of theCarlovingians, came the principal decisions and steps. The reciprocalservices rendered one to the other by the two powers, and still more, perhaps, the similarity of their maxims as to the unity of the empire, established between the Papacy and the Carlovingians strong ties ofgratitude and policy; and, accordingly, when the Carlovingian dynasty wasin danger, the court of Rome was grieved and troubled; it was hard forher to see the fall of a dynasty for which she had done so much and whichhad done so much for her. Far, then, from aiding the accession of thenew dynasty, she showed herself favorable to the old, and tried to saveit without herself becoming too deeply compromised. Such was, from 985to 996, the attitude of Pope John XVI. , at the crisis which placed HughCapet upon the throne. In spite of this policy on the part of thePapacy, the French Church took the initiative in the event, and supportedthe new king; the Archbishop of Rheims affirmed the right of the peopleto accomplish a change of dynasty, and anointed Hugh Capet and his sonRobert. The accession of the Capetians was a work independent of allforeign influence, and strictly national, in Church as well as in State. 

The authority of Adalberon was of great weight in the matter. Asarchbishop he was full of zeal, and at the same time of wisdom inecclesiastical administration. Engaging in politics, he showed boldnessin attempting a great change in the state, and ability in carrying it outwithout precipitation as well as without hesitation. He had for hissecretary and teacher a simple priest of Auvergne, who exercised overthis enterprise an influence more continuous and still more effectualthan that of his archbishop. Gerbert, born at Aurillac, and brought upin the monastery of St. Geraud, had, when he was summoned to thedirectorate of the school of Rheims, already made a trip to Spain, visited Rome, and won the esteem of Pope John XIII. And of the EmperorOtho II. , and had thus had a close view of the great personages and greatquestions, ecclesiastical and secular, of his time. On his establishmentat Rheims, he pursued a double course with a double end: he was fond ofstudy, science, and the investigation of truth, but he had also a tastefor the sphere of politics and of the world; he excelled in the art ofinstructing, but also in the art of pleasing; and the address of thecourtier was in him united with the learning of the doctor. His was amind lofty, broad, searching, prolific, open to conviction, and yetinclined to give way, either from calculation or attraction, to contraryideas, but certain to recur, under favorable circumstances, to itsoriginal purpose. There was in him almost as much changeableness as zealfor the cause he embraced. He espoused and energetically supported theelevation of a new dynasty and the independence of the Roman Church. Hewas very active in the cause of Hugh Capet; but he was more than once onthe point of going over to King Lothaire or to the pretender Charles ofLorraine. He was in his time, even more resolutely than Bossuet in theseventeenth century, the defender and practiser of what have since beencalled the liberties of the Gallican Church, and in 992 he became, onthis ground, Archbishop of Rheims; but, after having been interdicted, in995, by Pope John XVI. , from the exercise of his episcopal functions inFrance, he obtained, in 998, from Pope Gregory V. , the archbishopric ofRavenna in Italy, and the favor of Otho III. Was not unconnected, in999, with his elevation to the Holy See, which he occupied for fouryears, with the title of Sylvester II. , whilst putting in practice, butwith moderation and dignity, maxims very different from those which hehad supported, fifteen years before, as a French bishop. He became, atthis later period of his life, so much the more estranged from France inthat he was embroiled with Hugh Capet's son and successor, King Robert, whose quondam preceptor he had been and of whose marriage with QueenBertha, widow of Eudes, count of Blois, he had honestly disapproved. 

[Illustration: Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II----304]

In 995, just when he had been interdicted by Pope John X VI. From hisfunctions as Archbishop of Rheims, Gerbert wrote to the abbot andbrethren of the monastery of St. Geraud, where he had been brought up, "And now farewell to your holy community; farewell to those whom I knewin old times, or who were connected with me by blood, if there stillsurvive any whose names, if not their features, have remained upon mymemory. Not that I have forgotten them through pride; but I am brokendown, and--if it must be said--changed by the ferocity of barbarians;what I learned in my boyhood I forgot in my youth; what I desired in myyouth, I despised in my old age. Such are the fruits thou hast borne forme, O pleasure! Such are the joys afforded by the honors of the world!Believe my experience of it: the higher the great are outwardly raised byglory, the more cruel is their inward anguish!"

Length of life brings, in the soul of the ambitious, days of heartyundeception; but it does not discourage them from their course ofambition. Gerbert was, amongst the ambitious, at the same time one ofthe most exalted in point of intellect and one of the most persistent aswell as restless in attachment to the affairs of the world. 

CHAPTER XIV. ----THE CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 

From 996 to 1108, the first three successors of Hugh Capet, his sonRobert, his grandson Henry I. , and his great-grandson Philip I. , sat uponthe throne of France; and during this long space of one hundred andtwelve years the kingdom of France had not, sooth to say, any history. Parcelled out, by virtue of the feudal system, between a multitude ofprinces, independent, isolated, and scarcely sovereigns in their owndominions, keeping up anything like frequent intercourse only with theirneighbors, and loosely united, by certain rules or customs of vassalage, to him amongst them who bore the title of king, the France of theeleventh century existed in little more than name: Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Poitou, Anjou, Flanders, and Nivernais were the realstates and peoples, each with its own distinct life and history. Onesingle event, the Crusade, united, towards the end of the century, thosescattered sovereigns and peoples in one common idea and one combinedaction. Up to that point, then, let us conform to the real state of thecase, and faithfully trace out the features of the epoch, withoutattempting to introduce a connection and a combination which did notexist; and let us pass briefly in review the isolated events andpersonages which are still worthy of remembrance, and which have remainedhistoric without having belonged exactly to a national history. Amongstevents of this kind, one, the conquest of England, in 1066, by Williamthe Bastard, duke of Normandy, was so striking, and exercised so muchinfluence over the destinies of France, that, in the incoherent anddisconnected picture of this eleventh century, particular attention mustfirst be drawn to the consequences, as regarded France, of that greatNorman enterprise. 

After the sagacious Hugh Capet, the first three Capetians, Robert, Henry I. , and Philip I. , were very mediocre individuals, in characteras well as intellect; and their personal insignificance was one of thecauses that produced the emptiness of French history under their sway. Robert lacked neither physical advantages nor moral virtues: "He had alofty figure, " says his biographer Helgaud, archbishop of Bourgcs, "hairsmooth and well arranged, a modest eye, a pleasant and gentle mouth, atolerably furnished beard, and high shoulders. He was versed in all thesciences, philosopher enough and an excellent musician, and so devoted tosacred literature that he never passed a day without reading the Psalterand praying to the Most High God together with St. David. " He composedseveral hymns which were adopted by the Church, and, during a pilgrimagehe made to Rome, he deposited upon the altar of St. Peter his own Latinpoems set to music. "He often went to the church of St. Denis, clad inhis royal robes and with his crown on his head; and he there conductedthe singing at matins, mass, and vespers, chanting with the monks andhimself calling upon them to sing. When he sat in the consistory, hevoluntarily styled himself the bishops' client. " Two centuries later, St. Louis proved that the virtues of the saint are not incompatible withthe qualities of the king; but the former cannot form a substitute forthe latter, and the qualities of king were to seek in Robert. He wasneither warrior nor politician; there is no sign that he ever gatheredabout him, to discuss affairs of state, the laic barons together with thebishops, and when he interfered in the wars of the great feudal lords, notably in Burgundy and Flanders, it was with but little energy and tobut little purpose. He was hardly more potent in his family than in hiskingdom. It has already been mentioned that, in spite of his preceptorGerbert's advice, he had espoused Bertha, widow of Eudes, count of Blois, and he loved her dearly; but the marriage was assailed by the Church, onthe ground of kinship. Robert offered resistance, but afterwards gaveway before the excommunication pronounced by Pope Gregory V. , and thenespoused Constance daughter of William Taillefer, count of Toulouse; andforth-with, says the chronicler Raoul Glaber, "were seen pouring intoFrance and Burgundy, because of this queen, the most vain and mostfrivolous of all men, coming from Aquitaine and Auvergne. They wereoutlandish and outrageous equally in their manners and their dress, intheir arms and the appointments of their horses; their hair came onlyhalf way down their head; they shaved their beards like actors; they woreboots and shoes that were not decent; and, lastly, neither fidelity norsecurity was to be looked for in any of their ties. Alack! that nationof Franks, which was wont to be the most virtuous, and even the people ofBurgundy, too, were eager to follow these criminal examples, and beforelong they reflected only too faithfully the depravity and infamy of theirmodels. " The evil amounted to something graver than a disturbance ofcourt-fashions. Robert had by Constance three sons, Hugh, Henry, andRobert. First the eldest, and afterwards his two brothers, maddened bythe bad character and tyrannical exactions of their mother, left thepalace, and withdrew to Dreux and Burgundy, abandoning themselves, in theroyal domains and the neighborhood, to all kinds of depredations andexcesses. Reconciliation was not without great difficulty effected; and, indeed, peace was never really restored in the royal family. Peace waseverywhere the wish and study of King Robert; but he succeeded better inmaintaining it with his neighbors than with his children. In 1006, hewas on the point of having a quarrel with Henry II. , emperor of Germany, who was more active and enterprising, but fortunately not less pious, than himself. The two sovereigns resolved to have an interview at theMeuse, the boundary of their dominions. "The question amongst theirrespective followings was, which of the two should cross the river toseek audience on the other bank, that is, in the other's dominions; thiswould be a humiliation, it was said. The two learned princes rememberedthis saying of Eclesiasticus: 'The greater thou art, the humbler be thouin all things. ' The emperor, therefore, rose up early in the morning, and crossed, with some of his people, into the French king's territory. They embraced with cordiality; the bishops, as was proper, celebrated thesacrament of the mass, and they afterwards sat down to dinner. When themeal was over, King Robert offered Henry immense presents of gold andsilver and precious stones, and a hundred horses richly caparisoned, eachcarrying a cuirass and a helmet; and he added that all that the emperordid not accept of these gifts would be so much deducted from theirfriendship. Henry, seeing the generosity of his friend, took of thewhole only a book containing the Holy Gospel, set with gold and preciousstones, and a golden amulet, wherein was a tooth of St. Vincent, priestand martyr. The empress, likewise, accepted only two golden cups. Nextday, King Robert crossed with his bishops into the territories of theemperor, who received him magnificently, and, after dinner, offered him ahundred pounds of pure gold. The king, in his turn, accepted only twogolden cups; and, after having ratified their pact of friendship, theyreturned each to his own dominions. "

[Illustration: NOTRE DAME----310]

Let us add to this summary of Robert's reign some facts which arecharacteristic of the epoch. In A. D. 1000, in consequence of the senseattached to certain words in the Sacred Books, many Christians expectedthe end of the world. The time of expectation was full of anxieties;plagues, famines, and divers accidents which then took place in diversquarters, were an additional aggravation; the churches were crowded;penances, offerings, absolutions, all the forms of invocation andrepentance multiplied rapidly; a multitude of souls, in submission orterror, prepared to appear before their Judge. And after whatcatastrophes? In the midst of what gloom or of what light? These werefearful questions, of which men's imaginations were exhausted inforestalling the solution. When the last day of the tenth and the firstof the eleventh centuries were past, it was like a general regeneration;it might have been said that time was beginning over again; and the workwas commenced of rendering the Christian world worthy of the future. "Especially in Italy and in Gaul, " says the chronicler Raoul Glaber, "mentook in hand the reconstruction of the basilicas, although the greaterpart had no need thereof. Christian peoples seemed to vie one withanother which should erect the most beautiful. It was as if the world, shaking itself together and casting off its old garments, would havedecked itself with the white robes of Christ. " Christian art, in itsearliest form of the Gothic style, dates from this epoch; the power andriches of the Christian Church, in its different institutions, received, at this crisis of the human imagination, a fresh impulse. 

Other facts, some lamentable and some salutary, began, about this epoch, to assume in French history a place which was destined before long tobecome an important one. Piles of fagots were set up, first at Orleansand then at Toulouse, for the punishment of heretics. The heretics ofthe day were Manicheans. King Robert and Queen Constance sanctioned bytheir presence this return to human sacrifices offered to God as apenalty inflicted on mental offenders against His word. At the same timea double portion of ire blazed forth against the Jews. "What have we todo, " it was said, "with going abroad to make war on Mussulmans? Have wenot in the very midst of us the greatest enemies of Jesus Christ?"Amongst Christians acts of oppression and violence on the part of thegreat against the small became so excessive and so frequent that theyexcited in country parts, particularly in Normandy, insurrections whichthe insurgents tried to organize into permanent resistance. "In severalcounties of Normandy, " says William of Jumieges, "all the peasants, meeting in conventicles, resolved to live according to their own willsand their own laws, not only in the heart of the forests, but also on theborders of the rivers, and without care for any established rights. Toaccomplish this design, these mobs of madmen elected each two deputies, who were to form, at the central point, an assembly charged with theexecution of their decrees. So soon as the duke (Richard II. ) wasinformed thereof, he sent a large body of armed men to suppress thisaudacity in the country parts, and to disperse this rustic assembly. In execution of his orders, the deputies of the peasantry and many otherrebels were forthwith arrested; their feet and hands were cut off, andthey were sent home thus mutilated to deter their fellows from suchenterprises, and to render them more prudent, for fear of worse. Afterthis experience, the peasants gave up their meetings and returned totheir ploughs. "

[Illustration: Knights returning from Foray----311]

This is a literal translation of the monkish chronicler, who was far fromfavorable to the insurgent peasants, and was more for applauding thesuppression than justifying the insurrection. The suppression, thoughundoubtedly effectual for the moment, and in the particular spots itreached, produced no general or lasting effect. About a century afterthe cold recital of William of Jumieges, a poet-chronicler, Robert Wace, in his _Romance of Rou_, a history in verse of Rollo and the first dukesof Normandy, related the same facts with far more sympathetic feeling andpoetical coloring. "The lords do us nought but ill, " he makes the Normanpeasants say; "with them we have nor gain nor profit from our labors;every day is, for us, a day of suffering, toil, and weariness; every daywe have our cattle taken from us for road-work and forced service. Wehave plaints and grievances, old and new exactions, pleas and processeswithout end, money-pleas, market-pleas, road-pleas, forest-pleas, mill-pleas, black-mail-pleas, watch-and-ward-pleas. There are so manyprovosts, bailiffs, and sergeants, that we have not one hour's peace; dayby day they run us down, seize our movables, and drive us from our lands. There is no security for us against the lords; and no pact is bindingwith them. Why suffer all this evil to be done to us and not get out ofour plight? Are we not men even as they are? Have we not the samestature, the same limbs, the same strength--for suffering? All we needis courage. Let us, then, bind ourselves together by an oath: let usswear to support one another; and if they will make war on us, have wenot, for one knight, thirty or forty young peasants, nimble and ready tofight with club, with boar-spear, with arrow, with axe, and even withstones if they have not weapons? Let us learn to resist the knights, andwe shall be free to cut down trees, to hunt and fish after our fashion, and we shall work our will in flood and field and wood. "

[Illustration: Knights and Peasants----312]

Here we have no longer the short account and severe estimate of anindifferent spectator; it is the cry of popular rage and vengeancereproduced by the lively imagination of an angered poet. Undoubtedly theNorman peasants of the twelfth century did not speak of their miserieswith such descriptive ability and philosophical feeling as were lent tothem by Robert Wace; they did not meditate the democratic revolution ofwhich he attributes to them the idea and almost the plan; but the deedsof violence and oppression against which they rose were very real, andthey exerted themselves to escape by reciprocal violence from intolerablesuffering. Thence date those alternations of demagogic revolt andtyrannical suppression which have so often ensanguined the land and putin peril the very foundations of social order. Insurrections became ofso atrocious a kind that the atrocious chastisements with which they werevisited seemed equally natural and necessary. It needed long ages, arepetition of civil wars and terrible political shocks, to put an end tothis brutal chaos which gave birth to so many evils and reciprocalcrimes, and to bring about, amongst the different classes of the Frenchpopulation, equitable and truly human relations. 

So quick-spreading and contagious is evil amongst men, and so difficultto extirpate in the name of justice and truth!

However, even in the midst of this cruel egotism and this gross unreasonof the tenth and eleventh centuries, the necessity, from a moral andsocial point of view, of struggling against such disgustingirregularities, made itself felt, and found zealous advocates. From thisepoch are to be dated the first efforts to establish, in different partsof France, what was called God's peace, God's truce. The words were wellchosen for prohibiting at the same time oppression and revolt, for itneeded nothing less than law and the voice of God to put some restraintupon the barbarous manners and passions of men, great or small, lord orpeasant. It is the peculiar and glorious characteristic of Christianityto have so well understood the primitive and permanent evil in humannature that it fought against all the great iniquities of mankind andexposed them in principle, even when, in point of general practice, itneither hoped nor attempted to sweep them away. Bishops, priests, andmonks were, in their personal lives and in the councils of the Church, the first propagators of God's peace or truce, and in more than onelocality they induced the laic lords to follow their lead. In 1164, HughII. , count of Rodez, in concert with his brother Hugh, bishop of Rodez, and the notables of the district, established the peace in the diocese ofRodez; "and this it is, " said the learned Benedictines of the eighteenthcentury, in the Art of Verifying Dates, "which gave rise to the toll of_commune paix_ or _pesade, _ which is still collected in Rouergue. " KingRobert always showed himself favorable to this pacific work; and he isthe first amongst the five kings of France, in other respects verydifferent, --himself, St. Louis, Louis XII, Henry IV. , and Louis XVI. , --who were particularly distinguished for sympathetic kindness and anxietyfor the popular welfare. Robert had a kindly feeling for the weak andpoor; not only did he protect them, on occasion, against the powerful, but he took pains to conceal their defaults, and, in his church and athis table, he suffered himself to be robbed without complaint, that hemight not have to denounce and punish the robbers. "Wherefore at hisdeath, " says his biographer Helgaud, "there were great mourning andintolerable grief; a countless number of widows and orphans sorrowed forthe many benefits received from him; they did beat their breasts and wentto and from his tomb, crying, 'Whilst Robert was king and ordered all, welived in peace, we had nought to fear. May the soul of that piousfather, that father of the senate, that father of all good, be blest andsaved! May it mount up and dwell forever with Jesus Christ, the King ofkings!"

[Illustration: Robert had a Kindly Feeling for the Weak and Poor----313]

Though not so pious or so good as Robert, his son, Henry I. , and hisgrandson, Philip I. , were neither more energetic nor more glorious kings. During their long reigns (the former from 1031 to 1060, and the latterfrom 1060 to 1108) no important and well-prosecuted design distinguishedtheir government. Their public life was passed at one time in pettywarfare, without decisive results, against such and such vassals; atanother in acts of capricious intervention in the quarrels of theirvassals amongst themselves. Their home-life was neither less irregularnor conducted with more wisdom and regard for the public interest. KingRobert had not succeeded in keeping his first wife, Bertha of Burgundy;and his second, Constance of Aquitaine, with her imperious, malevolent, avaricious, meddlesome disposition, reduced him to so abject a state thathe never gave a gratuity to any of his servants without saying, "Takecare that Constance know nought of it. " After Robert's death, Constance, having become regent for her eldest son, Henry I. , forthwith conspired todethrone him, and to put in his place her second son, Robert, who was herfavorite. Henry, on being delivered by his mother's death from hertyranny and intrigues, was thrice married; but his first two marriageswith two German princesses, one the daughter of the Emperor Conrad theSalic, the other of the Emperor Henry III. , were so far from happy thatin 1051 he sent into Russia, to Kieff, in search of his third wife, Anne, daughter of the Czar Yaroslaff the Halt. She was a modest creature wholived quietly up to the death of her husband in 1060, and, two yearsafterwards, in the reign of her son Philip I. , rather than return to herown country, married Raoul, count of Valois, who put away, to marry her, his second wife, Haqueney, called Eleonore. The divorce was opposed atRome before Pope Alexander II. , to whom the archbishop of Rheims wroteupon the subject, "Our kingdom is the scene of great troubles. Thequeen-mother has espoused Count Raoul, which has mightily displeased theking. As for the lady whom Raoul has put away, we have recognized thejustice of the complaints she has preferred before you, and the falsityof the pre-texts on which he put her away. " The Pope ordered the countto take back his wife; Raoul would not obey, and was excommunicated; buthe made light of it, and the Princess Anne of Russia, actuallyreconciled, apparently, to Philip I. , lived tranquilly in France, where, in 1075, shortly after the death of her second husband, Count Raoul hersignature was still attached to a charter side by side with that of theking her son. 

The marriages of Philip I. Brought even more trouble and scandal thanthose of his father and grandfather. At nineteen years of age, in 1072, he had espoused Bertha, daughter of Florent I. , count of Holland, and in1078 he had by her the son who was destined to succeed him with the titleof Louis the Fat. But twenty years later, 1092, Philip took a dislike tohis wife, put her away and banished her to Montreuil-sur-Mer, on theground of prohibited consanguinity. He had conceived, there is noknowing when, a violent passion for a woman celebrated for her beauty, Bertrade, the fourth wife, for three years past, of Foulques le Roehin(the brawler), count of Anjou. Philip, having thus packed off Bertha, set out for Tours, where Bertrade happened to be with her husband. There, in the church of St. John, during the benediction of the baptismalfonts, they entered into mutual engagements. Philip went away again;and, a few days afterwards, Bertrade was carried off by some people hehad left in the neighborhood of Tours, and joined him at Orleans. Nearlyall the bishops of France, and amongst others the most learned andrespected of them, Yves, bishop of Chartres, refused their benediction tothis shocking marriage; and the king had great difficulty in finding apriest to render him that service. Then commenced between Philip and theheads of the Catholic Church, Pope and bishops, a struggle which, withnegotiation upon negotiation and excommunication upon excommunication, lasted twelve years, without the king's being able to get his marriagecanonically recognized; and, though he promised to send away Bertrade, hewas not content with merely keeping her with him, but he openly jeered atexcommunication and interdicts. "It was the custom, " says William ofMalmesbury, "at the places where the king sojourned, for divine serviceto be stopped; and, as soon as he was moving away, all the bells began topeal. And then Philip would cry, as he laughed like one beside himself, 'Dost hear, my love, how they are ringing us out?'" At last, in 1104, the Bishop of Chartres himself, wearied by the persistency of the kingand by sight of the trouble in which the prolongation of the interdictwas plunging the kingdom, wrote to the Pope, Pascal II. , "I do notpresume to offer you advice; I only desire to warn you that it were wellto show for a while some condescension towards the weaknesses of the man, so far as consideration for his salvation may permit, and to rescue thecountry from the critical state to which it is reduced by theexcommunication of this prince. " The Pope, consequently, sentinstructions to the bishops of the realm; and they, at the king'ssummons, met at Paris on the 1st of December, 1104. One of them, Lambert, bishop of Arras, wrote to the Pope, "We sent as a deputationto the king the bishops John of Orleans and Galon of Paris, charged todemand of him whether he would conform to the clauses and conditions setforth in your letters, and whether he were determined to give up theunlawful intercourse which had made him guilty before God. The king, having answered, without being disconcerted, that he was ready to makeatonement to God and the holy Roman Church, was introduced to theassembly. He came barefooted, in a posture of devotion and humility, confessing his sin and promising to purge him of his excommunication byexpiatory deeds. And thus, by your authority, he earned absolution. Then laying his hand on the book of the holy Gospels, he took an oath, in the following terms, to renounce his guilty and unlawful marriage:'Hearken, thou Lambert, bishop of Arras, who art here in place of theApostolic Pontiff; and let the archbishops and bishops here presenthearken unto me. I, Philip, king of the French, do promise not to goback to my sin, and to break off wholly the criminal intercourse I haveheretofore kept up with Bertrade. I do promise that henceforth I willhave with her no intercourse or companionship, save in the presence ofpersons beyond suspicion. I will observe, faithfully and without turningaside, these promises, in the sense set forth in the letters of the Pope, and as ye understand. So help me God and these holy Gospels!' Bertrade, at the moment of her release from excommunication, took in person thesame oath on the holy Gospels. "

According to the statement of the learned Benedictines who studiouslyexamined into this incident, it is doubtful whether Philip I. Broke offall intercourse with Bertrade. "Two years after his absolution, on the10th of October, 1106, he arrived at Angers, on a Wednesday, " says acontemporary chronicler, "accompanied by the queen named Bertrade, andwas there received by Count Foulques and by all the Angevines, cleric andlaic, with great honors. The day after his arrival, on Thursday, themonks of St. Nicholas, introduced by the queen, presented themselvesbefore the king, and humbly prayed him, in concert with the queen, tocountenance, for the salvation of his soul and of the queen and hisrelatives and friends, all acquisitions made by them in his dominions, orthat they might hereafter make, by gift or purchase, and to be pleased toplace his seal on their titles to property. And the king granted theirrequest. "

The most complete amongst the chroniclers of the time, Orderic Vital, says, touching this meeting at Angers of Bertrade's two husbands, "Thisclever woman had, by her skilful management, so perfectly reconciledthese two rivals, that she made them a splendid feast, got them both tosit at the same table, had their beds prepared, the ensuing night, in thesame chamber, and ministered to them according to their pleasure. " Themost judicious of the historians and statesmen of the twelfth century, the Abby Suger, that faithful minister of Louis the Fat, who cannot besuspected of favoring Bertrade, expresses himself about her in theseterms: "This sprightly and rarely accomplished woman, well versed in theart, familiar to her sex, of holding captive the husbands they haveoutraged, had acquired such an empire over her first husband, the countof Anjou, in spite of the affront she had put upon him by deserting him, that he treated her with homage as his sovereign, often sat upon a stoolat her feet, and obeyed her wishes by a sort of enchantment. "

These details are textually given as the best representation of the placeoccupied, in the history of that time, by the morals and private life ofthe kings. It would not be right, however, to draw therefrom conclusionsas to the abasement of Capetian royalty in the eleventh century, with toogreat severity. There are irregularities and scandals which the greatqualities and the personal glory of princes may cause to be not onlyexcused but even forgotten, though certainly the three Capetians whoimmediately succeeded the founder of the dynasty offered their people nosuch compensation; but it must not be supposed that they had fallen intothe plight of the sluggard Merovingians or the last Carlovingians, wandering almost without a refuge. A profound change had come oversociety and royalty in France. In spite of their political mediocrityand their indolent licentiousness, Robert, Henry I. , and Philip I. , werenot, in the eleventh century, insignificant personages, without authorityor practical influence, whom their contemporaries could leave out of theaccount; they were great lords, proprietors of vast domains wherein theyexercised over the population an almost absolute power; they had, it istrue, about them, rivals, large proprietors and almost absolutesovereigns, like themselves, sometimes stronger even, materially, thanthemselves and more energetic or more intellectually able, whosesuperiors, however, they remained on two grounds--as suzerains and askings: their court was always the most honored and their alliance alwaysvery much sought after. They occupied the first rank in feudal societyand a rank unique in the body politic such as it was slowly becoming inthe midst of reminiscences and traditions of the Jewish monarchy, ofbarbaric kingship, and of the Roman empire for a while resuscitated byCharlemagne. French kingship in the eleventh century was sole powerinvested with a triple character--Germanic, Roman, and religious; itspossessors were at the same time the chieftains of the conquerors of thesoil, the successors of the Roman emperors and of Charlemagne, and thelaic delegates and representatives of the God of the Christians. Whatever were their weaknesses and their personal short-comings, theywere not the mere titularies of a power in decay, and the kingly post wasstrong and full of blossoms, as events were not slow to demonstrate. 

And as with the kingship, so with the community of France in the eleventhcentury. In spite of its dislocation into petty incoherent and turbulentassociations, it was by no means in decay. Irregularities of ambition, hatreds and quarrels amongst neighbors and relatives, outrages on thepart of princes and peoples were incessantly renewed; but energy ofcharacter, activity of mind, indomitable will and zeal for the liberty ofthe individual were not wanting, and they exhibited themselvespassionately and at any risk, at one time by brutal and cynical outburstswhich were followed occasionally by fervent repentance and expiation, atanother by acts of courageous wisdom and disinterested piety. At thecommencement of the eleventh century, William III. , count of Poitiers andduke of Aquitaine, was one of the most honored and most potent princes ofhis time; all the sovereigns of Europe sent embassies to him as to theirpeer; he every year made, by way of devotion, a trip to Rome, and wasreceived there with the same honors as the emperor. He was fond ofliterature, and gave up to reading the early hours of the night; andscholars called him another Maecenas. Unaffected by these worldlysuccesses intermingled with so much toil and so many miscalculations, herefused the crown of Italy, when it was offered him at the death of theEmperor Henry II. , and he finished, like Charles V. Some centuries later, by going and seeking in a monastery isolation from the world and repose. But, in the same domains and at the end of the same century, his grandsonWilliam VII. Was the most vagabondish, dissolute, and violent ofprinces; and his morals were so scandalous that the bishop of Poitiers, after having warned him to no purpose, considered himself forced toexcommunicate him. The duke suddenly burst into the church, made his waythrough the congregation, sword in hand, and seized the prelate by thehair, saying, "Thou shalt give me absolution or die. " The bishopdemanded a moment for reflection, profited by it to pronounce the form ofexcommunication, and forthwith bowing his head before the duke, said, "And now strike!" "I love thee not well enough to send thee toparadise, " answered the duke; and he confined himself to depriving him ofhis see. For fury the duke of Aquitaine sometimes substituted insolentmockery. Another bishop, of Angouleme, who was quite bald, likewiseexhorted him to mend his ways. "I will mend, " quoth the duke, "when thoushalt comb back thy hair to thy pate. " Another great lord of the samecentury, Foulques the Black, count of Anjou, at the close of an able andglorious lifetime, had resigned to his son Geoffrey Martel theadministration of his countship. The son, as haughty and harsh towardshis father as towards his subjects, took up arms against him, and badehim lay aside the outward signs, which he still maintained, of power. The old man in his wrath recovered the vigor and ability of his youth, and strove so energetically and successfully against his son that hereduced him to such subjection as to make him do several miles "crawlingon the ground, " says the chronicle, with a saddle on his back, and tocome and prostrate himself at his feet. When Foulques had his son thushumbled before him, he spurned him with his foot, repeating over and overagain nothing but "Thou'rt beaten, thou'rt beaten!" "Ay, beaten, " saidGeoffrey, "but by thee only, because thou art my father; to any other Iam invincible. " The anger of the old man vanished at once: he nowthought only how he might console his son for the affront put upon him, and he gave him back his power, exhorting him only to conduct himselfwith more moderation and gentleness towards his subjects. All wasinconsistency and contrast with these robust, rough, hasty souls; theycared little for belying themselves when they had satisfied the passionof the moment. 

The relations existing between the two great powers of the period, thelaic lords and the monks, were not less bitter or less unstable thanamongst the laics themselves; and when artifice, as often happened, wasemployed, it was by no means to the exclusion of violence. About themiddle of the twelfth century, the abbey of Tournus, in Burgundy, had, atLouhans, a little port where it collected salt-tax, whereof it every yeardistributed the receipts to the poor during the first week in Lent. Girard, count of Macon, established a like toll a little distance off. The monks of Tournus complained; but he took no notice. A long whileafterwards he came to Tournus with a splendid following, and entered thechurch of St. Philibert. He had stopped all alone before the altar tosay his prayers, when a monk, cross in hand, issued suddenly from behindthe altar, and, placing himself before the count, "How hast thou theaudacity, " said he, "to enter my monastery and mine house, thou that dostnot hesitate to rob me of my dues?" and, taking Girard by the hair, hethrew him on the ground and belabored him heavily. The count, stupefiedand contrite, acknowledged his injustice, took off the toll that he hadwrongfully put on, and, not content with this reparation, sent to thechurch of Tournus a rich carpet of golden and silken tissue. In themiddle of the eleventh century, Adhemar II. , viscount of Limoges, had inhis city a quarrel of quite a different sort with the monks of the abbeyof St. Martial. The abbey had fallen into great looseness of disciplineand morals; and the viscount had at heart its reformation. To this endhe entered into concert, at a distance, with Hugh, abbot of Cluni, atthat time the most celebrated and most respected of the monasteries. Theabbot of St. Martial died. Adhemar sent for some monks from Cluni tocome to Limoges, lodged them secretly near his palace, repaired to theabbey of St. Martial after having had the chapter convoked, and calledupon the monks to proceed at once to the election of a new abbot. Alively discussion, upon this point, arose between the viscount and themonks. "We are not ignorant, " said one of them to him, "that you havesent for brethren from Cluni, in order to drive us out and put them inour places; but you will not succeed. " The viscount was furious, seizedby the sleeve the monk who was inveighing, and dragged him by force outof the monastery. His fellows were frightened, and took to flight; andAdhemar immediately had the monks from Cluni sent for, and put them inpossession of the abbey. It was a ruffianly proceeding; but the reformwas popular in Limoges and was effected. 

These trifling matters are faithful samples of the dominant andfundamental characteristic of French society during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, the true epoch of the middle ages. It was chaos, and fermentation within the chaos the slow and rough but powerful andproductive fermentation of unruly life. In ideas, events, and personsthere was a blending of the strongest contrasts: manners were rude andeven savage, yet souls were filled with lofty and tender aspirations; theauthority of religious creeds at one time was on the point of extinction, yet at another shone forth gloriously in opposition to the arrogance andbrutality of mundane passions; ignorance was profound, and yet here andthere, in the very heart of the mental darkness, gleamed bright centresof movement and intellectual labor. It was the period when Abelard, anticipating freedom of thought and of instruction, drew together uponMount St. Genevieve thousands of hearers anxious to follow him in thestudy of the great problems of Nature and of the destiny of man and theworld. And far away from this throng, in the solitude of the abbey ofBee, St. Anselm was offering to his monks a Christian and philosophicaldemonstration of the existence of God--"faith seeking understanding"(fides quoerens intellectuan), as he himself used to say. It was theperiod, too, when, distressed at the licentiousness which was spreadingthroughout the Church as well as lay society, two illustrious monks, St. Bernard and St. Norbert, not only went preaching everywhere reformationof morals, but labored at and succeeded in establishing for monastic lifea system of strict discipline and severe austerity. Lastly, it was theperiod when, in the laic world, was created and developed the mostsplendid fact of the middle ages, knighthood, that noble soaring ofimaginations and souls towards the ideal of Christian virtue andsoldierly honor. It is impossible to trace in detail the origin andhistory of that grand fact which was so prominent in the days to which itbelonged, and which is so prominent still in the memories of men; but aclear notion ought to be obtained of its moral character and itspractical worth. To this end a few pages shall be borrowed from Guizot's_History of Civilization in France_. Let us first look on at theadmission of a knight, such as took place in the twelfth century. Wewill afterwards see what rules of conduct were imposed upon him, not onlyaccording to the oaths which he had to take on becoming knight, butaccording to the idea formed of knighthood by the poets of the day, thoseinterpreters not only of actual life, but of men's sentiments also. Weshall then understand, without difficulty, what influence must have beenexercised, in the souls and lives of men, by such sentiments and suchrules, however great may have been the discrepancy between the knightlyideal and the general actions and passions of contemporaries. 

"The young man, the esquire who aspired to the title of knight, was firststripped of his clothes and placed in a bath, which was symbolical ofpurification. On leaving the bath, he was clothed in a white tunic, which was symbolical of purity, and a red robe, which was symbolical ofthe blood he was bound to shed in the service of the faith, and a blacksagum or close-fitting coat, which was symbolical of the death whichawaited him as well as all men. 

"Thus purified and clothed, the candidate observed for four and twentyhours a strict fast. When evening came, he entered church, and therepassed the night in prayer, sometimes alone, sometimes with a priest andsponsors, who prayed with him. Next day, his first act was confession;after confession the priest gave him the communion; after the communionhe attended a mass of the Holy Spirit; and, generally, a sermon touchingthe duties of knights and of the new life he was about to enter on. Thesermon over, the candidate advanced to the altar with the knight's swordhanging from his neck. This the priest took off, blessed, and replacedupon his neck. The candidate then went and knelt before the lord who wasto arm him knight. 'To what purpose, ' the lord asked him, 'do you desireto enter the order? If to be rich, to take your ease and be held inhonor without doing honor to knighthood, you are unworthy of it, andwould be, to the order of knighthood you received, what the simoniacalclerk is to the prelacy. ' On the young man's reply, promising to acquithimself well of the duties of knight, the lord granted his request. 

"Then drew near knights and sometimes ladies to reclothe the candidate inall his new array; and they put on him, 1, the spurs; 2, the hauberk orcoat of mail; 3, the cuirass; 4, the armlets and gauntlets; 5, the sword. 

[Illustration: "The Accolade. "----324]

"He was what was then called adubbed (that is, adopted, according to DuCange). The lord rose up, went to him and gave him the accolade oraccolee, three blows with the flat of the sword on the shoulder or napeof the neck, and sometimes a slap with the palm of the hand on the cheek, saying, 'In the name of God, St. Michael and St. George, I make theeknight. ' And he sometimes added, 'Be valiant, bold, and loyal. '

"The young man, having been thus armed knight, had his helmet brought tohim; a horse was led up for him; he leaped on its back, generally withoutthe help of the stirrups, and caracoled about, brandishing his lance andmaking his sword flash. Finally he went out of church and caracoledabout on the open, at the foot of the castle, in presence of the peopleeager to have their share in the spectacle. "

Such was what may be called the outward and material part in theadmission of knights. It shows a persistent anxiety to associatereligion with all the phases of so personal an affair; the sacraments, the most august feature of Christianity, are mixed up with it; and manyof the ceremonies are, as far as possible, assimilated to theadministration of the sacraments. Let us continue our examination; letus penetrate to the very heart of knighthood, its moral character, itsideas, the sentiments which it was the object to impress upon the knight. Here again the influence of religion will be quite evident. 

"The knight had to swear to twenty-six articles. These articles, however, did not make one single formula, drawn up at one and the sametime and all together; they are a collection of oaths required of knightsat different epochs and in more or less complete fashion from theeleventh to the fourteenth century. The candidate swore, 1, to fear, reverence, and serve God religiously, to fight for the faith with alltheir might, and to die a thousand deaths rather than ever renounceChristianity; 2, to serve their sovereign-prince faithfully, and to fightfor him and fatherland right valiantly; 3, to uphold the rights of theweaker, such as widows, orphans, and damsels, in fair quarrel, exposingthemselves on that account according as need might be, provided it werenot against their own honor or against their king or lawful prince; 4, that they would not injure any one maliciously, or take what wasanother's, but would rather do battle with those who did so; 5, thatgreed, pay, gain, or profit should never constrain them to do any deed, but only glory and virtue; 6, that they would fight for the good andadvantage of the common weal; 7, that they would be bound by and obey theorders of their generals and captains who had a right to command them; 8, that they would guard the honor, rank, and order of their comrades, andthat they would neither by arrogance nor by force commit any trespassagainst any one of them; 9, that they would never fight in companiesagainst one, and that they would eschew all tricks and artifices; 10, that they would wear but one sword, unless they had to fight against twoor more; 11, that in tourney or other sportive contest they would neveruse the point of their swords; 12, that being taken prisoner in atourney, they would be bound, on their faith and honor, to perform inevery point the conditions of capture, besides being bound to give up tothe victors their arms and horses, if it seemed good to take them, andbeing disabled from fighting in war or elsewhere without their leave; 13, that they would keep faith inviolably with all the world, and especiallywith their comrades, upholding their honor and advantage, wholly, intheir absence; 14, that they would love and honor one another, and aidand succor one another whenever occasion offered; 15, that, having madevow or promise to go on any quest or novel adventure, they would neverput off their arms, save for the night's rest; 16, that in pursuit oftheir quest or adventure they would not shun bad and perilous passes, norturn aside from the straight road for fear of encountering powerfulknights or monsters or wild beasts or other hinderance such as the bodyand courage of a single man might tackle; 17, that they would never takewage or pay from any foreign prince; 18, that in command of troops ofmen-at-arms, they would live in the utmost possible order and discipline, and especially in their own country, where they would never suffer anyharm or violence to be done; 19, that if they were bound to escort dameor damsel, they would serve her, protect her, and save her from alldanger and insult, or die in the attempt; 20, that they would never offerviolence to dame or damsel, though they had won her by deeds of arms, against her will and consent; 21, that, being challenged to equal combat, they would not refuse, without wound, sickness, or other reasonablehinderance; 22, that, having undertaken to carry out any enterprise, theywould devote to it night and day, unless they were called away for theservice of their king and country; 23, that if they made a vow to acquireany honor, they would not draw back without having attained either it orits equivalent; 24, that they would be faithful keepers of their word andpledged faith, and that, having become prisoners in fair warfare, theywould pay to the uttermost the promised ransom, or return to prison, atthe day and hour agreed upon, on pain of being proclaimed infamous andperjured; 25, that on re-turning to the court of their sovereign, theywould render a true account of their adventures, even though they hadsometimes been worsted, to the king and the registrar of the order, onpain of being deprived of the order of knighthood; 26, that above allthings they would be faithful, courteous, and humble, and would never bewanting to their word for any harm or loss that might accrue to them. "

It is needless to point out that in this series of oaths, theseobligations imposed upon the knights, there is a moral development verysuperior to that of the laic society of the period. Moral notions solofty, so delicate, so scrupulous, and so humane, emanated clearly fromthe Christian clergy. Only the clergy thought thus about the duties andthe relations of mankind; and their influence was employed in directingtowards the accomplishment of such duties, towards the integrity of suchrelations, the ideas and customs engendered by knighthood. It had notbeen instituted with so pious and deep a design, for the protection ofthe weak, the maintenance of justice, and the reformation of morals; ithad been, at its origin and in its earliest features, a naturalconsequence of feudal relations and warlike life, a confirmation of thebonds established and the sentiments aroused between different masters inthe same country and comrades with the same destinies. The clergypromptly saw what might be deduced from such a fact; and they made of ita means of establishing more peacefulness in society, and in the conductof individuals a more rigid morality. This was the general work theypursued; and, if it were convenient to study the matter more closely, wemight see, in the canons of councils from the eleventh to the fourteenthcenturies, the Church exerting herself to develop more and more in thisorder of knight-hood, this institution of an essentially warlike origin, the moral and civilizing character of which a glimpse has just beencaught in the documents of knighthood itself. 

In proportion as knighthood appeared more and more in this simultaneouslywarlike, religious, and moral character, it more and more gained powerover the imagination of men, and just as it had become closely interwovenwith their creeds, it soon became the ideal of their thoughts, the sourceof their noblest pleasures. Poetry, like religion, took hold of it. From the eleventh century onwards, knighthood, its ceremonies, itsduties, and its adventures, were the mine from which the poets drew inorder to charm the people, in order to satisfy and excite at the sametime that yearning of the soul, that need of events more varied and morecaptivating, and of emotions more exalted and more pure than real lifecould furnish. In the springtide of communities poetry is not merely apleasure and a pastime for a nation; it is a source of progress; itelevates and develops the moral nature of men at the same time that itamuses them and stirs them deeply. We have just seen what oaths weretaken by the knights and administered by the priests; and now, here is anancient ballad by Eustache Deschamps, a poet of the fourteenth century, from which it will be seen that poets impressed upon knights the sameduties and the same virtues, and that the influence of poetry had thesame aim as that of religion:

 I. 

 Amend your lives, ye who would fain The order of the knights attain; Devoutly watch, devoutly pray; From pride and sin, O, turn away! Shun all that's base; the Church defend; Be the widow's and the orphan's friend; Be good and Leal; take nought by might; Be bold and guard the people's right;-- This is the rule for the gallant knight. 

 II. 

 Be meek of heart; work day by day; Tread, ever tread, the knightly way; Make lawful war; long travel dare; Tourney and joust for lady fair; To everlasting honor cling, That none the barbs of blame may fling; Be never slack in work or fight; Be ever least in self's own sight;-- This is the rule for the gallant knight. 

 III. 

 Love the liege lord; with might and main His rights above all else maintain; Be open-handed, just, and true; The paths of upright men pursue; No deaf ear to their precepts turn; The prowess of the valiant learn; That ye may do things great and bright, As did great Alexander hight;-- This is the rule for the gallant knight. 

A great deal has been said to the effect that all this is sheer poetry, abeautiful chimera without any resemblance to reality. Indeed, it hasjust been remarked here, that the three centuries under consideration, the middle ages, were, in point of fact, one of the most brutal, mostruffianly epochs in history, one of those wherein we encounter mostcrimes and violence; wherein the public peace was most incessantlytroubled; and wherein the greatest licentiousness in morals prevailed. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that side by side with these gross andbarbarous morals, this social disorder, there existed knightly moralityand knightly poetry. We have moral records confronting ruffianly deeds;and the contrast is shocking, but real. It is exactly this contrastwhich makes the great and fundamental characteristic of the middle ages. Let us turn our eyes towards other communities, towards the earlieststages, for instance, of Greek society, towards that heroic age of whichHomer's poems are the faithful reflection. There is nothing there likethe contrasts by which we are struck in the middle ages. We do not seethat, at the period and amongst the people of the Homeric poems, therewas abroad in the air or had penetrated into the imaginations of men anyidea more lofty or more pure than their every-day actions; the heroes ofHomer seem to have no misgiving about their brutishness, their ferocity, their greed, their egotism, there is nothing in their souls superior tothe deeds of their lives. In the France of the middle ages, on thecontrary, though practically crimes and disorders, moral and social evilsabound, yet men have in their souls and their imaginations loftier andpurer instincts and desires; their notions of virtue and their ideas ofjustice are very superior to the practice pursued around them and amongstthemselves; a certain moral ideal hovers above this low and tumultuouscommunity, and attracts the notice and obtains the regard of men in whoselife it is but very faintly reflected. The Christian religion, undoubtedly, is, if not the only, at any rate the principal cause of thisgreat fact; for its particular characteristic is to arouse amongst men alofty moral ambition by keeping constantly before their eyes a typeinfinitely beyond the reach of human nature, and yet profoundlysympathetic with it. To Christianity it was that the middle ages owedknighthood, that institution which, in the midst of anarchy andbarbarism, gave a poetical and moral beauty to the period. It wasfeudal knighthood and Christianity together which produced the two greatand glorious events of those times, the Norman conquest of England andthe Crusades. 

CHAPTER XV. ----CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 

At the beginning of the eleventh century, Robert, called "TheMagnificent, " the fifth in succession from the great chieftain Rollo whohad established the Northmen in France, was duke of Normandy. To thenickname he earned by his nobleness and liberality some chronicles haveadded another, and call him "Robert the Devil, " by reason of his recklessand violent deeds of audacity, whether in private life or in warlikeexpeditions. Hence a lively controversy amongst the learned upon thequestion of deciding to which Robert to apply the latter epithet. Somepersist in assigning it to the duke of Normandy; others seek for someother Robert upon whom to foist it. However that may be, in 1034 or1035, after having led a fair life enough from the political point ofview, but one full of turbulence and moral irregularity, Duke Robertresolved to undertake, barefooted and staff in hand, a pilgrimage toJerusalem, "to expiate his sins if God would deign to consent thereto. "The Norman prelates and barons, having been summoned around him, conjuredhim to renounce his plan; for to what troubles and perils would not hisdominions be exposed without lord or assured successor? "By my faith, "said Robert, "I will not leave ye lordless. I have a young bastard whowill grow, please God, and of whose good qualities I have great hope. Take him, I pray you, for lord. That he was not born in wedlock matterslittle to you; he will be none the less able in battle, or at court, orin the palace, or to render you justice. I make him my heir, and I holdhim seized, from this present, of the whole duchy of Normandy. " And theywho were present assented, but not without objection and disquietude. 

There was certainly ample reason for objection and disquietude. Not onlywas it a child of eight years of age to whom Duke Robert, at setting outon his pious pilgrimage, was leaving Normandy; but this child had beenpronounced bastard by the duke his father at the moment of taking him forhis heir. Nine or ten years before, at Falaise, his favorite residence, Robert had met, according to some at a people's dance, according toothers on the banks of a stream where she was washing linen with hercompanions, a young girl named Harlette or Harleve, daughter of a tannerin the town, where they show to this day, it is said, the window fromwhich the duke saw her for the first time. She pleased his fancy, andwas not more strait-laced than the duke was scrupulous; and Fulbert, thetanner, kept but little watch over his daughter. Robert gave the sonborn to him in 1027 the name of his glorious ancestor, William Longsword, the son and successor of Rollo. The child was reared, according to some, in his father's palace, "right honorably as if he had been born inwedlock, " but, according to others, in the house of his grandfather, thetanner; and one of the neighboring burgesses, as he saw passing one ofthe principal Norman lords, William de Bellesme, surnamed "The FierceTalvas, " stopped him, ironically saying, "Come in, my lord, and admireyour suzerain's son. " The origin of young William was in every mouth, and gave occasion for familiar allusions more often insulting thanflattering. The epithet bastard was, so to speak, incorporated with hisname; and we cannot be astonished that it lived in history, for, in theheight of his power, he sometimes accepted it proudly, calling himself, in several of his charters, William the Bastard (Gulielmus Notlzus). Heshowed himself to be none the less susceptible on this point when in1048, during the siege of Alencon, the domain of the Lord de Bellesme, the inhabitants hung from their walls hides all raw and covered withdirt, which they shook when they caught sight of William, with cries of"Plenty of work for the tanner!" "By the glory of God, " cried William, "they shall pay me dear for this insolent bra-very!" After an assaultseveral of the besieged were taken prisoners; and he had their eyespulled out, and their feet and hands cut off, and shot from hissiege-machines these mutilated members over the walls of the city. 

Notwithstanding his recklessness and his being engrossed in hispilgrimage, Duke Robert had taken some care for the situation in which hewas leaving his son, and some measures to lessen its perils. He hadappointed regent of Normandy, during William's minority, his cousin, Alain V. , duke of Brittany, whose sagacity and friendship he had proved;and he had confided the personal guardianship of the child, not to hismother. Harlette, who was left very much out in the cold, but to one ofhis most trusty officers, Gilbert Crespon, count of Brionne; and thestrong castle of Vaudreuil, the first foundation of which dated back, itwas said, to Queen Fredegonde, was assigned for the usual residence ofthe young duke. Lastly, to confirm with brilliancy his son's right ashis successor to the duchy of Normandy, and to assure him a powerfulally, Robert took him, himself, to the court of his suzerain, Henry I. , king of France, who recognized the title of William the Bastard, andallowed him to take the oath of allegiance and homage. Having thusprepared, as best he could, for his son's future, Robert set out on hispilgrimage. He visited Rome and Constantinople, everywhere displayinghis magnificence, together with his humility. He fell ill from sheerfatigue whilst crossing Asia Minor, and was obliged to be carried in alitter by four negroes. "Go and tell them at home, " said he to a Normanpilgrim he met returning from the Holy Land, "that you saw me beingcarried to Paradise by four devils. " On arriving at Jerusalem, where hewas received with great attention by the Mussulman emir in command there, he discharged himself of his pious vow, and took the road back to Europe. But he was poisoned, by whom or for what motive is not clearly known, atNicaea, in Bithynia, where he was buried in the basilica of St. Mary--anhonor, says the chronicle, which had never been accorded to anybody. 

From 1025 to 1042, during William's minority, Normandy was a prey to therobber-like ambition, the local quarrels, and the turbulent and brutalpassions of a host of petty castle-holders, nearly always at war, eitheramongst themselves or with the young chieftain whose power they did notfear, and whose rights they disputed. In vain did Duke Alain ofBrittany, in his capacity as regent appointed by Duke Robert, attempt tore-establish order; and just when he seemed on the road to success he waspoisoned by those who could not succeed in beating him. Henry I. , kingof France, being ill-disposed at bottom towards his Norman neighbors andtheir young duke, for all that he had acknowledged him, profited by thisanarchy to filch from him certain portions of territory. Attacks withoutwarning, fearful murders, implacable vengeance, and sanguinarydisturbances in the towns, were evils which became common, and spread. The clergy strove with courageous perseverance against the vices andcrimes of the period. The bishops convoked councils in their dioceses;the laic lords, and even the people, were summoned to them; the peace ofGod was proclaimed; and the priests, having in their hands lightedtapers, turned them towards the ground and extinguished them, whilst thepopulace repeated in chorus, "So may God extinguish the joys of those whorefuse to observe peace and justice. " The majority, however, of theNorman lords, refused to enter into the engagement. In default of peace, it was necessary to be content with the truce of God. It commenced onWednesday evening at sunset and concluded on Monday at sunrise. Duringthe four days and five nights comprised in this interval, all aggressionwas forbidden; no slaying, wounding, pillaging, or burning could takeplace; but from sunrise on Monday to sunset on Wednesday, for three claysand two nights, any violence became allowable, any crime mightrecommence. 

Meanwhile William was growing up, and the omens that had been drawn fromhis early youth raised the popular hopes. It was reported that at hisvery birth, when the midwife had put him unswaddled on a little heap ofstraw, he had wriggled about and drawn together the straw with his hands, insomuch that the midwife said, "By my faith, this child beginneth fullyoung to take and heap up: I know not what he will not do when he isgrown. " At a little later period, when a burgess of Falaise drew theattention of the Lord William de Bellesme to the gay and sturdy lad as heplayed amongst his mates, the fierce vassal muttered between his teeth, "Accursed be thou of God! for I be certain that by thee mine honors willbe lowered. " The child on becoming man was handsomer and handsomer, "andso lively and spirited that it seemed to all a marvel. " Amongst hismates, command became soon a habit with him; he made them form line ofbattle, he gave them the word of command, and he constituted himselftheir judge in all quarrels. At a still later period, having often heardtalk of revolts excited against him, and of disorders which troubled thecountry, he was moved, in consequence, to fits of violent irritation, which, however, he learned instinctively to bide, "and in his child'sheart, " says the chronicle, "he had welling up all the vigor of a man toteach the Normans to forbear from all acts of irregularity. " At fifteenyears of age, in 1042, he demanded to be armed knight, and to fulfil allforms necessary "for having the right to serve and command in all ranks. "These forms were in Normandy, by a relic, it is said, of the Danish andpagan customs, more connected with war and less with religion thanelsewhere; the young candidates were not bound to confess, to spend avigil in the church, and to receive from the priest's hands the sword hehad consecrated on the altar; it was even the custom to say that "hewhose sword had been girded upon him by a long-robed cleric was no trueknight, but a cit without spirit. " The day on which William for thefirst time donned his armor was for his servants and all the spectatorsa gala day. "He was so tall, so manly in face, and so proud of bearing, that it was a sight both pleasant and terrible to see him guiding hishorse's career, flashing with his sword, gleaming with his shield, andthreatening with his casque and javelins. " His first act of governmentwas a rigorous decree against such as should be guilty of murder, arson, and pillage; but he at the same time granted an amnesty for past revolts, on condition of fealty and obedience for the future. 

For the establishment, however, of a young and disputed authority thereis need of something more than brilliant ceremonies and words partlyminatory and partly coaxing. William had to show what he was made of. A conspiracy was formed against him in the heart of his feudal court, andalmost of his family. He had given kindly welcome to his cousin Guy ofBurgundy, and had even bestowed on him as a fief the countships of Vernonand Brionne. In 1044 the young duke was at Valognes; when suddenly, atmidnight, one of his trustiest servants, Golet, his fool, such as thegreat lords of the time kept, knocked at the door of his chamber, crying, "Open, open, my lord duke: fly, fly, or you are lost. They are armed, they are getting ready; to tarry is death. " William did not hesitate; hegot up, ran to the stables, saddled his horse with his own hands, startedoff, followed a road called to this day the duke's way, and reachedFalaise as a place of safety. There news came to him that the conspiracywas taking the form of insurrection, and that the rebels were seizing hisdomains. William showed no more hesitation at Falaise than at Valognes;he started off at once, repaired to Poissy, where Henry I. , king ofFrance, was then residing, and claimed, as vassal, the help of hissuzerain against traitors. Henry, who himself was brave, was touched bythis bold confidence, and promised his young vassal effectual support. William returned to Normandy, summoned his lieges, and took the fieldpromptly. King Henry joined him at Argence, with a body of threethousand men-at-arms, and a battle took place on the 10th of August, 1047, at Val des Dunes, three leagues from Caen. It was very hotlycontested. King Henry, unhorsed by a lance-thrust, ran a risk of hislife; but he remounted and valiantly returned to the melley. Williamdashed in wherever the fight was thickest, showing himself everywhere asable in command as ready to expose himself. A Norman lord, Raoul deTesson, held aloof with a troop of one hundred and forty knights. "Whois he that bides yonder motionless?" asked the French king of the youngduke. "It is the banner of Raoul de Tesson, " answered William; "I wotnot that he hath aught against me. " But, though he had no personalgrievance, Raoul de Tesson had joined the insurgents, and sworn that hewould be the first to strike the duke in the conflict. Thinking betterof it, and perceiving William from afar, he pricked towards him, andtaking off his glove struck him gently on the shoulder, saying, "I sworeto strike you, and so I am quit: but fear nothing more from me. ""Thanks, Raoul, " said William; "be well disposed, I pray you. " Raoulwaited until the two armies were at grips, and when he saw which wayvictory was inclined, he hasted to contribute thereto. It was decisive:and William the Bastard returned to Val des Dunes really duke ofNormandy. 

He made vigorous but not cruel use of his victory. He demolished hisenemies' strong castles, magazines as they were for pillage no less thanbulwarks of feudal independence; but there is nothing to show that heindulged in violence towards persons. He was even generous to the chiefconcocter of the plot, Guy of Burgundy. He took from him the countshipsof Vernon and Brionne, but permitted him still to live at his court, aplace which the Burgundian found himself too ill at ease to remain in, sohe returned to Burgundy, to conspire against his own eldest brother. William was stern without hatred and merciful without kindliness, onlythinking which of the two might promote or retard his success, gentlenessor severity. 

There soon came an opportunity for him to return to the king of Francethe kindness he had received. Geoffrey Martel, duke of Anjou, beingambitious and turbulent beyond the measure of his power, got embroiledwith the king his suzerain, and war broke out between them. The duke ofNormandy went to the aid of King Henry and made his success certain, which cost the duke the fierce hostility of the count of Anjou and a fouryears' war with that inconvenient neighbor; a war full of dangerousincidents, wherein William enhanced his character, already great, forpersonal valor. In an ambuscade laid for him by Geoffrey Martel he lostsome of his best knights, "whereat he was so wroth, " says a chronicle, "that he galloped down with such force upon Geoffrey, and struck him insuch wise with his sword that he dinted his helm, cut through his hood, lopped off his car, and with the same blow felled him to earth. But thecount was lifted up and remounted, and so fled away. "

William made rapid advances both as prince and as man. Without beingaustere in his private life, he was regular in his habits, and patronizedorder and respectability in his household as well as in his dominions. He resolved to marry to his own honor, and to the promotion of hisgreatness. Baldwin the Debonnair, count of Flanders, one of the mostpowerful lords of the day, had a daughter, "Matilda, beautiful, well-informed, firm in the faith, a model of virtue and modesty. "William asked her hand in marriage. Matilda refused, saying, "I wouldrather be veiled nun than given in marriage to a bastard. " Hurt as hewas, William did not give up. He was even more persevering thansusceptible; but he knew that he must get still greater, and make animpression upon a young girl's imagination by the splendor of his fameand power. Some years later, being firmly established in Normandy, dreaded by all his neighbors, and already showing some foreshadowings ofhis design upon England, he renewed his matrimonial quest in Flanders, but after so strange a fashion that, in spite of contemporary testimony, several of the modern historians, in their zeal, even at so distant aperiod, for observance of the proprieties, reject as fabulous the storywhich is here related on the authority of the most detailed accountamongst all the chronicles which contain it. "A little after that DukeWilliam had heard how the damsel had made answer, he took of his folk, and went privily to Lille, where the duke of Flanders and his wife andhis daughter then were. He entered into the hall, and, passing on, as ifto do some business, went into the countess's chamber, and there foundthe damsel daughter of Count Baldwin. He took her by the tresses, dragged her round the chamber, trampled her under foot, and did beat hersoundly. Then he strode forth from the chamber, leaped upon his horse, which was being held for him before the hall, struck in his spurs, andwent his way. At this deed was Count Baldwin much enraged; and whenmatters had thus remained a while, Duke William sent once more to CountBaldwin to parley again of the marriage. The count sounded his daughteron the subject, and she answered that it pleased her well. So thenuptials took place with very great joy. And after the aforesaidmatters, Count Baldwin, laughing withal, asked his daughter wherefore shehad so lightly accepted the marriage she had aforetime so cruellyrefused. And she answered that she did not then know the duke so well asshe did now; for, said she, if he had not great heart and high emprise, he had not been so bold as to dare come and beat me in my father'schamber. "

Amongst the historians who treat this story as a romantic and untruthlikefable, some believe themselves to have discovered, in divers documents ofthe eleventh and twelfth centuries, circumstances almost equally singularas regards the cause of the obstacles met with at first by Duke Williamin his pretensions to the hand of Princess Matilda, and as regards themotive for the first refusal on the part of Matilda herself. Accordingto some, the Flemish princess had conceived a strong passion for a nobleSaxon, Brihtric Meaw, who had been sent by King Edward the Confessor tothe court of Flanders, and who was remarkable for his beauty. She wishedto marry him, but the handsome Saxon was not willing; and Matilda atfirst gave way to violent grief on that account, and afterwards, when shebecame queen of England, to vindictive hatred, the weight of which shemade him feel severely. Other writers go still farther, and say that, before being sought in marriage by William, Matilda had not fallen inlove with a handsome Saxon, but had actually married a Flemish burgess, named Gerbod, patron of the church of St. Dertin, at St. Omer, and thatshe had by him two and perhaps three children, traces of whom recur, itis said, under the reign of William, king of England. There is nooccasion to enter upon the learned controversies of which these differentallegations have been the cause; it is sufficient to say that they haveled to nothing but obscurity, contradiction, and doubt, and that there ismore moral verisimilitude in the account just given, especially inMatilda's first prejudice against marriage with a bastard, and in herconversation with her father, Count Baldwin, when she had changed heropinion upon the subject. Independently of the testimony of severalchroniclers, French and English, this tradition is mentioned, with allthe simplicity of belief, in one of the principal Flemish chronicles; andas to the ruffianly gallantry employed by William to win his bride, thereis nothing in it very singular, considering the habits of the time, andwe meet with more than one example of adventures, if not exactly similar, at any rate very analogous. 

However that may be, this marriage brought William an unexpectedopportunity of entering into personal relations with one of the mostdistinguished men of his age, and a man destined to become one of his ownmost intimate advisers. In 1019, at the council of Rheims, Pope Leo IX. , on political grounds rather than because of a prohibited degree ofrelationship, had opposed the marriage of the duke of Normandy with thedaughter of the duke of Flanders, and had pronounced his veto upon it. William took no heed; and, in 1052 or 1053, his marriage was celebratedat Rouen with great pomp; but this ecclesiastical veto weighed upon hismind, and he sought some means of getting it taken off. A learnedItalian, Lanfranc, a juris-consult of some fame already, whilsttravelling in France and repairing from Avranches to Rouen, was stoppednear Brionne by brigands, who, having plundered him, left him, with hiseyes bandaged, in a forest. His cries attracted the attention ofpassers-by, who took him to a neighboring monastery, but lately foundedby a pious Norman knight retired from the world. Lanfranc was receivedin it, became a monk of it, was elected its prior, attracted to it by hislearned teaching a host of pupils, and won therein his own great renownwhilst laying the foundation for that of the abbey of Bee, which wasdestined to be carried still higher by one of his disciples, St. Anselm. Lanfranc was eloquent, great in dialectics, of a sprightly wit, andlively in repartee. Relying upon the pope's decision, he spoke ill ofWilliam's marriage with Matilda. William was informed of this, and in afit of despotic anger, ordered Lanfranc to be driven from the monasteryand banished from Normandy, and even, it is said, the dependency which heinhabited as prior of the abbey, to be burned. The order was executed;and Lanfranc set out, mounted on a sorry little horse given him, nodoubt, by the abbey. By what chance is not known, but probably on ahunting-party, his favorite diversion, William, with his retinue, happened to cross the road which Lanfranc was slowly pursuing. "Mylord, " said the monk, addressing him, "I am obeying your orders; I amgoing away, but my horse is a sorry beast; if you will give me a betterone, I will go faster. " William halted, entered into conversation withLanfranc, let him stay, and sent him back with a present to his abbey. A little while afterwards Lanfranc was at Rome, and defended before PopeVictor II. William's marriage with Matilda: he was successful, and thepope took off the veto on the sole condition that the couple, in sign ofpenitence, should each found a religious house. Matilda, accordingly, founded at Caen, for women, the abbey of the Holy Trinity; and William, for men, that of St. Stephen. Lanfranc was the first abbot of thelatter; and when William became king of England, Lanfranc was madearchbishop of Canterbury and primate of the Church of England, as well asprivy counsellor of his king. William excelled in the art, so essentialto government, of promptly recognizing the worth of men, and ofappropriating their influence to himself whilst exerting his own overthem. 

About the same time he gave his contemporaries, princes and peoples, newproofs of his ability and power. Henry I. , king of France, growing moreand more disquieted at and jealous of the duke of Normandy's ascendency, secretly excited against him opposition and even revolt in his dominions. These dealings led to open war between the suzerain and the vassal, andthe war concluded with two battles won by William, one at Mortemer nearNeuchatel in Bray, the other at Varaville near Troarrh "After which, "said William himself, "King Henry never passed a night tranquilly on myground. " In 1059 peace was concluded between the two princes. Henry I. Died almost immediately afterwards, and on the 25th of August, 1060, hisson Philip I. Succeeded him, under the regency of Baldwin, count ofFlanders, father of the Duchess Matilda. Duke William was present instate at the coronation of the new king of France, lent him effectualassistance against the revolts which took place in Gascony, reenteredNormandy for the purpose of holding at Caen, in 1061, the Estates of hisduchy, and at that time published the famous decree observed long afterhim, under the name of the law of curfew, which ordered "that everyevening the bell should be rung in all parishes to warn every one toprayer, and house-closing, and no more running about the streets. "

The passion for orderliness in his dominion did not cool his ardor forconquest. In 1063, after the death of his young neighbor Herbert II. , count of Maine, William took possession of this beautiful countship; notwithout some opposition on the part of the inhabitants, nor withoutsuspicion of having poisoned his rival, Walter, count of Vexin. It issaid that after this conquest William meditated that of Brittany; butthere is every indication that he had formed a far vaster design, andthat the day of its execution was approaching. 

From the time of Rollo's settlement in Normandy, the communications ofthe Normans with England had become more and more frequent, and importantfor the two countries. The success of the invasions of the Danes inEngland in the tenth century, and the reigns of three kings of the Danishline, had obliged the princes of Saxon race to take refuge in Normandy, the duke of which, Richard I. , had given his daughter Emma in marriage totheir grandfather, Ethelred II. When, at the death of the last Danishking, Hardicanute, the Saxon prince Edward ascended the throne of hisfathers, he had passed twenty-seven years of exile in Normandy, and hereturned to England "almost a stranger, " in the words of the chronicles, to the country of his ancestors; far more Norman than Saxon in hismanners, tastes, and language, and surrounded by Normans, whose numbersand prestige under his reign increased from day to day. A hot rivalry, nationally as well as courtly, grew up between them and the Saxons. Atthe head of these latter was Godwin, count of Kent, and his five sons, the eldest of whom, Harold, was destined before long to bear the wholebrunt of the struggle. Between these powerful rivals, Edward theConfessor, a pacific, pious, gentle, and undecided king, waveredincessantly; at one time trying to resist, and at another compelled toyield to the pretensions and seditions by which he was beset. In 1051the Saxon party and its head, Godwin, had risen in revolt. Duke William, on invitation, perhaps, from King Edward, paid a brilliant visit toEngland, where he found Normans everywhere established and powerful, inChurch as well as in State; in command of the fleets, ports, andprincipal English places. King Edward received him "as his own son, gavehim arms, horses, hounds, and hawking-birds, " and sent him home full ofpresents and hopes. The chronicler, Ingulf, who accompanied William onhis return to Normandy, and remained attached to him as privatesecretary, affirms that, during this visit, not only was there noquestion, between King Edward and the duke of Normandy, of the latter'spossible succession to the throne of England, but that never as yet hadthis probability occupied the attention of William. 

It is very doubtful whether William had said nothing upon the subject toKing Edward at that time; and it is certain, from William's owntestimony, that he had for a long while been thinking about it. Fouryears after this visit of the duke to England, King Edward was reconciledto and lived on good terms with the family of the Godwins. Their fatherwas dead, and the eldest son, Harold, asked the king's permission to goto Normandy and claim the release of his brother and nephew, who had beenleft as hostages in the keeping of Duke William. The king did notapprove of the project. "I have no wish to constrain thee, " said he toHarold: "but if thou go, it will be without my consent: and, assuredly, thy trip will bring some misfortune upon thee and our country. I knowDuke William and his crafty spirit; he hates thee, and will grant theenought unless he see his advantage therefrom. The only way to make himgive up the hostages will be to send some other than thyself. " Harold, however, persisted and went. William received him with apparentcordiality, promised him the release of the two hostages, escorted himand his comrades from castle to castle, and from entertainment toentertainment, made them knights of the grand Norman order, and eveninvited them, "by way of trying their new spurs, " to accompany him on alittle warlike expedition he was about to undertake in Brittany. Haroldand his comrades behaved gallantly: and he and William shared the sametent and the same table. On returning, as they trotted side by side, William turned the conversation upon his youthful connection with theking of England. "When Edward and I, " said he to the Saxon, "were livinglike brothers under the same roof, he promised, if ever he became king ofEngland, to make me heir to his kingdom; I should very much like thee, Harold, to help me to realize this promise; and be assured that, if bythy aid I obtain the kingdom, whatsoever thou askest of me, I will grantit forthwith. " Harold, in surprise and confusion, answered by an assentwhich he tried to make as vague as possible. William took it aspositive. "Since thou dost consent to serve me, " said he, "thou mustengage to fortify the castle of Dover, dig a well of fresh water there, and put it into the hands of my men-at-arms; thou must also give me thysister to be married to one of my barons, and thou must thyself espousemy daughter Adele. " Harold, "not witting, " says the chronicler, "how toescape from this pressing danger, " promised all the duke asked of him, reckoning, doubt-less, on disregarding his engagement; and for the momentWilliam asked him nothing more. 

But a few days afterwards he summoned, at Avranches according to some, and at Bayeux according to others, and, more probably still, atBonneville-sur-Touques, his Norman barons; and, in the midst of thisassembly, at which Harold was present, William, seated with his nakedsword in his hand, caused to be brought and placed upon a table coveredwith cloth of gold two reliquaries. "Harold, " said he, "I call uponthee, in presence of this noble assemblage, to confirm by oath thepromises thou didst make me, to wit, to aid me to obtain the kingdom ofEngland after the death of King Edward, to espouse my daughter Adele, andto send me thy sister to be married to one of my people. " Harold, whohad not expected this public summons, nevertheless did not hesitate anymore than he had hesitated in his private conversation with William; hedrew near, laid his hand on the two reliquaries, and swore to observe, tothe best of his power, his agreement with the duke, should he live andGod help. "God help!" repeated those who were present. William made asign; the cloth of gold was removed, and there was discovered a tubfilled to the edge with bones and relies of all the saints that could begot together. The chronicler-poet, Robert Wace, who, alone and longafterwards, recounts this last particular, adds that Harold was visiblytroubled at sight of this saintly heap; but he had sworn. It ishonorable to human nature not to be indifferent to oaths even when thosewho exact them have but small reliance upon them, and when he who takesthem has but small intention of keeping them. And so Harold departedladen with presents, leaving William satisfied, but not over-confident. 

When, on returning to England, Harold told King Edward what had passedbetween William and himself, "Did I not warn thee, " said the king, "thatI knew William, and that thy journey would bring great misfortunes uponthyself and upon our nation? Grant Heaven that those misfortunes comenot during my life!" The king's wish was not granted. He fell ill; andon the 5th of January, 1066, he lay on his couch almost at the point ofdeath. Harold and his kindred entered the chamber, and prayed the kingto name a successor by whom the kingdom might be governed securely. "Yeknow, " said Edward, "that I have left my kingdom to the Duke of Normandy;and are there not here, among ye, those who have sworn to assure hissuccession?" Harold advanced, and once more asked the king on whom thecrown should devolve. "Take it, if it is thy wish, Harold, " said Edward;"but the gift will be thy ruin; against the duke and his barons thy powerwill not suffice. "--Harold declared that he feared neither the Norman norany other foe. The king, vexed at this importunity, turned round in hisbed, saying, "Let the English make king of whom they will, Harold oranother; I consent;" and shortly after expired. The very day after thecelebration of his obsequies, Harold was proclaimed king by hispartisans, amidst no small public disquietude, and Aldred, archbishopof York, lost no time in anointing him. 

William was in his park of Rouvray, near Rouen, trying a bow and arrowsfor the chase, when a faithful servant arrived from England, to tell himthat Edward was dead and Harold proclaimed king. William gave his bow toone of his people, and went back to his palace at Rouen, where he pacedabout in silence, sitting down, rising up, leaning upon a bench, withoutopening his lips and without any one of his people's daring to address aword to him. There entered his seneschal William de Bretenil, of whom"What ails the duke?" asked they who were present. "Ye will soon know, "answered he. Then going up to the duke, he said, "Wherefore conceal yourtidings, my lord? All the city knows that King Edward is dead; and thatHarold has broken his oath to you, and had himself crowned king. " "Ay, "said William, "it is that which doth weigh me down. " "My lord, " saidWilliam Fitz-Osbern, a gallant knight and confidential friend of theduke, "none should be wroth over what can be mended: it depends but onyou to stop the mischief Harold is doing you; you shall destroy him, ifit please you. You have right; you have good men and true to serve you;you need but have courage: set on boldly. " William gathered together hismost important and most trusted counsellors; and they were unanimous inurging him to resent the perjury and injury. He sent to Harold amessenger charged to say, "William, duke of the Normans, doth recall tothee the oath thou swarest to him with thy mouth and with thy hand, onreal and saintly relics. " "It is true, " answered Harold, "that I swore, but on compulsion; I promised what did not belong to me; my kingship isnot mine own; I cannot put it off from me without the consent of thecountry. I cannot any the more, without the consent of the country, espouse a foreigner. As for my sister, whom the duke claims for one ofhis chieftains, she died within the year; if he will, I will send him thecorpse. " William replied without any violence, claiming the conditionssworn, and especially Harold's marriage with his daughter Adele. For allanswer to this summons Harold married a Saxon, sister of two powerfulSaxon chieftains; Edwin and Morkar. There was an open rupture; andWilliam swore that "within the year he would go and claim, at the sword'spoint, payment of what was due to him, on the very spot where Haroldthought himself to be most firm on his feet. "

And he set himself to the work. But, being as far-sighted as he wasambitious, he resolved to secure for his enterprise the sanction ofreligious authority and the formal assent of the Estates of Normandy. Not that he had any inclination to subordinate his power to that of thePope. Five years previously, Robert de Grandmesnil, abbot of St. Evroul, with whom William had got embroiled, had claimed to re-enter hismonastery as master by virtue solely of an order from Pope Nicholas II. "I will listen to the legates of the Pope, the common father of thefaithful, " said William, "if they come to me to speak of the Christianfaith and religion; but if a monk of my Estates permit himself a singleword beyond his place, I will have him hanged by his cowl from thehighest oak of the nearest forest. " When, in 1000, he denounced to PopeAlexander II. The perjury of Harold, asking him at the same time to dohim justice, he made no scruple about promising that, if the Popeauthorized him to right himself by war, he would bring back the kingdomof England to obedience to the Holy See. He had Lanfranc for hisnegotiator with the court of Rome, and Pope Alexander II. Had for chiefcounsellor the celebrated monk Hildebrand, who was destined to succeedhim under the name of Gregory VII. The opportunity of extending theempire of the Church was too tempting to be spurned, and her future headtoo bold not to seize it whatever might be the uncertainty and danger ofthe issue; and in spite of hesitation on the part of some of the Pope'sadvisers, the question was promptly decided in accordance with William'sdemand. Harold and his adherents were excommunicated, and, on committinghis bull to the hands of William's messenger, the Pope added a banner ofthe Roman Church and a ring containing, it is said, a hair of St. Peterset in a diamond. 

The Estates of Normandy were less easy to manage. William called themtogether at Lillebonne; and several of his vassals showed a zealousreadiness to furnish him with vessels and victual and to follow himbeyond the sea, but others declared that they were not bound to any suchservice, and that they would not lend themselves to it; they had callsenough already, and had nothing more to spare. William Fitz-Osbernscouted these objections. "He is your lord, and hath need of you, " saidhe to the recalcitrants; "you ought to offer yourselves to him, and notwait to be asked. If he succeed in his purpose, you will be morepowerful as well as he; if you fail him, and he succeed without you, hewill remember it: show that you love him, and what ye do, do with a goodgrace. " The discussion was keen. Many persisted in saying, "True, he isour lord; but if we pay him his rents, that should suffice: we are notbound to go and serve beyond the seas; we are already much burdened forhis wars. " It was at last agreed that Fitz-Osbern should give the dukethe assembly's reply; for he knew well, they said, the ability of each. "If ye mind not to do what I shall say, " said Fitz-Osbern, "charge me nottherewith. " "We will be bound by it, and will do it, " was the cry amidstgeneral confusion. They repaired to the duke's presence. "My lord, "said Fitz-Osbern, "I trow that there be not in the whole world such folkas these. You know the trouble and labor they have already undergone insupporting your rights; and they are minded to do still more, and serveyou at all points, this side the sea and t'other. Go you before, andthey will follow you; and spare them in nothing. As for me, I willfurnish you with sixty vessels, manned with good fighters. " "Nay, nay, "cried several of those present, prelates and barons, "we charged you notwith such reply; when he hath business in his own country, we will do himthe service we owe him; we be not bound to serve him in conqueringanother's territory, or to go beyond sea for him. " And they gatheredthemselves together in knots with much uproar. 

"William was very wroth, " says the chronicler, "retired to a chamberapart, summoned those in whom he had most confidence, and by their advicecalled before him his barons, each separately, and asked them if theywere willing to help him. He had no intention, he told them, of doingthem wrong, nor would he and his, now or hereafter, ever cease to treatwith them in perfect courtesy; and he would give them, in writing, suchassurances as they were minded to devise. The majority of his peopleagreed to give him, more or less, according to circumstances; and he hadeverything reduced to writing. " At the same time he made an appeal toall his neighbors, Bretons, Manceaux, and Angevines, hunting up soldierswherever he could find them, and promising all who desired them lands inEngland if he effected its conquest. Lastly he repaired in person, firstto Philip I. , king of France, his suzerain, then to Baldwin V. , count ofFlanders, his father-in-law, asking their assistance for his enterprise. Philip gave a formal refusal. "What the duke demands of you, " said hisadvisers, "is to his own profit and to your hurt; if you aid him, yourcountry will be much burdened; and if the duke fail, you will have theEnglish your foes forever. " The count of Flanders made show of a similarrefusal; but privately he authorized William to raise soldiers inFlanders, and pressed his vassals to follow him. William, having thushunted up and collected all the forces he could hope for, thought only ofputting them in motion, and of hurrying on the preparations for hisdeparture. 

Whilst, in obedience to his orders, the whole expedition, troops andships, were collecting at Dives, he received from Conan II. , duke ofBrittany, this message: "I learn that thou art now minded to go beyondsea and conquer for thyself the kingdom of England. At the moment ofstarting for Jerusalem, Robert, duke of Normandy, whom thou feignest toregard as thy father, left all his heritage to Alain, my father and hiscousin: but thou and thy accomplices slew my father with poison atVimeux, in Normandy. Afterwards thou didst invade his territory becauseI was too young to defend it; and, contrary to all right, seeing thatthou art a bastard, thou hast kept it until this day. Now, therefore, either give me back this Normandy which thou owest me, or I will make warupon thee with all my forces. " "At this message, " say the chronicles, "William was at first somewhat dismayed; but a Breton lord, who had swornfidelity to the two counts, and bore messages from one to the other, rubbed poison upon the inside of Conan's hunting-horn, of his horse'sreins, and of his gloves. Conan, having unwittingly put on his glovesand handled the reins of his horse, lifted his hands to his face, and thetouch having filled him with poisonous infection, he died soon after, tothe great sorrow of his people, for he was an able and brave man, andinclined to justice. And he who had betrayed him quitted before long thearmy of Conan, and informed Duke William of his death. "

Conan is not the only one of William's foes whom he was suspected ofmaking away with by poison: there are no proofs; but contemporaryassertions are positive, and the public of the time believed them, without surprise. Being as unscrupulous about means as ambitious andbold in aim, William was not of those whose character repels such anaccusation. What, however, diminishes the suspicion is that, after andin spite of Conan's death, several Breton knights, and, amongst others, two sons of Count Eudes, his uncle, attended at the trysting-place of theNorman troops and took part in the expedition. 

Dives was the place of assemblage appointed for fleet and army. Williamrepaired thither about the end of August, 1066. But for several weekscontrary winds prevented him from putting to sea; some vessels which madethe attempt perished in the tempest; and some of the volunteeradventurers got disgusted, and deserted. William maintained strictdiscipline amongst this multitude, forbidding plunder so strictly that"the cattle fed in the fields in full security. " The soldiers grew tiredof waiting in idleness and often in sickness. "Yon is a mad-man, " saidthey, "who is minded to possess himself of another's land; God is againstthe design, and so refuses us a wind. "

About the 20th of September the weather changed. The fleet got ready, but could only go and anchor at St. Valery at the mouth of the Somme. There it was necessary to wait several more days; impatience anddisquietude were redoubled; "and there appeared in the heavens a starwith a tail, a certain sign of great things to come. " William had theshrine of St. Valery brought out and paraded about, being more impatientin his soul than anybody, but ever confident in his will and his goodfortune. There was brought to him a spy whom Harold had sent to watchthe forces and plans of the enemy; and William dismissed him, saying, "Harold hath no need to take any care or be at any charges to know how webe, and what we be doing; he shall see for himself, and shall feel beforethe end of the year. " At last, on the 27th of September, 1066, the sunrose on a calm sea and with a favorable wind; and towards evening thefleet set out. The Mora, the vessel on which William was, and which hadbeen given to him by his wife, Matilda, led the way; and a figure ingilded bronze, some say in gold, representing their youngest son, William, had been placed on the prow, with the face towards England. Being a better sailer than the others, this ship was soon a long wayahead; and William had a mariner sent to the top of the mainmast to seeif the fleet were following. "I see nought but sea and sky, " said themariner. William had the ship brought to; and, the second time, themariner said, "I see four ships. " Before long he cried, "I see a forestof masts and sails. " On the 29th of September, St. Michael's day, theexpedition arrived off the coast of England, at Pevensey, near Hastings, and "when the tide had ebbed, and the ships remained aground on thestrand, " says the chronicles the landing was effected without obstacle;not a Saxon soldier appeared on the coast. William was the last to leavehis ship; and on setting foot on the sand he made a false step and fell. "Bad sign!" was muttered around him; "God have us in His keeping!" "Whatsay you, lords?" cried William: "by the glory of God, I have graspedthis land with my hands; all that there is of it is ours. "

[Illustration: Normans landing on English Coast----353]

With what forces William undertook the conquest of England, how manyships composed his fleet, and how many men were aboard the ships, arequestions impossible to be decided with any precision, as we havefrequently before had occasion to remark, amidst the exaggerations anddisagreements of chroniclers. Robert Wace reports, in his Romance ofRou, that he had heard from his father, one of William's servants on thisexpedition, that the fleet numbered six hundred and ninety-six vessels, but he had found in divers writings that there were more than threethousand. M. Augustin Thierry, after his learned researches, says, inhis history of the _Conquest of England by the Normans, _ that "fourhundred vessels of four sails, and more than a thousand transport ships, moved out into the open sea, to the sound of trumpets and of a great cryof joy raised by sixty thousand throats. " It is probable that theestimate of the fleet is pretty accurate, and that of the armyexaggerated. We saw in 1830 what efforts and pains it required, amidstthe power and intelligent ability of modern civilization, to transportfrom France to Algeria thirty-seven thousand men aboard three squadrons, comprising six hundred and seventy-five ships of all sorts. Granted thatin the eleventh century there was more haphazard than in the nineteenth, and that there was less care for human life on the eve of a war; still, without a doubt, the armament of Normandy in 1066 was not to be comparedwith that of France in 1830, and yet William's intention was to conquerEngland, whereas Charles X. Thought only of chastising the dey ofAlgiers. 

Whilst William was making for the southern coast of England, Harold wasrepairing by forced marches to the north in order to defend, against therebellion of his brother Tostig and the invasion of a Norwegian army, hisshort-lived kingship thus menaced, at two ends of the country, by twoformidable enemies. On the 25th of September, 1066, he gained at York abrilliant victory over his northern foe; and, wounded as he was, he nosooner learned that Duke William had on the 29th pitched his camp andplanted his flag at Pevensey, than he set out in haste for the south. As he approached, William received, from what source is not known, thismessage: "King Harold hath given battle to his brother Tostig and theking of Norway. He hath slain them both, and hath destroyed their army. He is returning at the head of numerous and valiant warriors, againstwhom thine own, I trove, will be worth no more than wretched curs. Thoupassest for a man of wisdom and prudence; be not rash, plunge not thyselfinto danger; I adjure thee to abide in thy intrenchments, and not to comereally to blows. " "I thank thy master, " answered William, "for hisprudent counsel, albeit he might have given it to me without insult. Carry him back this reply: I will not hide me behind ramparts; I willcome to blows with Harold as soon as I may; and with the aid of Heaven'sgood will I would trust in the valor of my men against his, even though Ihad but ten thousand to lead against his sixty thousand. " But the proudconfidence of William did not affect his prudence. He received fromHarold himself a message wherein the Saxon, affirming his right to thekingship by virtue of the Saxon laws and the last words of King Edward, summoned him to evacuate England with all his people; on which conditionalone he engaged to preserve friendship with him, and all agreementsbetween them as to Normandy. After having come to an understanding withhis barons, William maintained his right to the crown of England byvirtue of the first decision of King Edward, and the oaths of Haroldhimself. "I am ready, " said he, "to uphold my cause against him by theforms of justice, either according to the law of the Normans or accordingto that of the Saxons, as he pleases. If, by virtue of equity, Normansor English decide that Harold has a right to possess the kingdom, let himpossess it in peace; if they acknowledge that it is to me that thekingdom ought to belong, let him give it up to me. If he refuse theseconditions, I do not think it just that my people or his, who are not awhit to blame for our quarrel, should slay one another in battle; I amready to maintain, at the price of my head against his, that it is to meand not to him that the kingdom of England belongs. " At this propositionHarold was troubled, and remained a while without replying; then, as themonk was urgent, "Let the Lord God, " said he, "judge this day betwixt meand William as to what is just. " The negotiation continued, and Williamsummed it all up in these terms, which the monk reported to Harold inpresence of the English chieftains: "My lord, the duke of Normandybiddeth you do one of these things: give up to him the kingdom ofEngland, and take his daughter in marriage, as you sware to him on theholy relics; or, respecting the question between him and you, submityourself to the Pope's decision; or fight with him, body to body, and lethim who is victorious and forces his enemy to yield have the kingdom. "Harold replied, "without opinion or advice taken, " says the chronicle, "Iwill not cede him the kingdom; I will not abide by the Pope's award; andI will not fight with him. " William, still in concert with his barons, made a farther advance. "If Harold will come to an agreement with me, "he said, "I will leave him all the territory beyond the Humber, towardsScotland. " "My lord, " said the barons to the duke, "make an end of theseparleys; if we must fight, let it be soon; for every day come folk toHarold. " "By my faith, " said the duke, "if we agree not on termsto-day, to-morrow we will join battle. " The third proposal for anagreement was as little successful as the former two; on both sides therewas no belief in peace, and they were eager to decide the quarrel oncefor all. 

Some of the Saxon chieftains advised Harold to fall back on London, andravage all the country, so as to starve out the invaders. "By my faith, "said Harold, "I will not destroy the country I have in keeping; I, withmy people, will fight. " "Abide in London, " said his younger brother, Gurth: "thou canst not deny that, perforce or by free will, thou didstswear to Duke William; but, as for us, we have sworn nought; we willfight for our country; if we alone fight, thy cause will be good in anycase; if we fly, thou shalt rally us; if we fall, thou shalt avenge us. "Harold rejected this advice, "considering it shame to his past life toturn his back, whatever were the peril. " Certain of his people, whom hehad sent to reconnoitre the Norman army, returned saying that there weremore priests in William's camp than warriors in his own; for the Normans, at this period, wore shaven chins and short hair, whilst the English lethair and beard grow. "Ye do err, " said Harold; "these be not priests, but good men-at-arms, who will show us what they can do. "

On the eve of the battle, the Saxons passed the night in amusement, eating, drinking, and singing, with great uproar; the Normans, on thecontrary, were preparing their arms, saying their prayers, and"confessing to their priests--all who would. " On the 14th of October, 1066, when Duke William put on his armor, his coat of mail was given tohim the wrong way. "Bad omen!" cried some of his people; "if such athing had happened to us, we would not fight to-day. " "Be ye notdisquieted, " said the duke; "I have never believed in sorcerers anddiviners, and I never liked them; I believe in God, and in Him I put mytrust. " He assembled his men-at-arms, and setting himself upon a highplace, so that all might hear him, he said to them, "My true and loyalfriends, ye have crossed the seas for love of me, and for that I cannotthank ye as I ought; but I will make what return I may, and what I haveye shall have. I am not come only to take what I demanded, or to get myrights, but to punish felonies, treasons, and breaches of faith committedagainst our people by the men of this country. Think, moreover, whatgreat honor ye will have to-day if the day be ours. And bethink ye that, if ye be discomfited, ye be dead men without help; for ye have notwhither ye may retreat, seeing that our ships be broken up, and ourmariners be here with us. He who flies will be a dead man; he who fightswill be saved. For God's sake, let each man do his duty; trust we inGod, and the day will be ours. "

[Illustration: William the Conqueror reviewing his Army----357]

The address was too long for the duke's faithful comrade, WilliamFitz-Osborn. "My lord, " said he, "we dally; let us all to arms andforward, forward!" The army got in motion, starting from the hill ofTelham or Heathland, according to Mr. Freeman, marching to attack theEnglish on the opposite hill of Senlac. A Norman, called Taillefer, "whosang very well, and rode a horse which was very fast, came up to theduke. 'My lord, ' said he, 'I have served you long, and you owe me forall my service: pay me to day, an it please you; grant unto me, forrecompense in full, to strike the first blow in the battle. ' 'I grantit, ' quoth the duke. So Taillefer darted before him, singing the deedsof Charlemagne, of Roland, of Oliver, and of the vassals who fell atRoncesvalles. " As he sang, he played with his sword, throwing it up intothe air and catching it in his right hand; and the Normans followed, repeating his songs, and crying, "God help! God help!" The English, intrenched upon a plateau towards which the Normans were ascending, awaited the assault, shouting, and defying the foe. 

The battle, thus begun, lasted nine hours, with equal obstinacy on bothsides, and varied success from hour to hour. Harold, though wounded atthe commencement of the fray, did not cease for a moment to fight, onfoot, with his two brothers beside him, and around him the troops ofLondon, who had the privilege of forming the king's guard when hedelivered a battle. Rudely repulsed at the first charge, some bodies ofNorman troops fell back in disorder, and a rumor spread amongst them thatthe duke was slain; but William threw himself before the fugitives, and, taking off his helmet, cried, "Look at me; here I am; I live, and byGod's help will conquer. " So they returned to the combat. But theEnglish were firm; the Normans could not force their intrenchrnents; andWilliam ordered his men to feign a retreat, and all but a flight. Atthis sight the English bore down in pursuit: "and still Norman fled andSaxon pursued, until a trumpeter, who had been ordered by the duke thusto turn back the Normans, began to sound the recall. Then were seen theNormans turning back to face the English, and attacking them with theirswords, and amongst the English, some flying, some dying, some askingmercy in their own tongue. " The struggle once more became general andfierce. William had three horses killed under him; "but he jumpedimmediately upon a fresh steed, and left not long unavenged the death ofthat which had but lately carried him. " At last the intrenchments of theEnglish were stormed; Harold fell mortally wounded by an arrow whichpierced his skull; his two brothers and his bravest comrades fell at hisside; the fight was prolonged between the English dispersed and theNormans remorselessly pursuing; the standard sent from Rome to the dukeof Normandy had replaced the Saxon flag on the very spot where Harold hadfallen; and, all around, the ground continued to get covered with deadand dying, fruitless victims of the passions of the combatants. Next dayWilliam went over the field of battle; and he was heard to say, in a toneof mingled triumph and sorrow, "Here is verily a lake of blood!"

There was, long after the battle of Senlac, or Hastings, as it iscommonly called, a patriotic superstition in the country to the effectthat, when the rain had moistened the soil, there were to be seen tracesof blood on the ground where it had taken place. 

Having thus secured the victory, William had his tent pitched at the verypoint where the standard which had come from Rome had replaced the Saxonbanner, and he passed the night supping and chatting with his chieftains, not far from the corpses scattered over the battle-field. Next day itwas necessary to attend to the burial of all these dead, conquerors orconquered. William was full of care and affection towards his comrades;and on the eve of the battle, during a long and arduous reconnoissancewhich he had undertaken with some of them, he had insisted upon carrying, for some time, in addition to his own cuirass, that of his faithfulWilliam Fitz-Osbern, who he saw was fatigued in spite of his usualstrength; but towards his enemies William was harsh and resentful. Githa, Harold's mother, sent to him to ask for her son's corpse, offeringfor it its weight in gold. "Nay, " said William, "Harold was a perjurer;let him have for burial-place the sand of the shore, where he was somadly fain to rule. " Two Saxon monks from Waltham Abbey, which had beenfounded by Harold, came, by their abbot's order, and claimed for theirchurch the remains of their benefactor; and William, indifferent as hehad been to a mother's grief, would not displease an abbey. But when themonks set about finding the body of Harold, there was none to recognizeit, and they had recourse to a young girl, Edith, Swan's-neck, whomHarold had loved. She discovered amongst the corpses her lover'smutilated body; and the monks bore it away to the church at Waltham, where it was buried. Some time later a rumor was spread abroad thatHarold was wounded, and carried to a neighboring castle, perhaps Dover, whence he went to the abbey of St. John, at Chester, where he lived along while in a solitary cell, and where William the Conqueror's secondson, Henry I. , the third Norman king of England, one day went to see himand had an interview with him. But this legend, in which there isnothing chronologically impossible, rests on no sound basis of evidence, and is discountenanced by all contemporary accounts. 

[Illustration: Edith discovers the Body of Harold----360]

Before following up his victory, William resolved to perpetuate theremembrance of it by a religious monument, and he decreed the foundationof an abbey on the very field of the battle of Hastings, from which ittook its name, Battle Abbey. He endowed this abbey with all theneighboring territory within the radius of a league, "the very spot, "says his charter, "which gave me my crown. " He made it free of thejurisdiction of any prelate, dedicated it to St. Martin of Tours, patronsaint of the soldiers of Gaul, and ordered that there should be depositedin its archives a register containing the names of all the lords, knights, and men of mark who had accompanied him on his expedition. Whenthe building of the abbey began, the builders observed a want of water;and they notified William of the fact. "Work away, " said he: "if Godgrant me life, I will make such good provision for the place that morewine shall be found there than there is water in other monasteries. "

It was not everything, however, to be victorious, it was still necessaryto be recognized as king. When the news of the defeat at Hastings andthe death of Harold was spread abroad in the country, the emotion waslively and seemed to be profound; the great Saxon national council, theWittenagemote, assembled at London; the remnants of the Saxon armyrallied there; and search was made for other kings than the Norman duke. Harold left two sons, very young and not in a condition to reign; but histwo brothers-in-law, Edwin and Morkar, held dominion in the north ofEngland, whilst the southern provinces, and amongst them the city ofLondon, had a popular aspirant, a nephew of Edward the Confessor, inEdgar surnamed Atheliny (the noble, the illustrious), as the descendantof several kings. What with these different pretensions, there werediscussion, hesitation, and delay; but at last the young Edgar prevailed, and was proclaimed king. Meanwhile William was advancing with his army, slowly, prudently, as a man resolved to risk nothing and calculating uponthe natural results of his victory. At some points he encounteredattempts at resistance, but he easily overcame them, occupiedsuccessively Romney, Dover, Canterbury, and Rochester, appeared beforeLondon without trying to enter it, and moved on Winchester, which was theresidence of Edward the Confessor's widow, Queen Editha, who had receivedthat important city as dowry. Through respect for her, William, whopresented himself in the character of relative and heir of King Edward, did not enter the place, and merely called upon the inhabitants to takethe oath of allegiance to him and do him homage, which they did with thequeen's consent. William returned towards London and commenced thesiege, or rather investment of it, by establishing his camp atBerkhampstead, in the county of Hertford. He entered before long intosecret communication with an influential burgess, named Ansgard, an oldman who had seen service, and who, riddled with wounds, had himselfcarried about the streets in a litter. Ansgard had but little difficultyin inducing the authorities of London to make pacific overtures to theduke, and William had still less difficulty in convincing the messengerof the moderation of his designs. "The king salutes ye, and offers yepeace, " said Ansgard to the municipal authorities of London on his returnfrom the camp: "'tis a king who hath no peer; he is handsomer than thesun, wiser than Solomon, more active and greater than Charlemagne, " andthe enthusiastic poet adds that the people as well as the senate eagerlywelcomed these words, and renounced, both of them, the young king theyhad but lately proclaimed. Facts were quick in responding to thisquickly produced impression; a formal deputation was sent to William'scamp; the archbishops of Canterbury and York, many other prelates andlaic chieftains, the principal citizens of London, the two brothers-in-law of Harold, Edwin and Morkar, and the young king of yesterday, EdgarAtheling himself, formed part of it; and they brought to William, EdgarAtheling his abdication, and all the others their submission, with anexpress invitation to William to have himself made king, "for we bewont, " said they, "to serve a king, and we wish to have a king for lord. "William received them in presence of the chieftains of his army, and withgreat show of moderation in his desires. "Affairs, " said he, "betroubled still; there be still certain rebels; I desire rather the peaceof the kingdom than the crown; I would that my wife should be crownedwith me. " The Norman chieftains murmured whilst they smiled; and one ofthem, an Aquitanian, Aimery de Thouars, cried out, "It is passing modestto ask soldiers if they wish their chief to be king: soldiers are never, or very seldom, called to such deliberations: let what we desire be doneas soon as possible. " William yielded to the entreaties of the Saxondeputies and to the counsels of the Norman chieftains but, prudent still, before going in person to London, he sent thither some of his officerswith orders to have built there immediately, on the banks of the Thames, at a point which he indicated, a fort where he might establish himself insafety. That fort, in the course of time, became the Tower of London. 

When William set out, some days afterwards, to make his entry into thecity, he found, on his way to St. Alban's, the road blocked with hugetrunks of trees recently felled. "What means this barricade in thydomains?" he demanded of the abbot of St. Alban's, a Saxon noble. "Idid what was my duty to my birth and mission, " replied the monk: "ifothers, of my rank and condition, had done as much, as they ought to andcould have done, thou hadst not penetrated so far into our country. "

On entering London after all these delays and all these precautions, William fixed, for his coronation, upon Christmas-day, December 25th, 1066. Either by desire of the prelate himself or by William's own order, it was not the archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, who presided, accordingto custom, at the ceremony; the duty devolved upon the archbishop ofYork, Aldred, who had but lately anointed Edgar Atheling. At theappointed hour, William arrived at Westminster Abbey, the latest work andthe burial-place of Edward the Confessor. The Conqueror marched betweentwo hedges of Norman soldiers, behind whom stood a crowd of people, coldand sad, though full of curiosity. A numerous cavalry guarded theapproaches to the church and the quarters adjoining. Two hundred andsixty counts, barons, and knights of Normandy went in with the duke. Geoffrey, bishop of Coutanees, demanded in French, of the Normans, ifthey would that their duke should take the title of King of the English. The archbishop of York demanded of the English, in the Saxon tongue, ifthey would have for king the duke of Normandy. Noisy acclamations arosein the church and resounded outside. The soldiery, posted in theneighborhood, took the confused roar for a symptom of something wrong, and in their suspicious rage set fire to the neighboring houses. Theflames spread rapidly. The people who were rejoicing in the churchcaught the alarm, and a multitude of men and women of every rank flungthemselves out of the edifice. Alone and trembling, the bishops withsome clerics and monks remained before the altar and accomplished thework of anointment upon the king's head, "himself trembling, " says thechronicle. Nearly all the rest who were present ran to the fire, some toextinguish it, others to steal and pillage in the midst of theconsternation. William terminated the ceremony by taking the usual oathof Saxon kings at their coronation, adding thereto, as of his own motion, a promise to treat the English people according to their own laws and aswell as they had ever been treated by the best of their own kings. Thenhe went forth from the church King of England. 

We will pursue no farther the life of William the Conqueror: forhenceforth it belongs to the history of England, not of France. We haveentered, so far as he was concerned, into pretty long details, because wewere bound to get a fair understanding of the event and of the man; notonly because of their lustre at the time, but especially because of theserious and long-felt consequences entailed upon France, England, and, wemay say, Europe. We do not care just now to trace out those consequencesin all their bearings; but we would like to mark out with precision theirchief features, inasmuch as they exercised, for centuries, a determininginfluence upon the destinies of two great nations, and upon the course ofmodern civilization. 

As to France, the consequences of the conquest of England by the Normanswere clearly pernicious, and they have not yet entirely disappeared. Itwas a great evil, as early as the eleventh century, that the duke ofNormandy, one of the great French lords, one of the great vassals of theking of France, should at the same time become king of England, and thusreceive an accession of rank and power which could not fail to rendermore complicated and more stormy his relations with his French suzerain. From the eleventh to the fourteenth century, from Philip I. To Philip deValois, this position gave rise, between the two crowns and the twostates, to questions, to quarrels, to political struggles, and to warswhich were a frequent source of trouble in France to the government andthe people. The evil and the peril became far greater still when, in thefourteenth century, there arose between France and England, betweenPhilip de Valois and Edward III. , a question touching the succession tothe throne of France and the application or negation of the Salic law. Then there commenced, between the two crowns and the two peoples, thatwar which was to last more than a hundred years, was to bring upon Francethe saddest days of her history, and was to be ended only by the inspiredheroism of a young girl who, alone, in the name of her God and Hissaints, restored confidence and victory to her king and her country. Joan of Arc, at the cost of her life, brought to the most gloriousconclusion the longest and bloodiest struggle that has devastated Franceand sometimes compromised her glory. 

Such events, even when they are over, do not cease to weigh heavily for along while upon a people. The struggles between the kings of England, dukes of Normandy, and the kings of France, and the long war of thefourteenth and fifteenth centuries for the succession to the throne ofFrance, engendered what historians have called "the rivalry betweenFrance and England;" and this rivalry, having been admitted as a naturaland inevitable fact, became the permanent incubus and, at divers epochs, the scourge of French national existence. Undoubtedly there are, betweengreat and energetic neighbors, different interests and tendencies, whicheasily become the seeds of jealousy and strife; but there are also, between such nations, common interests and common sentiments, which tendto harmony and peace. The wisdom and ability of governments and ofnations themselves are shown in devoting themselves to making the groundsof harmony and peace stronger than those of discord and war. Anyhowcommon sense and moral sense forbid differences of interests andtendencies to be set up as a principle upon which to establish generaland permanent rivalry, and, by consequence, a systematic hostility andnational enmity. And the further civilization and the connectionsbetween different people proceed with this development, the morenecessary and, at the same time, possible it becomes to raise theinterests and sentiments which would hold them together above those whichwould keep them asunder, and to thus found a policy of reciprocal equityand of peace in place of a policy of hostile precautions and continualstrife. "I have witnessed, " says M. Guizot, "in the course of my life, both these policies. I have seen the policy of systematic hostility, thepolicy practised by the Emperor Napoleon I. With as much ability andbrilliancy as it was capable of, and I have seen it result in thegreatest disaster France ever experienced. And even after the evidenceof its errors and calamities this policy has still left amongst us deeptraces and raised serious obstacles to the policy of reciprocal equity, liberty, and peace which we labored to support, and of which the nationfelt, though almost against the grain, the justice and the necessity. "In that feeling we recognize the lamentable results of the old historiccauses which have just been pointed out, and the lasting perils arisingfrom those blind passions which hurry people away, and keep them backfrom their most pressing interests and their most honorable sentiments. 

In spite of appearances to the contrary, and in view of her futureinterests, England was, in the eleventh century, by the very fact of theconquest she underwent, in a better position than France. She wasconquered, it is true, and conquered by a foreign chieftain and a foreignarmy; but France also had been, for several centuries previously, a preyto conquest, and under circumstances much more unfavorable than thoseunder which the Norman conquest had found and placed England. When theGoths, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Saxons, and the Normansthemselves invaded and disputed over Gaul, what was the character of theevent? Barbarians, up to that time vagabonds or nearly so, were floodingin upon populations disorganized and enervated. On the side of theGerman victors, no fixity in social life; no general or anything likeregular government; no nation really cemented and constituted; butindividuals in a state of dispersion and of almost absolute independence:on the side of the vanquished Gallo-Romans, the old political tiesdissolved; no strong power, no vital liberty; the lower classes inslavery, the middle classes ruined, the upper classes depreciated. Amongst the barbarians society was scarcely commencing; with the subjectsof the Roman empire it no longer existed; Charlemagne's attempt toreconstruct it by rallying beneath a new empire both victors andvanquished was a failure; feudal anarchy was the first and the necessarystep out of barbaric anarchy and towards a renewal of social order. 

It was not so in England, when, in the eleventh century, Williamtransported thither his government and his army. A people but latelycome out of barbarism, conquered, on that occasion, a people still halfbarbarous. Their primitive origin was the same; their institutions were, if not similar, at any rate analogous; there was no fundamentalantagonism in their habits; the English chieftains lived in their domainsan idle, hunting life, surrounded by their liegemen, just as the Normanbarons lived. Society, amongst both the former and the latter, wasfounded, however unrefined and irregular it still was; and neither theformer nor the latter had lost the flavor and the usages of their ancientliberties. A certain superiority, in point of organization and socialdiscipline, belonged to the Norman conquerors; but the conquered Anglo-Saxons were neither in a temper to allow themselves to be enslaved norout of condition for defending themselves. The conquest was destined toentail cruel evils, a long oppression, but it could not bring abouteither the dissolution of the two peoples into petty lawless groups, orthe permanent humiliation of one in presence of the other. There were, at one and the same time, elements of government and resistance, causesof fusion and unity in the very midst of the struggle. 

We are now about to anticipate ages, and get a glimpse, in theirdevelopment, of the consequences which attended this difference, soprofound, in the position of France and of England, at the time of theformation of the two states. 

In England, immediately after the Norman conquest, two general forces areconfronted, those, to wit, of the two peoples. The Anglo-Saxon people isattached to its ancient institutions, a mixture of feudalism and liberty, which become its security. The Norman army assumes organization onEnglish soil according to the feudal system which had been its own inNormandy. A principle of authority and a principle of resistance thusexist, from the very first, in the community and in the government. Before long the principle of resistance gets displaced; the strifebetween the peoples continues; but a new struggle arises between theNorman king and his barons. The Norman kingship, strong in its growth, would fain become tyrannical; but its tyranny encounters a resistance, also strong, since the necessity for defending themselves against theAnglo-Saxons has caused the Norman barons to take up the practice ofacting in concert, and has not permitted them to set themselves up aspetty, isolated sovereigns. The spirit of association receivesdevelopment in England: the ancient institutions have maintained itamongst the English landholders, and the inadequacy of individualresistance has made it prevalent amongst the Norman barons. The unitywhich springs from community of interests and from junction of forcesamongst equals becomes a counter-poise to the unity of the sovereignpower. To sustain the struggle with success, the aristocratic coalitionformed against the tyrannical kingship has needed the assistance of thelanded proprietors, great and small, English and Norman, and it has notbeen able to dispense with getting their rights recognized as well as itsown. Meanwhile the struggle is becoming complicated; there is a divisionof parties; a portion of the barons rally round the threatened kingship;sometimes it is the feudal aristocracy, and sometimes it is the king thatsummons and sees flocking to the rescue the common people, first of thecountry, then of the towns. The democratic element thus penetrates intoand keeps growing in both society and government, at one time quietly andthrough the stolid influence of necessity, at another noisily and bymeans of revolutions, powerful indeed, but nevertheless restrained withincertain limits. The fusion of the two peoples and the different socialclasses is little by little attaining accomplishment; it is little bylittle bringing about the perfect formation of representative governmentwith its various component parts, royalty, aristocracy, and democracy, each invested with the rights and the strength necessary for theirfunctions. The end of the struggle has been arrived at; constitutionalmonarchy is founded; by the triumph of their language and of theirprimitive liberties the English have conquered their conquerors. It iswritten in her history, and especially in her history at the date of theeleventh century, how England found her point of departure and her firstelements of success in the long labor she performed, in order to arrive, in 1688, at a free, and, in our days, at a liberal government. 

France pursued her end by other means and in the teeth of other fortunes. She always desired and always sought for free government under the formof constitutional monarchy; and in following her history, step by step, there will be seen, often disappearing and ever re-appearing, the effortsmade by the country for the accomplishment of her hope. Why then did notFrance sooner and more completely attain what she had so often attempted?Amongst the different causes of this long miscalculation, we will dwellfor the present only on the historical reason just now indicated: Francedid not find, as England did, in the primitive elements of French societythe conditions and means of the political system to which she neverceased to aspire. In order to obtain the moderate measure of internalorder, without which society could not exist; in order to insure theprogress of her civil laws and her material civilization; in order evento enjoy those pleasures of the mind for which she thirsts so much, --France was constantly obliged to have recourse to the kingly authorityand to that almost absolute monarchy which was far from satisfying hereven when she could not do without it, and when she worshipped it with anenthusiasm rather literary than political, as was the case under LouisXIV. It was through the refined rather than profound development of hercivilization, and through the zeal of her intellectual movement, thatFrance was at length impelled not only towards the political system towhich she had so long aspired, but into the boundless ambition of theunlimited revolution which she brought about and with which sheinoculated all Europe. It is in the first steps towards the formation ofthe two societies, French and English, and in the elements, so verydifferent, of their earliest existence, that we find the principal causefor their long-continued diversity in institutions and destinies. 

"In 1823, forty-seven years ago, after having studied, " says M. Guizot, "in my Essays upon a Comparative History of France and England, the greatfact which we have just now attempted to make clearly understood, Iconcluded my labor by saying, 'Before our revolution, this differencebetween the political fates of France and England might have saddened aFrench-man: but now, in spite of the evils we have suffered and in spiteof those we shall yet, perhaps, suffer, there is no room, so far as weare concerned, for such sadness. The advances of social equality and theenlightenments of civilization in France preceded political liberty; andit will thus be the more general and the purer. France may reflect, without regret, upon any history: her own has always been glorious, andthe future promised to her will assuredly recompense her for all she hashitherto lacked. ' In 1870, after the experiences and notwithstanding thesorrows of my long life, I have still confidence in our country's future. Never be it forgotten that God helps only those who help themselves andwho deserve his aid. "

CHAPTER XVI. ----THE CRUSADES, THEIR ORIGIN AND THEIR SUCCESS. 

Amongst the great events of European history, none was for a longer timein preparation or more naturally brought about than the Crusades. Christianity, from her earliest days, had seen in Jerusalem her sacredcradle; it had been, in past times, the home of her ancestors, the Jews, and the centre of their history; and, afterwards, the scene of the life, death, and resurrection of her Divine Founder. Jerusalem became, moreand more, the Holy City. To go to Jerusalem, to visit the Mount ofOlives, Calvary, and the tomb of Jesus, was, in their most evil days, andin the midst of their obscurity and their martyrdoms, a pious passionwith the early Christians. When, under Constantine, Christianity hadascended from the cross to the throne, Jerusalem had fresh attractionsfor Christian faith and Christian curiosity. Temples covered andsurrounded the Holy Sepulchre; and at Bethlehem, Nazareth, Mount Tabor, and nearly all the places which Jesus had consecrated by His presence andHis miracles were seen to rise up churches, chapels, and monumentsdedicated to the memory of them. The Emperor Constantine's mother, St. Helena, was, at seventy-eight years of age, the first royal pilgrim tothe holy places. After the Pagan revival, vainly attempted by theEmperor Julian, the number and zeal of the Christian visitors toJerusalem were redoubled. At the beginning of the fifth century, St. Jerome wrote, from his retreat at Bethlehem, that Judea overflowed withpilgrims, and that, round about the Holy Sepulchre, were heard sung, indivers tongues, the praises of the Lord. He, however, gave but scantencouragement to his friends to make the trip. "The court of heaven, " hewrote to St. Paulinus, "is as open in Britain as at Jerusalem;" and thedisorder which sometimes accompanied the numerous assemblages of pilgrimsbecame such that several of the most illustrious fathers of the Church, and amongst others St. Augustine and St. Gregory of Nyssa, exertedthemselves to dissuade the faithful. "Take no thought, " said Augustine, "for long voyages; go where your faith is; it is not by ship, but bylove, that we go to Him who is everywhere. "

Events soon rendered the pilgrimage to Jerusalem difficult, and for sometime impossible. At the commencement of the seventh century, the Greekempire was at war with the sovereigns of Persia, successors of Cyrus andchiefs of the religion of Zoroaster. One of them, Khosroes II. , invadedJudea, took Jerusalem, led away captive the inhabitants, together withtheir patriarch, Zacharias, and even carried off to Persia the preciousrelic which was regarded as the wood of the true cross, and which hadbeen discovered, nearly three centuries before, by the Empress Helena, whilst excavations were making on Calvary for the erection of the churchof the Holy Sepulchre. But fourteen years later, after several victoriesover the Persians, the Greek emperor, Heraclius, retook Jerusalem, andre-entered Constantinople in triumph with the coffer containing thesacred relic. He next year (in 629) carried it back to Jerusalem, andbore it upon his own shoulders to the top of Calvary; and on thisoccasion was instituted the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Great was the joy in Christendom; and the pilgrimages to Jerusalemresumed their course. 

But precisely at this epoch there appeared an enemy far more formidablefor the Christians than the sectaries of Zoroaster. In 622 Mahometfounded Islamism; and some years after his death, in 638, the second ofthe khalifs, his successors, Omar, sent two of his generals, Khaled andAbou-Obeidah, to take Jerusalem. For to the Mussulmans, also, Jerusalemwas a holy city. Mahomet, it was said, had been thither; it was thence, indeed, that he had started on his nocturnal ascent to heaven. Onapproaching the walls, the Arabs repeated these words from the Koran:"Enter we the holy land which God hath promised us. " The siege lastedfour months. The Christians at last surrendered, but only to Omar inperson, who came from Medina to receive their submission. A capitulationconcluded with their patriarch, Sophronius, guaranteed them their lives, their property, and their churches. "When the draft of the treaty wascompleted, Omar said to the patriarch, 'Conduct me to the temple ofDavid. ' Omar entered Jerusalem preceded by the patriarch, and followedby four thousand warriors, followers of the Prophet, wearing no otherarms but their swords. Sophronius took him, first of all, to the Churchof the Resurrection. 'Be-hold, ' said he, 'the temple of David. ' 'Thousayest not true, ' said Omar, after a few moments' reflection; 'theProphet gave me a description of the temple of David, and it tallieth notwith the building I now see. ' The patriarch then conducted him to theChurch of Sion. 'Here, ' said he, 'is the temple of David. ' 'It is alie, ' rejoined Omar, and went his way, directing his steps towards thegate named Bab-Mohammed. The spot on which now stands the Mosque of Omarwas so encumbered with filth that the steps leading to the street werecovered with it, and that the rubbish reached almost to the top of thevault. 'You can only get in here by crawling, ' said the patriarch. 'Beit so, ' answered Omar. The patriarch went first; Omar, with his people, followed; and they arrived at the space which at this day forms theforecourt of the mosque. There every one could stand upright. Afterhaving turned his eyes to right and left, and attentively examined theplace, 'Allah alchbar!' cried Omar; here is the temple of David, described to me by the Prophet. '"

He found the Sakhra (the rock which forms the summit of Mount Moriah, )and which, left alone after the different destructions of the differenttemples, became the theme of a multitude of traditions and legends, (Jewish and Mussulman) covered with filth, heaped up there by theChristians through hatred of the Jews. "Omar spread his cloak over therock, and began to sweep it; and all the Mussulmans in his train followedhis example. " (_Le Temple de Jerusalem, _ a monograph, pp. 73-75, byCount Melchior de Vogue, ch. Vi. ) The Mosque of Omar rose up on the siteof Solomon's temple. The Christians retained the practice of theirreligion in their churches, but they were obliged to conceal theircrosses and their sacred books. The bell no longer summoned the faithfulto prayer; and the pomp of ceremonies was forbidden them. It was farworse when Omar, the most moderate of Mussulman fanatics, had leftJerusalem. The faithful were driven from their houses, and insulted intheir churches; additions were made to the tribute they had to pay to thenew masters of Palestine; they were prohibited from carrying arms andriding on horseback; a girdle of leather, which they might not lay aside, was their badge of servitude; their conquerors brooked not even that theChristians should speak the Arab tongue, reserved for disciples of theKoran; and the Christian people of Jerusalem had not the right ofnominating their own patriarch without the intervention of the Saracens. 

From the seventh to the eleventh century the situation remained very muchthe same. The Mussulmans, khalifs of Egypt or Persia, continued inpossession of Jerusalem; and the Christians, native inhabitants orforeign visitors, continued to be oppressed, harassed, and humiliatedthere. At two periods their condition was temporarily better. At thecommencement of the ninth century, Charlemagne reached even there withthe greatness of his mind and of his power. "It was not only in his ownland and his own kingdom, " says Eginhard, "that he scattered thosegratuitous largesses which the Greeks call alms; but beyond the seas, inSyria, in Egypt, in Africa, at Jerusalem, at Alexandria, at Carthage, wherever he knew that there were Christians living in poverty, he hadcompassion on their misery, and he delighted to send them money. " In oneof his capitularies of the year 810 we find this paragraph: "Alms to besent to Jerusalem to repair the churches of God. " "If Charlemagne was socareful to seek the friendship of the kings beyond the seas, it was aboveall in order to obtain for the Christians living under their rule helpand relief. . . . He kept up so close a friendship with Haroun-al-Raschid, king of Persia, that this prince preferred his good graces tothe alliance of the sovereigns of the earth. Accordingly, when theambassadors whom Charles had sent, with presents, to visit the sacredtomb of our divine Saviour, and the site of the resurrection, presentedthemselves before him, and expounded to him their master's wish, Haroundid not content himself with entertaining Charles's request; he wished, besides, to give up to him the complete proprietorship of those placeshallowed by the certification of our redemption, " and he sent him, withthe most magnificent presents, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. At theend of the same century, another Christian sovereign, far less powerfuland less famous, John Zimisces, emperor of Constantinople, in a waragainst the Mussulmans of Asia, penetrated into Galilee, made himselfmaster of Tiberias, Nazareth, and Mount Tabor, received a deputationwhich brought him the keys of Jerusalem, "and we have placed, " he sayshimself, "garrisons in all the district lately subjected to our rule. "These were but strokes of foreign intervention, giving the Christians ofJerusalem gleams of hope rather than lasting diminution of theirmiseries. However, it is certain that, during this epoch, pilgrimagesmultiplied, and were often accomplished without obstacle. It was fromFrance, England, and Italy that most of the pilgrims went, and some ofthem wrote, or caused to be written, an account of their trip, --amongstothers the Italian Saint Valentine, the English Saint Willibald, and theFrench Bishop Saint Arculf, who had as companion a Burgundian hermitnamed Peter, a singular resemblance in quality and name to the zealousapostle of the Crusade three centuries later. The most curious of thesenarratives is that of a French monk, Bernard, a pilgrim of about the year870. "There is at Jerusalem, " says he, "a hospice where admittance isgiven to all who come to visit the place for devotion's sake, and whospeak the Roman tongue; a church, dedicated to St. Mary, is hard by thehospice, and possesseth a very noble library, which it oweth to the zealof the Emperor Charles the Great. " This pious establishment had attachedto it fields, vineyards, and a garden situated in the valley ofJehosaphat. 

But whilst there were a few isolated cases of Christians thus going tosatisfy in the East their pious and inquisitive zeal, the Mussulmans, equally ardent as believers and as warriors, carried Westward their creedand their arms, established themselves in Spain, penetrated to the veryheart of France, and brought on, between Islamism and Christianity, thatgrand struggle in which Charles Martel gained, at Poitiers, the victoryfor the Cross. It was really a definitive victory, and yet it did notend the struggle; the Mussulmans remained masters in Spain, and continuedto infest Southern France, Italy, and Sicily, preserving even, at certainpoints, posts which they used as starting-points for distant ravages. Far then from calming down and resulting in pacific relations, thehostility between the two races became more and more active anddetermined; everywhere they opposed, fought, and oppressed one another, inflamed one against the other by the double feelings of faith andambition, hatred and fear. To this general state of affairs came to beadded, about the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century, incidents best calculated to aggravate the evil. Hakem, khalif of Egyptfrom 996 to 1021, persecuted the Christians, especially at Jerusalem, with all the violence of a fanatic and all the capriciousness of adespot. He ordered them to wear upon their necks a wooden cross fivepounds in weight; he forbade them to ride on any animal but mules orasses; and, without assigning any motive for his acts, he confiscatedtheir goods and carried off their children. It was told to him one daythat, when the Christians assembled in the temple at Jerusalem tocelebrate Easter, the priests of the church rubbed balsam-oil upon theiron chain which held up the lamp over the tomb of Christ, and afterwardsset fire, from the roof, to the end of the chain; the fire stole down tothe wick of the lamp and lighted it; then they shouted with admiration, as if fire from heaven had come down upon the tomb, and they glorifiedtheir faith. Hakem ordered the instant demolition of the church of theHoly Sepulchre, and it was accordingly demolished. Another time a deaddog had been laid at the door of a mosque; and the multitude accused theChristians of this insult. Hakem ordered them all to be put to death. The soldiers were preparing to execute the order when a young Christiansaid to his friends, "It were too grievous that the whole Church shouldperish; it were better that one should die for all; only promise to blessmy memory year by year. " He proclaimed himself alone to blame for theinsult, and was accordingly alone put to death. It is from this story ofthe historian William of Tyre, that Tasso, in his _Jerusalem Delivered, _has drawn the admirable episode of Olindo and Sophronia; a fine example, and not the only one, of an act of tyranny and an act of virtue inspiringa great poet with the idea of a masterpiece. "All the deeds of Hakemwere without motive, " says the Arab historian Makrisi, "and the dreamssuggested to him by his frenzy are incapable of reasonableinterpretation. "

These and many other similar stories reached the West, spread amongst theChristian people and roused them to pity for their brethren in the Eastand to wrath against the oppressors. And it was at a critical period, in the midst of the pious alarms and desires of atonement excited by theexpectation of the end of the world a thousand years after the coming ofthe Lord, that the Christian population saw this way opened forpurchasing remission of their sins by delivering other Christians fromsuffering, and by avenging the wrongs of their creed. On all sides arosechallenges and appeals to the warlike ardor of the faithful. Thegreatest mind of the age, Gerbert, who had become Pope Sylvester II. , constituted himself interpreter of the popular feeling. He wrote, in thename of the Church of Jerusalem, a letter addressed to the universalChurch: "To work, then, soldier of Christ! Be our standard-bearer andour champion! And if with arms thou canst not do so, aid us with thywords, thy wealth. What is it, pray, that thou givest, and to whom, pray, dost thou give? Of thine abundance thou givest a small matter, andthou givest to Him who hath freely given thee all thou possessest; but Hewill not accept freely that which thou shalt give; for he will multiplythine offering and will pay it back to thee hereafter. " Some years afterGerbert, another great mind, the greatest among the popes of the middleages, Gregory VII. , proclaimed an expedition, at the head of which hewould place himself, to go and deliver Jerusalem and the Christians ofthe East from the insults and the tyranny of the infidels. 

Such being the condition of facts and minds, pilgrimages to Jerusalembecame, from the ninth to the eleventh century, more and more numerousand considerable. "It would never have been believed, " says thecontemporary chronicler Raoul Glaber, "that the Holy Sepulchre couldattract so prodigious an influx. First the lower classes, then themiddle, afterwards the most potent kings, the counts, the marquises, theprelates, and lastly, what had never heretofore been seen, many women, noble or humble, undertook this pilgrimage. " In 1026, WilliamTraillefer, count of Angouleme; in 1028, 1035, and 1039, Foulques theBlack, count of Anjou; in 1035, Robert the Magnificent, duke of Normandy, father of William the Conqueror; in 1086, Robert the Frison, count ofFlanders; and many other great feudal lords quitted their estates, or, rather, their states, to go and--not deliver, not conquer, but--simplyvisit the Holy Land. It was not long before great numbers were joined togreat names. In 1054, Liedbert, bishop of Cambrai, started for Jerusalemwith a following of three thousand Picard or Flemish pilgrims; and in1064, the archbishop of Mayence and the bishops of Spire, Cologne, Bamberg, and Utrecht set out on their way from the borders of the Rhinewith more than ten thousand Christians behind them. After having passedthrough Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Thrace, Constantinople, Asia Minor, and Syria, they were attacked in Palestine by hordes of Arabs, wereforced to take refuge in the ruins of an old castle, and were reduced tocapitulation; and when at last, "preceded by the rumors of their battlesand their perils, they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received intriumph by the patriarch, and were conducted, to the sound of timbrelsand with the flare of torches, to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Themisery they had fallen into excited the pity of the Christians of Asia;and, after having lost more than three thousand of their comrades, theyreturned to Europe to relate their tragic adventures and the dangers of apilgrimage to the Holy Land. " (_Histoire des Croisades, _ by M. Michaud, t. I. P. 62. )

Amidst this agitation of Western Christendom, in 1076, two years afterPope Gregory VII. Had proclaimed his approaching expedition to the HolyLand, news arrived in Europe to the effect that the most barbarous ofAsiatics and of Mussulmans, the Turks, after having first served and thenruled the khalifs of Persia, and afterwards conquered the greater part ofthe Persian empire, had hurled themselves upon the Greek empire, invadedAsia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, and lately taken Jerusalem, where theypractised against the Christians, old inhabitants or foreign visitors, priests and worshippers, dreadful cruelties and intolerable exactions, worse than those of the Persian or Egyptian khalifs. 

It often happens that popular emotions, however profound and general, remain barren, just as in the vegetable world many sprouts appear at thesurface of the soil and die without having grown and fructified. It isnot sufficient for the bringing about of great events and practicalresults that popular aspirations should be merely manifested; it isnecessary, further, that some great soul, some powerful will, should makeitself the organ and agent of the public sentiment, and bring it tofecundity by becoming its personification. The Christian passion, in theeleventh century, for the deliverance of Jerusalem and the triumph of theCross was fortunate in this respect. An obscure pilgrim, at first asoldier, then a married man and father of several children, then a monkand a vowed recluse, Peter the Hermit, who was born in the neighborhoodof Amiens, about 1030, had gone, as so many others had, to Jerusalem "tosay his prayers there. " Struck disconsolate at the sight of thesufferings and insults undergone by the Christians, he had an interviewwith Simeon, patriarch of Jerusalem, who "recognizing in him a man ofdiscretion and full of experience in affairs of the world, set before himin detail all the evils with which the people of God, in the holy city, were afflicted. 'Holy father, ' said Peter to him, 'if the Roman Churchand the princes of the West were informed, by a man of energy and worthyof belief, of all your calamities, of a surety they would essay to applysome remedy thereto by word and deed. Write, then, to our lord the popeand to the Roman Church, and to the kings and princes of the West, andstrengthen your written testimony by the authority of your seal. As forme, I shrink not from taking upon me a task for the salvation of my soul;and with the help of the Lord I am ready to go and seek out all of them, solicit them, show unto them the immensity of your troubles, and praythem all to hasten on the day of your relief. '" The patriarch eagerlyaccepted the pilgrim's offer; and Peter set out, going first of all toRome, where he handed to Pope Urban II. The patriarch's letters, andcommenced in that quarter his mission of zeal. The pope promised him notonly support, but active co-operation when the propitious moment for itshould arrive. Peter set to work, being still the pilgrim everywhere, inEurope, as well as at Jerusalem. "He was a man of very small stature, and his outside made but a very poor appearance; yet superior powersswayed this miserable body; he had a quick intellect and a penetratingeye, and he spoke with ease and fluency. . . . We saw him at thattime, " says his contemporary Guibert de Nogent, "scouring city and town, and preaching everywhere; the people crowded round him, heaped presentsupon him, and celebrated his sanctity by such great praises that Iremember not that like honor was ever rendered to any other person. Hedisplayed great generosity in the disposal of all things that were givenhim. He restored wives to their husbands, not without the addition ofgifts from himself, and he re-established, with marvellous authority, peace and good understanding between those who had been at variance. Inall that he did or said he seemed to have in him something divine, insomuch that people went so far as to pluck hairs from his mule to keepas relics. In the open air he wore a woollen tunic, and over it a sergecloak which came down to his heels; he had his arms and feet bare; he atelittle or no bread, and lived chiefly on wine and fish. "

In 1095, after the preaching errantry of Peter the Hermit, Pope Urban II. Was at Clermont, in Auvergne, presiding at the grand council, at whichthirteen archbishops and two hundred and five bishops or abbots were mettogether, with so many princes and lay-lords, that "about the middle ofthe month of November the towns and the villages of the neighborhood werefull of people, and divers were constrained to have their tents andpavilions set up amidst the fields and meadows, notwithstanding that theseason and the country were cold to an extreme. " The first nine sessionsof the council were devoted to the affairs of the Church in the West; butat the tenth Jerusalem and the Christians of the East became the subjectof deliberation. The Pope went out of the church wherein the Council wasassembled and mounted a platform erected upon a vast open space in themidst of the throng. Peter the Hermit, standing at his side, spokefirst, and told the story of his sojourn at Jerusalem, all he had seen ofthe miseries and humiliations of the Christians, and all he himself hadsuffered there, for he had been made to pay tribute for admission intothe Holy City, and for gazing upon the spectacle of the exactions, insults, and tortures he was recounting. After him Pope Urban II. Spoke, in the French tongue, no doubt, as Peter had spoken, for he washimself a Frenchman, as the majority of those present were, grandees andpopulace. He made a long speech, entertaining upon the most painfuldetails connected with the sufferings of the Christians of Jerusalem, "that royal city which the Redeemer of the human race had madeillustrious by His coming, had honored by His residence, had hallowed byHis passion, had purchased by His death, had distinguished by His burial. She now demands of you her deliverance . . . Men of France, men frombeyond the mountains, nations chosen and beloved of God, right valiantknights, recall the virtues of your ancestors, the virtue and greatnessof King Charlemagne and your other kings; it is from you above all thatJerusalem awaits the help she invokes, for to you, above all nations, God has vouchsafed signal glory in arms. Take ye, then, the road toJerusalem for the remission of your sins, and depart assured of theimperishable glory which awaits you in the kingdom of heaven. "

From the midst of the throng arose one prolonged and general shout, "Godwilleth it! God willeth it!" The Pope paused for a moment; and then, making a sign with his hand as if to ask for silence, he continued, "Ifthe Lord God were not in your souls, ye would not all have uttered thesame words. In the battle, then, be those your war-cry, those words thatcame from God; in the army of the Lord let nought be heard but that oneshout, 'God willeth it! God willeth it!' We ordain not, and we advisenot, that the journey be undertaken by the old or the weak, or such as benot suited for arms, and let not women set out without their husbands ortheir brothers; let the rich help the poor; nor priests nor clerks may gowithout the leave of their bishops; and no layman shall commence themarch save with the blessing of his pastor. Whosoever hath a wish toenter upon this pilgrimage, let him wear upon his brow or his breast thecross of the Lord, and let him, who, in accomplishment of his desire, shall be willing to march away, place the cross behind him, between hisshoulders; for thus he will fulfil the precept of the Lord, who said, 'He that doth not take up his cross and follow Me, is not worthy of Me. '"

[Illustration: "God willeth it!"----383]

The enthusiasm was general and contagious, as the first shout of thecrowd had been; and a pious prelate, Adhemar, bishop of Puy, was thefirst to receive the cross from the Pope's hands. It was of red cloth orsilk, sewn upon the right shoulder of the coat or cloak, or fastened onthe front of the helmet. The crowd dispersed to assume it and spread it. 

Religious enthusiasm was not the only, but the first and the determiningmotive of the crusade. It is to the honor of humanity, and especially tothe honor of the French nation, that it is accessible to the sudden swayof a moral and disinterested sentiment, and resolves, without previsionas well as without premeditation, upon acts which decide, for many a longyear, the course and the fate of a generation, and, it may be, of a wholepeople. We have seen in our own day, in the conduct of populace, national assemblies, and armies, under the impulse not any longer ofreligious feeling, but of political and social agitation, France thusgiving herself up to the rush of sentiments, generous indeed and pure, but without the least forecast touching the consequences of the ideaswhich inspired them or the acts which they entailed. It is with nationsas with armies; the side of glory is that of danger; and great works arewrought at a heavy cost, not only of happiness, but also of virtue. Itwould be wrong, nevertheless, to lack respect for and to speak evil ofenthusiasm: it not only bears witness to the grandeur of human nature, itjustly holds its place and exercises its noble influence in the course ofthe great events which move across the scene of human errors and vices, according to the vast and inscrutable design of trod. It is quitecertain that the crusaders of the eleventh century, in their haste todeliver Jerusalem from the Mussulmans, were far from foreseeing that, afew centuries after their triumph, Jerusalem and the Christian East wouldfall again beneath the yoke of the Mussulmans and their barbaricstagnation; and this future, had they caught but a glimpse of it, woulddoubtless have chilled their zeal. But it is not a whit the less certainthat, in view of the end, their labor was not in vain; for, in thepanorama of the world's history, the crusades marked the date of thearrest of Islamism, and powerfully contributed to the decisivepreponderance of Christian civilization. 

[Illustration: The Four Leaders of the First Crusade----385]

To religious enthusiasm there was joined another motive lessdisinterested, but natural and legitimate, which was the still very vividrecollection of the evils caused to the Christians of the West by theMussulman invasions in Spain, France, and Italy, and the fear of seeingthem begin again. Instinctively war was carried to the East to keep itfrom the West, just as Charlemagne had invaded and conquered the countryof the Saxons to put an end to their inroads upon the Franks. And thisprudent plan availed not only to give the Christians of the West a hopeof security, it afforded them the pleasure of vengeance. They were aboutto pay back alarm for alarm, and evil for evil, to the enemy from whomthey had suffered in the same way; hatred and pride, as well as piety, obtained satisfaction. 

There is moreover great motive power in a spirit of enterprise and ataste for adventure. Care-for-nothingness is one of man-kind's chiefdiseases, and if it plays so conspicuous a part in comparativelyenlightened and favored communities, amidst the labors and the enjoymentsof an advanced civilization, its influence was certainly not less intimes of intellectual sloth and harshly monotonous existence. To escapetherefrom, to satisfy in some sort the energy and curiosity inherent inman, the people of the eleventh century had scarcely any resource butwar, with its excitement and distant excursions into unknown regions. Thither rushed the masses of the people, whilst the minds which wereeager, above everything, for intellectual movement and for knowledge, thronged, on the mountain of St. Genevieve, to the lectures of Abelard. Need of variety and novelty, and an instinctive desire to extend theirviews and enliven their existence, probably made as many crusaders as thefeeling against the Mussulmans and the promptings of piety. 

[Illustration: Crusaders on the March----386]

The Council of Clermont, at its closing on the 28th of November, 1095, had fixed the month of August in the following year, and the feast of theAssumption, for the departure of the crusaders for the Holy Land; but thepeople's impatience did not brook this waiting, short as it was in viewof the greatness and difficulties of the enterprise. As early as the 8thof March, 1096, and in the course of the spring three mobs rather thanarmies set out on the crusade, with a strength, it is said, of eighty orone hundred thousand persons in one case, and of fifteen or twentythousand in the other two. Persons, not men, for there were amongst themmany women and children, whole families, in fact, who had left theirvillages, without organization and without provisions, calculating thatthey would be competent to find their own way, and that He who feeds theyoung ravens would not suffer to die of want pilgrims wearing His cross. Whenever, on their road, a town came in sight, the children asked if thatwere Jerusalem. The first of these mobs had for its head Peter theHermit himself, and a Burgundian knight called Walter _Havenought_; thesecond had a German priest named Gottschalk; and the third a Count Emico, of Leiningen, potent in the neighborhood of Mayence. It is wrong to callthem heads, for they were really nothing of the kind; their authority wasrejected, at one time as tyrannical, at another as useless. "Thegrasshoppers, " was the saying amongst them in the words of Solomon'sproverbs, "have no king, and yet they go in companies. " In crossingGermany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the provinces of the Greek empire, thesecompanies, urged on by their brutal passions or by their necessities andmaterial wants, abandoned themselves to such irregularities that, as theywent, princes and peoples, instead of welcoming them as Christians, cameto treat them as enemies, of whom it was necessary to get rid at anyprice. Peter the Hermit and Gottschalk made honorable and sincereefforts to check the excesses of their following, which were a source ofso much danger; but Count Emico, on the contrary, says William of Tyre, "himself took part in the plunder, and incited his comrades to crime. "Thus, at one time taking the offensive, at another compelled to defendthemselves against the attacks of the justly irritated inhabitants, thesethree immense companies of pilgrims, these disorderly volunteers, withgreat difficulty arrived, after enormous losses, at the gates ofConstantinople. Either through fear or through pity, the Greek emperor, Alexis (or Alexius) Comnenus, permitted them to pitch their camp there;"but before long, plenty, idleness, and the sight of the riches ofConstantinople brought once more into the camp license, indiscipline, anda thirst after brigandage. Whilst awaiting the war against theMussulmans, the pilgrims pillaged the houses, the palaces, and even thechurches in the outskirts of Byzantium. To deliver his capital fromthese destructive guests, Alexis furnished them with vessels, and gotthem shipped off across the Bosphorus. "

[Illustration: The Assault on St. Jean d'Acre----386]

Whilst the crusade was commencing under these sad auspices, chieftains ofmore sense and better obeyed were preparing to give it another characterand superior fortunes. Two great and real armies were forming in thenorth, the centre, and the south of France, and a third in Italy, amongstthe Norman knights who had founded there the kingdom of Naples andSicily, just before their countryman, William the Bastard, conqueredEngland. The first of these armies had for its chief, Godfrey deBouillon, duke of Lorraine, whom all his contemporaries have described asthe model of a gallant and pious knight. He was the son of Eustace II. , count of Boulogne, and "the lustre of nobility, " says Raoul of Caen, chronicler of his times, "was enhanced in his case by the splendor of themost exalted virtues, as well in affairs of the world as of heaven. Asto the latter, he distinguished himself by his generosity towards thepoor, and his pity for those who had committed faults. Furthermore, hishumility, his extreme gentleness, his moderation, his justice, and hischastity were great; he shone as a light amongst the monks, even morethan as a duke amongst the knights. And, nevertheless, he could also dothe things which are of this world, fight, marshal the ranks, and extendby arms the domains of the Church. In his boyhood he learned to befirst, or one of the first, to strike the foe; in youth he made it hishabitual practice; and in advancing age he forgot it never. He was soperfectly the son of the warlike Count Eustace, and of his mother, Ida deBouillon, a woman full of piety, and versed in literature, that at sightof him even a rival would have been forced to say of him, 'For zeal inwar, behold his father; for serving God, behold his mother. ' The secondarmy, consisting chiefly of crusaders from Southern France, marched underthe orders of Raymond IV. , count of Toulouse, the oldest chieftain of thecrusade, who still, however, united the ardor of youth with theexperience of ripe age and the stubbornness of the graybeard. At theside of the Cid he had fought, and more than once beaten the Moors inSpain. He took with him to the East his third wife, Elvira, daughter ofAlphonso VI. , king of Castile, as well as a very young child he had byher, and he had made a vow, which he fulfilled, that he would return nomore to his country, and would fight the infidels to the end of his days, in expiation of his sins. He was discreet though haughty, and not onlythe richest but the most economical of the crusader-chiefs:"Accordingly, " says Raoul of Caen, "when all the rest had spent theirmoney, the riches of Count Raymond made him still more distinguished. The people of Provence, who formed his following, did not lavish theirresources, but studied economy even more than glory, " and "his army, "adds Guibert of Nogent, "showed no inferiority to any other, save so faras it is possible to reproach the inhabitants of Provence touching theirexcessive loquacity. "

Bohemond, prince of Tarento, commanded the third army, composedprincipally of Italians and warriors of various origins come to Italy toshare in the exploits and fortunes of his father, the celebrated RobertGuiscard, founder of the Norman kingdom of Naples, who was at one timethe foe, and at another the defender, of Pope Gregory VII. , and who diedin the island of Cephalonia just as he was preparing to attempt theconquest of Constantinople. Bohemond had neither less ambition nor lesscourage and ability than his father. "His appearance, " says AnnaComnena, "impressed the eye as much as his reputation astounded the mind;his height surpassed that of all his comrades; his blue eyes gleamedreadily with pride and anger; when he spoke you would have said he hadmade eloquence his study; and when he showed himself in armor, you mighthave believed that he had never done aught but handle lance and sword. Brought up in the school of Norman heroes, be concealed calculations ofpolicy beneath the exterior of force, and, although he was of a haughtydisposition, he knew how to be blind to a wrong when there was nothing tobe gained by avenging it. He had learned from his father to regard asfoes all whose dominions and riches he coveted; and he was not restrainedby fear of God, or by man's opinions, or by his own oaths. It was notthe deliverance of the tomb of Christ which fired his zeal or decided himupon taking up the cross; but, as he had vowed eternal enmity to theGreek emperors, he smiled at the idea of traversing their empire at thehead of an army, and, full of confidence in his fortunes, he hoped tomake for himself a kingdom before arriving at Jerusalem. "

Bohemond had as friend and faithful comrade his cousin Tancred deHauteville, great-grandson, through his mother, Emma, of Robert Guiscard, and, according to all his contemporaries, the type of a perfect Christianknight, neither more nor less. "From his boyhood, " says Raoul of Caen, his servitor before becoming his biographer, "he surpassed the young byhis skill in the management of arms, and the old by the strictness of hismorals. He disdained to speak ill of whoever it might be, even when illhad been spoken of himself. About himself he would say nought, but hehad an insatiable desire to give cause for talking thereof. Glory wasthe only passion that moved that young soul; yet was it disquieted withinhim, and he suffered great anxiety from thinking that his knightlycombats seemed contrary to the precepts of the Lord. The Lord bids usgive our coat and our cloak to him who would take them from us; whereasthe knight's part is to strip all that remains from him from whom he hathalready taken his coat and his cloak. These contradictory principlesbenumbed sometimes the courage of this man so full of propriety; but whenthe declaration of Pope Urban had assured remission of all their sins toall Christians who should go and fight the Gentiles, then Tancred awokein some sort from his dream, and this new opportunity fired him with azeal which cannot be expressed. He therefore made preparations for hisdeparture; but, accustomed from his infancy to give to others beforethinking of himself, he entered upon no great outlay, but contentedhimself with collecting in sufficient quantity knightly arms, horses, mules, and provisions necessary for his company. "

With these four chieftains, who have remained illustrious in history, --that grave wherein small reputations are extinguished, --were associated, for the deliverance of the Holy Land, a throng of feudal lords, somepowerful as well as valiant, others valiant but simple knights; Hugh, count of Vermaudois, brother of Philip I. , king of France; Robert ofNormandy, called Shorthose, son of William the Conqueror; Robert, countof Flanders; Stephen, count of Blois; Raimbault, count of Orange;Baldwin, count of Hainault; Raoul of Beaugency; Gerard of Roussillon, andmany others whose names contemporary chroniclers and learned moderns havegathered together. Not one of the reigning sovereigns of Europe, kingsor emperors, of France, England, Spain, or Germany, took part in thefirst crusade. It was the feudal nation, great and small, castle ownersand populace, who rose in mass for the deliverance of Jerusalem and thehonor of Christendom. 

These three great armies of crusaders got on the march from August toOctober, 1096, wending their way, Godfrey de Bouillon by Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria; Bohemond by the south of Italy and theMediterranean; and Count Raymond of Toulouse by Northern Italy, Friuli, and Dalmatia. They arrived one after the other in the empire of the Eastand at the gates of Constantinople. Godfrey de Bouillon was the first toappear there, and the Emperor Alexis Comnenus learned with dismay thatother armies of crusaders would soon follow that which was already solarge. It was not long before Bohemond and Raymond appeared. Alexisbehaved towards these formidable allies with a mixture of pusillanimityand haughtiness, promises and lies, caresses and hostility, whichirritated without intimidating them, and rendered it impossible for themto feel any confidence or conceive any esteem. At one time he wasthanking them profusely for the support they were bringing him againstthe infidels; at another he was sending troops to harass them on theirroad, and, when they reached Constantinople, he demanded that they shouldswear fealty and obedience to him, as if they were his own subjects. One day he was refusing them provisions and attempting to subdue them byfamine; and the next he was lavishing feasts and presents upon them. Thecrusaders, on their side, when provisions fell short, spread themselvesover the country and plundered it without scruple; and, when theyencountered hostile troops of Greeks, charged them without warning. Whenthe emperor demanded of them fealty and homage, the count of Toulouseanswered that he had not come to the East in search of a master. Godfreydo Bouillon, after resisting every haughty pretension, being as just ashe was dignified, acknowledged that the crusaders ought to restore to theemperor the towns which had belonged to the empire, and an arrangement tothat effect was concluded between them. Bohemond had a proposalsubmitted to Godfrey to join him in attacking the Greek empire and takingpossession at once of Byzantium; but Godfrey rejected the proposal, withthe reminder that he had come only to fight the infidels. The emperor, fully informed of the greediness as well as ambition of Bohemond, introduced him one day into a room full of treasures. "Here, " saidBohemond, "is wherewith to conquer kingdoms. " Alexis had the treasuresremoved to Bohemond's, who at first refused, and ended by accepting them. It is even said that he asked the emperor for the title of Grand Domesticor of General of the Empire of the East. Alexis, who had held thatdignity and who knew that it was the way to the throne, gave the Normanchieftain a present refusal, with a promise of it on account of futureservices to be rendered by him to the empire and the emperor. 

The chiefs of the crusade were not alone in treating with disdain thishaughty, wily, and feeble sovereign. During a ceremony at which someFrench princes were doing homage to the emperor, a Count Robert of Pariswent and sat down free-and-easily beside him; when Baldwin, count ofHainault, took the intruder by the arm, saying, "When you are in acountry you must respect its masters and its customs. " "Verily, "answered Robert, "I hold it shocking that this jackanapes should beseated, whilst so many noble captains are standing yonder. " When theceremony was over, the emperor, who had, no doubt, heard the words, wished to have an explanation; so he detained Robert, and asked him whoand whence he was. "I am a Frenchman, " quoth Robert; "and of noblebirth. In my country there is, hard by a church, a spot repaired to bysuch as burn to prove their valor. I have been there often without anyone's daring to present himself before me. " The emperor did not care totake up this sort of challenge, and contented himself with replying tothe warrior, "If you there waited for foes without finding any, you arenow about to have what will satisfy you. I have, however, a piece ofadvice to give you; don't put yourself at the head or the tail of thearmy; keep in the middle. I have learned how to fight with Turks; andthat is the best place you can choose. " The crusaders and the Greekswere mutually contemptuous, the former with a ruffianly pride, the latterwith an ironical and timid refinement. 

This posture, on either side, of inactivity, ill-will, and irritation, could not last long. On the approach of the spring of 1097, the crusaderchiefs and their troops, first Godfrey de Bouillon, then Bohemond andTancred, and afterwards Count Raymond of Toulouse, passed the Bosphorus, being conveyed across either in their own vessels or those of the EmperorAlexis, who encouraged them against the infidels, and at the same timehad the infidels supplied with information most damaging to thecrusaders. Having effected a junction in Bithynia, the Christian chiefsresolved to go and lay siege to Nicaea, the first place, of importance, in possession of the Turks. Whilst marching towards the place they sawcoming to meet then, with every appearance of the most woful destitution, Peter the Hermit, followed by a small band of pilgrims escaped from thedisasters of their expedition, who had passed the winter, as he had, inBithynia, waiting for more fortunate crusaders. Peter, affectionatelywelcomed by the chiefs of the army, recounted to them "in detail, " saysWilliam of Tyre, "how the people, who had preceded them under hisguidance, had shown themselves destitute of intelligence, improvident, and unmanageable at the same time; and so it was far more by their ownfault than by the deed of any other that they had succumbed to the weightof their calamities. " Peter, having thus relieved his heart andrecovered his hopes, joined the powerful army of crusaders who had comeat last; and, on the 15th of May, 1097, the siege of Nicaea began. 

The town was in the hands of a Turkish sultan, Kilidge-Arslan, whosefather, Soliman, twenty years before, had invaded Bithynia and fixed hisabode at Nicrea. He, being informed of the approach of the crusaders, had issued forth, to go and assemble all his forces; but he had leftbehind his wife, his children, and his treasures, and he had sentmessengers to the inhabitants, saying, "Be of good courage, and fear notthe barbarous people who make show of besieging our city; to-morrow, before the seventh hour of the day, ye shall be delivered from yourenemies. " And he did arrive on the 16th of May, says the Armenianhistorian, Matthias of Edessa, at the head of six hundred thousandhorsemen. The historians of the crusaders are infinitely more moderateas to the number of their foes; they assign to Kilidge-Arslan only fiftyor sixty thousand men, and their testimony is far more trustworthy, beingthat of the victors. In any case, the Christians and the Turks foughtvaliantly for two days under the walls of Niccea, and Godfrey de Bouillondid justice to his fame for valor and skill by laying low a Turk"remarkable amongst all, " says William of Tyre, "for his size andstrength, whose arrows caused much havoc in the ranks of our men. "Kilidge-Arslan, being beaten, withdrew to collect fresh troops, and, after six weeks' siege, the crusaders believed themselves on the point ofentering Nicaea as masters, when, on the 26th of June, they saw floatingon the ramparts the standard of the Emperor Alexis. Their surprise wasthe greater in that they had just written to the emperor to say that thecity was on the point of surrendering, and they added, "We earnestlyinvite you to lose no time in sending some of your princes withsufficient retinue, that they may receive and keep in honor of your namethe city which will deliver itself up to us. As for us, after having putit in the hands of your highness, we will not show any delay in pursuing, with God's help, the execution of our projects. " Alexis had anticipatedthis loyal message. Being in constant secret communication with theformer subjects of the Greek empire, and often even with their newmasters the Turks, his agents in Nicaea had induced the inhabitants tosurrender to him, and not to the Latins, who would treat them asvanquished. The irritation amongst the crusaders was extreme. They hadpromised themselves, if not the plunder of Nicaea, at any rate greatadvantages from their victory; and it was said in the camp that theconvention concluded with the emperor contained an article purportingthat "if, with God's help, there were taken any of the towns which hadbelonged aforetime to the Greek empire all along the line of march up toSyria, the town should be restored to the emperor, together with all theadjacent territory and that the booty, the spoils, and all objectswhatsoever found therein should be given up without discussion to thecrusader in recompense for their trouble and indemnification for theexpenses. " The wrath waxed still fiercer when it was know that thecrusaders would not be permitted to enter more the ten at a time the townthey had just taken, and that the Emperor Alexis had set at liberty thewife of Pilidge-Arslai together with her two sons and all the Turks ledprisoners of war to Constantinople. The chiefs of the crusaders werethen selves indignant and distrustful; but "they resolved with onaccord, " says William of Tyre, "to hide their resentment, and theyapplied all their efforts to calming their people, while encouraging themto push on without delay to the end of the glorious enterprise. "

All the army of the crusaders put themselves in motion I cross Asia Minorfrom the north-west to the south-east, and to reach Syria. At theirarrival before Nicaea they numbered, it is said, five hundred thousandfoot and one hundred thousand horse, figures evidently too great, foreverything indicates that at the opening of the crusade the three greatarmies, starting from France and Italy under Godfrey de Bouillon, Bohemond and Raymond of Toulouse, did not reach this number, and the, hadcertainly lost many during their long march through their sufferings andin their battles. However that may be, after they had marched all in onemass for two days, and had then extended themselves over a larger area, for the purpose, no doubt, of more easily finding provisions, thecrusaders broke up into two main bodies, led, one by Godfrey de Bouillonand Raymond of Toulouse, the other by Bohemond and Tancred. On the 1stof July, at daybreak, this latter body, encamped at a short distance fromDoryleum, in Phrygia, saw descending from the neighboring heights a cloudof enemies who burst upon the Christians, first rained a perfect hail ofmissiles upon them, and then penetrated into their camp, even to thetents assigned to the women, children, and old men, the numerousfollowing of the crusaders. It was Kilidge-Arslan, who, after the fallof Nicaea, had raised this new army of Saracens, and was pursuing theconquerors on their march. The battle began in great disorder; thechiefs in person sustained the first shock; and the duke of Normandy, Robert Shorthose, took in his hand his white banner, embroidered withgold, and waving it over his head, threw himself upon the Turks, shouting, "God willeth it! God willeth it!" Bohemond obstinately soughtout Kilidge-Arslan in the fray; but at the same time he sent messengersin all haste to Godfrey de Bouillon, as yet but a little way off, tosummon him to their aid. Godfrey galloped up, and, with some fifty ofhis knights, preceding the rest of his army, was the first to throwhimself into the midst of the Turks. Towards mid-day the whole of thefirst body arrived, with standards flying, with the sound of trumpets andwith the shouting of warriors. Kilidge-Arslan and his troops fell backupon the heights whence they had descended. The crusaders, withouttaking breath, ascended in pursuit. The Turks saw themselves shut in bya forest of lances, and fled over wood and rock; and "two days afterwardsthey were still flying, " says Albert of Aix, "though none pursued them, unless it were God himself. " The victory of Doryleum opened the wholecountry to the crusaders, and they resumed their march towards Syria, paying their sole attention to not separating again. 

It was not long before they had to grapple with other dangers againstwhich bravery could do nothing. They were crossing, under a broilingsun, deserted tracts which their enemies had taken good care to ravage. Water and forage were not to be had; the men suffered intolerably fromthirst; horses died by hundreds; at the head of their troops marchedknights mounted on asses or oxen; their favorite amusement, the chase, became impossible for them; for their hawking-birds too--the falcons andgerfalcons they had brought with them--languished and died beneath theexcessive heat. One incident obtained for the crusaders a momentaryrelief. The dogs which followed the army, prowling in all directions, one day returned with their paws and coats wet; they had, therefore, found water; and the soldiers set themselves to look for it, and, infact, discovered a small river in a remote valley. They got water-drunk, and more than three hundred men, it is said, were affected by it anddied. 

On arriving in Pisidia, a country intersected by Water-courses, meadows, and woods, the army rested several days; but at that very point two ofits most competent and most respected chiefs were very nearly taken fromit. Count Raymond of Toulouse, who was also called Raymond of Saint-Gilles, fell so ill that the bishop of Orange was reading over him theprayers for the dying, when one of those present cried out that the countwould assuredly live, for that the prayers of his patron saint, Gilles, had obtained for him a truce with death. And Raymond recovered. Godfreyde Bouillon, again, whilst riding in a forest, came upon a pilgrimattacked by a bear, and all but fallen a victim to the ferocious beast. The duke drew his sword and urged his horse against the bear, which, leaving the pilgrim, rushed upon the assailant. The frightened horsereared; Godfrey was thrown, and, according to one account, immediatelyremounted; but, according to another, he fell, on the contrary, togetherwith his horse; however, he sustained a fearful struggle against thebear, and ultimately killed it by plunging his sword up to the hilt intoits belly, says 'William of Tyre, but with so great an effort, and afterreceiving so serious a wound, that his soldiers, hurrying up at thepilgrim's report, found him stretched on the ground, covered with blood, and unable to rise, and carried him back to the camp, where he was, forseveral weeks, obliged to be carried about in a litter in the rear of thearmy. 

Through all these perils they continued to advance, and they wereapproaching the heights of Taurus, the bulwark and gate of Syria, when aquarrel which arose between two of the principal crusader chiefs was liketo seriously endanger the concord and strength of the army. Tancred, with his men, had entered Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul, and hadplanted his flag there. Although later in his arrival, Baldwin, brotherof Godfrey de Bouillon, claimed a right to the possession of the city, and had his flag set up instead of Tancred's, which was thrown into aditch. During several days the strife was fierce and even bloody; thesoldiers of Baldwin were the more numerous, and those of Tancredconsidered their chief too gentle, and his bravery, so often proved, scarcely sufficed to form an excuse for his forbearance. Chiefs andsoldiers, however, at last, saw the necessity for reconciliation, andmade mutual promises to sink all animosity. On returning to the generalcamp, Tancred was received with marked favor; for the majority of thecrusaders, being unconcerned in the quarrel at Tarsus, liked him for hisbravery and for his gentleness equally. Baldwin, on the contrary, wasmuch blamed, even by his brother Godfrey; but he was far more ambitiouson his own account than devoted to the common cause. He had often heardtell of Armenia and Mesopotamia, their riches and the large number ofChristians living there, almost equally independent of Greeks and Turks;and, in the hope of finding there a chance of greatly improving hispersonal fortunes, he left the army of the crusaders at Maresa, on thevery eve of the day on which the chiefs came to the decision that no oneshould for the future move away from the flag, and taking with him a weakdetachment of two hundred horse and one thousand or twelve hundred foot, marched towards Armenia. His name and his presence soon made a stirthere; and he got hold of two little towns which received him eagerly. Edessa, the capital of Armenia and metropolis of Mesopotamia, was peopledby Christians; and a Greek governor, sent from Constantinople by theemperor, lived there, on payment of a tribute to the Turks. Internaldissensions and the fear ever inspired by the vicinity of the Turks keptthe city in a state of lively agitation; and bishop, people, and Greekgovernor, all appealed to Baldwin. He presented himself before Edessawith merely a hundred horsemen, having left the remainder of his forcesin garrison at the town he had already occupied. All the population cameto meet him, bearing branches of olive and singing chants in honor oftheir deliverer. But it was not long before outbreaks and alarms beganagain; and Baldwin looked on at then, waiting for power to be offeredhim. Still there was no advance; the Greek governor continued where bewas; and Baldwin muttered threats of his departure. The populardisquietude was extreme; and the Greek governor, old and detested as hewas, thought to smooth all by adopting the Latin chief and making him hisheir. This, however, caused but a short respite; Baldwin left thegovernor to be massacred in a fresh outbreak; the people came and offeredhim the government, and he became Prince of Edessa, and, ere long, of allthe neighboring country, without thinking any more of Jerusalem, ofwhich, nevertheless, he was destined at no distant day to be king. 

Whilst Baldwin was thus acquiring, for himself and himself alone, thefirst Latin principality belonging to the crusaders in the East, hisbrother Godfrey and the main Christian army were crossing the chain ofTaurus and arriving before Antioch, the capital of Syria. Great was thefame, with Pagans and Christians, of this city; its site, the beauty ofits climate, the fertility of its land, its fish-abounding lake, itsriver of Orontes, its fountain of Daphne, its festivals, and its morals, had made it, under the Roman empire, a brilliant and favorite abode. Atthe same time, it was there that the disciples of Jesus had assumed thename of Christians, and that St. Paul had begun his heroic life aspreacher and as missionary. It was absolutely necessary that thecrusaders should take Antioch; but the difficulty of the conquest wasequal to the importance. The city was well fortified and provided witha strong citadel; the Turks had been in possession of it for fourteenyears; and its governor Accien or Baghisian (_Yagui-Sian_, or _brother ofblack_, according to Oriental historians), appointed by the sultan ofPersia, Malekschah, was shut up in it with seven thousand horse andtwenty thousand foot. The first attacks of the Christians failed; andthey had the prospect of a long siege. At the outset their situation hadbeen easy and pleasant; they encountered no hostility from thecountry-people, who were intimidated or indifferent; they came and paidvisits to the camp, and admitted the crusaders to their markets; theharvests, which were hardly finished, had been abundant: "the grapes, "says Guibert of Nogent, "were still hanging on the branches of thevines; on all sides discoveries were made of grain shut up, not inbarns, but in subterranean vaults; and the trees were laden with fruit. "These facilities of existence, the softness of the climate, thepleasantness of the places, the frequency of leisure, partly pleasureand partly care-for-nothingness, caused amongst the crusadersirregularity, license, indiscipline, carelessness, and often perils andreverses. The Turks profited thereby to make sallies, which threw thecamp into confusion and cost the lives of crusaders surprised orscattered about. Winter came; provisions grew scarce, and had to besought at a greater distance and at greater peril; and living ceased tobe agreeable or easy. Disquietude, doubts concerning the success of theenterprise, fatigue and discouragement made way amongst the army; andmen who were believed to be proved, Robert Shorthose, duke of Normandy, William, viscount of Melun, called the Carpenter, on account of hismighty battle-axe, and Peter the Hermit himself, "who had neverlearned, " says Robert the monk, "to endure such plaguy hunger, " left thecamp and deserted the banner of the cross, "that there might be seen, inthe words of the Apocalypse, even the stars falling from heaven, " saysGuibert of Nogent. Great were the scandal and the indignation. Tancredhurried after the fugitives and brought then back; and they swore on theGospel never again to abandon the cause which they had preached andserved so well. It was clearly indispensable to take measures forrestoring amongst the army discipline, confidence, and the morals andhopes of Christians. The different chiefs applied themselves thereto byvery different processes, according to their vocation, character, orhabits. Adhdmar, bishop of Puy, the renowned spiritual chief of thecrusade, Godfrey de Bouillon, Raymond of Toulouse, and the militarychieftains renowned for piety and virtue made head against all kinds ofdisorder either by fervent addresses or severe prohibitions. Men caughtdrunk had their hair cut off; blasphemous and reckless gamesters werebranded with a red-hot iron; and the women were shut up in separatetents. To the irregularities within were added the perils of incessantespionage on the part of the Turks in the very camp of the crusaders:and no one knew how to repress this evil. "Brethren and lords, " saidBohemond to the assembled princes, "let me undertake this business bymyself; I hope, with God's help, to find a remedy for this complaint. "Caring but little for moral reform, he strove to strike terror into theTurks, and, by counteraction, restore confidence to the crusaders. "Oneevening, " says William of Tyre, "whilst everybody was, as usual, occupied in getting supper ready, Bohemond ordered some Turks who hadbeen caught in the camp to be brought out of prison and put to deathforthwith; and then, having had a huge fire lighted, he gaveinstructions that they should be roasted and carefully prepared as iffor being eaten. If it should be asked what operation was going on, hecommanded his people to answer, 'The princes and governors of the campthis day decreed at their council that all Turks or their spies whoshould henceforth be found in the camp should be forced, after thisfashion, to furnish meat of their own carcasses to the princes as wellas to the whole army!'" "The whole city of Antioch, " adds thehistorian, "was stricken with terror at hearing the report of words sostrange and a deed so cruel. And thus, by the act and pains ofBohemond, the camp was purged of this pest of spies, and the results ofthe princes' meetings were much less known amongst the foe. "

Bohemond did not confine himself to terrifying the Turks by the displayof his barbarities; he sought and found traitors amongst them. Duringthe incidents of the siege he had concocted certain relations with aninhabitant of Antioch, named Ferouz or Emir-Feir, probably a renegadeChristian and seeming Mussulman, in favor with the Governor Accien orBaghisian, who had intrusted to him, him and his family, the ward ofthree of the towers and gates of the city. Emir-Feir, whether fromreligious remorse or on promise of a rich recompense, had, after theambiguous and tortuous conversations which usually precede treason, madean offer to Bohemond to open to him, and, through him, to the crusaders, the entrance into Antioch. Bohemond, in covert terms, informed thechiefs, his comrades, of this proposal, leaving it to be understood that, if the capture of Antioch were the result of his efforts, it would be forhim to become its lord. The count of Toulouse bluntly rejected thisidea. "We be all brethren, " said he, "and we have all run the same risk;I did not leave my own country, and face, I and mine, so many dangers toconquer new lord-ships for any particular one of us. " The opinion ofRaymond prevailed, and Bohemond pressed the matter no more that day. Butthe situation became more and more urgent; and armies of Mussulmans werepreparing to come to the aid of Antioch. When these fresh alarms spreadthrough the camp, Bohemond returned to the charge, saying, "Time presses;and if ye accept the overtures made to us, to-morrow Antioch will beours, and we shall march in triumph on Jerusalem. If any find a betterway of assuring our success, I am ready to accept it and renounce, on myown account, all conquest. " Raymond still persisted in his opposition;but all the other chiefs submitted to the overtures and conditions ofBohemond. All proper measures were taken, and Emir-Fein, being apprisedthereof, had Bohemond informed that on the following night everythingwould be ready. At the appointed hour three-score warriors, withBohemond at their head, repaired noiselessly to the foot of the towerindicated; a ladder was hoisted and Emir-Feir fastened it firmly to thetop of the wall. Bohemond looked round and round, but no one was in ahurry to mount. Bohemond, therefore, himself mounted; and, havingreceived recognition from Emir-Fein, he leaned upon the ramparts, calledin a low voice to his comrades, and rapidly re-descended to reassure themand get them to mount with him. Up they mount; that and two otherneighboring towers are given up to them; the three gates are opened, andthe crusaders rush in. When day appeared, on the 3d of June, 1098, thestreets of Antioch were full of corpses; for the Turks, surprised, hadbeen slaughtered without resistance or had fled into the country. Thecitadel, filled with those who had been able to take refuge there, stillheld out; but the entire city was in the power of the crusaders, and thebanner of Bohemond floated on an elevated spot over against the citadel. 

In spite of their triumph the crusaders were not so near marching onJerusalem as Bohemond had promised. Everywhere, throughout Syria andMesopotamia, the Mussulmans were rising to go and deliver Antioch; animmense army was already in motion; there were eleven hundred thousandmen according to Matthew of Edessa, six hundred and sixty thousandaccording to Foucher of Chartres, three hundred thousand according toRaoul of Caen, and only two hundred thousand according to William of Tyreand Albert of Aix. The discrepancy in the figures is a sufficient proofof their untruthfulness. The last number was enough to disquiet thecrusaders, already much reduced by so many marches, battles, sufferings, and desertions. An old Mussulman warrior, celebrated at that timethroughout Western Asia, Corbogha, sultan of Mossoul (hard by what wasancient Nineveh), commanded all the hostile forces, and four days afterthe capture of Antioch he was already completely round the place, enclosing the crusaders within the walls of which they had just becomethe masters. They were thus and all on a sudden besieged in their turn, having even in the very midst of them, in the citadel which still heldout, a hostile force. Whilst they had been besieging Antioch, theEmperor Alexis Comnenus had begun to march with an army to get his sharein their successes, and was advancing into Asia Minor when he heard thatthe Mussulmans, in immense numbers, were investing the Christian army inAntioch, and not in a condition, it was said, to hold out long. Theemperor immediately retraced his steps towards Constantinople, and thecrusaders found that they had no Greek aid to hope for. The blockade, becoming stricter day by day, soon brought about a horrible famine inAntioch. Instead of repeating here, in general terms, the ordinarydescriptions of this cruel scourge, we will reproduce its particularand striking features as they have been traced out by contemporarychroniclers. "The Christian people, " says William of Tyre, "had recoursebefore long, to procure themselves any food whatever, to all sorts ofshameful means. Nobles, free men, did not blush to hungrily stretch outthe hand to nobodies, asking with troublesome pertinacity for what wastoo often refused. There were seen the very strongest, those whom theirsignal valor had rendered illustrious in the midst of the army, nowsupported on crutches, dragging themselves half-dead along the streetsand in the public places; and, if they did not speak, at any rate theyshowed themselves, with countenances irrecognizable, silently beggingalms of every passer-by. No self-respect restrained matrons or youngwomen heretofore accustomed to severe restraints; they walked hither andthither, with pallid faces, groaning and searching everywhere forsomewhat to eat; and they in whom the pangs of hunger had notextinguished every spark of modesty went and hid themselves in the mostsecret places, and gnawed their hearts in silence, preferring to die ofwant rather than beg in public. Children still in the cradle, unable toget milk, were exposed at the cross-roads, crying in vain for their usualnourishment; and men, women, and children, all threw themselves greedilyupon any kind of food, wholesome and unwholesome, clean and unclean, thatthey could scrape together here and there, and none shared with anotherthat which they picked up. " So many and such sufferings producedincredible dastardliness; and deserters escaped by night, in some casesthrowing themselves down, at the risk of being killed, into thecity-moat; in others getting down by help of a rope from the ramparts. Indignation blazed forth against the fugitives; they were calledrope-dancers; and God was prayed to treat them as the traitor Judas. William of Tyre and Guibert of Nogent, after naming some, and those thevery highest, end with these words: "Of many more I know not the names, and I am unwilling to expose all that are well known to me. "

"We are assured, " says William of Tyre, "that in view of such woes andsuch weaknesses, the princes, despairing of any means of safety, heldamongst themselves a secret council, at which they decided to abandon thearmy and all the people, fly in the middle of the night, and retreat tothe sea. " According to the Armenian historian Matthew of Edessa, theprinces would seem to have resolved, in this hour of dejection, not tofly and leave the army to its fate, but "to demand of Corboghzi anassurance for all, under the bond of an oath, of personal safety, on thepromise of surrendering Antioch to him; after which they would returnhome. " Several Arab historians, and amongst them Ibn-el-Athir, Aboul-Faradje, and Aboul-Feda confirm the statement of conditions. Whatevermay have been the real turn taken by the promptings of weakness amongstthe Christians, Godfrey de Bouillon and Adhemar, bishop of Puy, energetically rejected them all; and an unexpected incident, consideredas miraculous, reassured the wavering spirits both of soldiers and ofchiefs. A priest of Marseilles, Peter Bartholomew, came and announced tothe chiefs that St. Andrew had thrice appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Go into the church of my brother Peter at Antioch; and hard by the highaltar thou wilt find, on digging up the ground, the head of the spearwhich pierced our Redeemer's side. That, carried in front of the army, will bring about the deliverance of the Christians. " The appointedsearch was solemnly conducted under the eye of twelve reputablewitnesses, priests and knights; the whole army was in attendance at theclosed gates of the church; the spear-head was found and carried off intriumph; a pious enthusiasm restored to all present entire confidence;and with loud shouts they demanded battle. The chiefs judged it properto announce their determination to the chief of the Mussulmans; and forthis mission they chose Peter the Hermit, who was known to them as a boldand able speaker. Peter, on arriving at the enemy's camp, presentedhimself without any mark of respect before the Sultan, Corbogha, surrounded by his satraps, and said, "The sacred assembly of princespleasing to God who are at Antioch doth send me unto thy Highness, toadvise thee that thou art to cease from thy importunities, and that thouabandon the siege of a city which the Lord in His divine mercy hath givenup to them. The prince of the apostles did wrest that city fromidolatry, and convert it to the faith of Christ. Ye had forcibly butunjustly taken possession of it. They who be moved by a right lawfulanxiety for this heritage of their ancestors make their demand of theethat thou choose between divers offers: either give up the siege of thecity, and cease troubling the Christians, or, within three days fromhence, try the power of our arms. And that thou seek not after any, evena lawful, subterfuge, they offer thee further choice between diversdeterminations: either appear alone in person to fight with one of ourprinces, in order that, if victorious, thou mayest obtain all thou canstdemand, or, if vanquished, thou mayest remain quiet; or, again, pick outdivers of thine who shall fight, on the same terms, with the same numberof ours; or, lastly, agree that the two armies shall prove, one againstthe other, the fortune of battle. " "Peter, " answered Corboghaironically, "it is not likely that the affairs of the princes who havesent thee be in such state that they can thus offer me choice betwixtdivers proposals, and that I should be bound to accept that which maysuit me best. My sword hath brought them to such a condition that theyhave not themselves any longer the power of choosing freely, and thatthey be constrained to shape and unshape their wishes according to mygood pleasure. Go, then, and tell these fools that all whom I shall findin full possession of all the powers of the manly age shall have theirlives, and shall be reserved by me for my master's service, and that allother shall fall beneath my sword, as useless trees, so that there shallremain of them not even a faint remembrance. Had I not deemed it moreconvenient to destroy them by famine than to smite them with the sword, Ishould already have gotten forcible mastery of the city, and they wouldhave reaped the fruits of their voyage hither by undergoing the law ofvengeance. "

On returning to camp, Peter the Hermit was about to set forth in detail, before all the people of the crusaders, the answer of Corbogha, hispride, his threats, and the pomp with which he was surrounded; butGodfrey de Bouillon, "fearing lest the multitude, already crushed beneaththe weight of their woes, should be stricken with fresh terror, " stoppedPeter at the moment when he was about to begin his speech, and, takinghim aside, prevailed upon him to tell the result of his mission in a fewwords, just that the Turks desired battle, and that it must be preparedfor at once. "Forthwith all, from the highest to the lowest, testify themost eager desire to measure swords with the infidels, and seem to havecompletely forgotten their miseries, and to calculate upon victory. Allresume their arms, and get ready their horses, their breastplates, theirhelmets, their shields, and their swords. It is publicly announcedthroughout the city that the next morning, before sunrise, every one willhave to be in readiness, and join his host to follow faithfully thebanner of his prince. "

Next day, accordingly, the 28th of June, 1098, the feast of St. Peter andSt. Paul, the whole Christian army issued from their camp, with a portionof the clergy marching at their head, and chanting the 68th Psalm, "LetGod arise, and let His enemies be scattered!" "I saw these things, I whospeak, " says one of the chroniclers, Raymond d'Agiles, chaplain to thecount of Toulouse: "I was there, and I carried the spear of the Lord. "The crusaders formed in twelve divisions; and, of all their great chiefs, the count of Toulouse alone was unable to assume the command of his; hewas detained in Antioch by the consequences of a wound, and he had theduty of keeping in check the Turkish garrison, still masters of thecitadel. The crusaders presented the appearance of old troops ill clad, ill provided, and surmounting by sheer spirit the fatigues and losses ofa long war; many sick soldiers could scarcely march; many barons andknights were on foot; and Godfrey de Bouillon himself had been obliged toborrow a horse from the count of Toulouse. During the march a gentlerain refreshed souls as well as bodies, and was regarded as a favor fromheaven. Just as the battle was commencing, Corbogha, struck by theimpassioned, stern, and indomitable aspect of the crusaders, feltsomewhat disquieted, and made proposals, it is said, to the Christianprinces of what he had refused them the evening before--a fight betweensome of their knights and as many Saracens; but they in their turnrejected the proposition. There is a moment, during great struggles, when the souls of men are launched forth like bomb-shells, which nothingcan stop or cause to recoil. The battle was long, stubborn, and, at somepoints, indecisive: Kilidge-Arslan, the indefatigable sultan of Nicaea, attacked Bohemond so briskly, that, save for the prompt assistance ofGodfrey de Bouillon and Tancred, the prince of Antioch had been in greatperil. But the pious and warlike enthusiasm of the crusaders at lengthprevailed over the savage bravery of the Turks; and Corbogha, who hadpromised the khalif of Bagdad a defeat of the Christians, fled awaytowards the Euphrates with a weak escort of faithful troops. Tancredpursued till nightfall the sultans of Aleppo and Damascus and the emir ofJerusalem. According to the Christian chroniclers, one hundred thousandinfidels, and only four thousand crusaders, were left on the field ofbattle. The camp of the Turks was given over to pillage; and fifteenthousand camels, and it is not stated how many horses, were carried off. The tent of Corbogha himself was, for his conquerors, a rich prize and anobject of admiration. It was laid out in streets, flanked by towers, asif it were a fortified town; gold and precious stones glittered in everypart of it; it was capable of containing more than two thousand persons;and Bohemond sent it to Italy, where it was long preserved. Theconquerors employed several days in conveying into Antioch the spoils ofthe vanquished; and "every crusader, " says Albert of Aix, "found himselfricher than he had been at starting from Europe. "

This great success, with the wealth it was the means of spreading, andthe pretensions and hopes it was the cause of raising amongst thecrusaders, had for some time the most injurious effects. Division set inamongst them, especially amongst the chiefs. Some abandoned themselvesto all the license of victory, others to the sweets of repose. Some, fatigued and disgusted, quietly prepared for and accomplished theirreturn home; others, growing more and more ambitious and bold, aspired toconquests and principalities in the East. Why should not they acquirewhat Baldwin had acquired at Edessa, and what Bohemond was within an aceof possessing at Antioch? Others were jealous of the great fortunes madebefore their eyes: and Raymond of Toulouse was vexed at Bohemond's rulein Antioch, and refused to give up to him the citadel. One and anothertroubled themselves little more about the main end of their crusade, thedeliverance of Jerusalem, and devoted themselves to their personalinterests. A few days after the defeat of the Turks, the council ofprinces deliberated upon the question of marching immediately uponJerusalem, and then all these various inclinations came out. After alively debate, the majority decided that they should wait till the heatof summer was over, the army rested from its fatigues, and thereinforcements expected from the West arrived. The common sort ofcrusaders were indignant at this delay: "Since the princes will not leadus to Jerusalem, " was said aloud, "choose we among the knights a braveman who will serve us faithfully, and, if the grace of God be with us, gowe under his leading to Jerusalem. It is not enough for our princes thatwe have remained here a whole year, and that two hundred thousand men-at-arms have fallen here! Perish all they who would remain at Antioch, evenas its inhabitants but lately perished!" But, murmuring all the while, they staid at Antioch, in spite of a violent epidemic, which took off, itwas said, in a single month, fifty thousand persons, and amongst them thespiritual chief of the crusade, Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who had therespect and confidence of all the crusaders. To find some speciouspretext, or some pious excuse for this inactivity, or simply to pass thetime which was not employed as it had been sworn it should be, war-likeexpeditions were made into Syria and Mesopotamia; some emirs were drivenfrom their petty dominions; some towns were taken; some infidels weremassacred. The count of Toulouse persisted during several weeks inbesieging Marrah, a town situated between Hamath and Aleppo. At last hetook it, but there were no longer any inhabitants to be found in it; theyhad all taken refuge under ground. Huge fires lighted at the entrance oftheir hiding-place forced them to come out, and as they came they wereall put to death or carried off as slaves; "which so terrified theneighboring towns, " says a chronicler, "that they yielded of their ownfree will and without compulsion. "

It was all at once ascertained that Jerusalem had undergone a freshcalamity, and fallen more and more beneath the yoke of the infidels. Abou-Kacem, khalif of Egypt, had taken it from the Turks; and his vizier, Afdhel, had left a strong garrison in it. A sharp pang of grief, ofwrath, and of shame shot through the crusaders. "Could it be, " theycried, "that Jerusalem should be taken and retaken, and never byChristians?" Many went to seek out the count of Toulouse. He was knownto be much taken up with the desire of securing the possession of Marrah, which he had just captured; still great confidence was felt in him. Hehad made a vow never to return to the West; he was the richest of thecrusader princes; he was conjured to take upon himself the leadership ofthe army; to him had been intrusted the spear of the Lord discovered atAntioch; if the other princes should be found wanting, let him at leastgo forward with the people, in full assurance; if not, he had only togive up the spear to the people, and the people would go right on toJerusalem, with the Lord for their leader. After some hesitation, Raymond declared that the departure should take place in a fortnight, andhe summoned the princes to a preliminary meeting. On assembling "theyfound themselves still less at one, " says the chronicler, and themajority refused to budge. To induce them, it is said that Raymondoffered ten thousand sous to Godfrey de Bouillon, the same to Robert ofNormandy, six thousand to the count of Flanders, and five thousand toTancred; but, at the same time, Raymond announced his intention ofleaving a strong garrison in Marrah to secure its defence. "What!"cried the common folk amongst the crusaders, "disputes about Antioch anddisputes about Marrah! We will take good care there be no quarreltouching this town; come, throw we down its walls; restore we peaceamongst the princes, and set we the count at liberty: when Marrah nolonger exists, he will no longer fear to lose it. " The multitude rushedto surround Marrah, and worked so eagerly at the demolition of itsramparts that the count of Toulouse, touched by this popular feeling asif it were a proof of the divine will, himself put the finishing touch tothe work of destruction and ordered the speedy departure of the army. At their head marched he, barefooted, with his clergy and the bishop ofAkbar, all imploring the mercy of God and the protection of the saints. After him marched Tancred with forty knights and many foot. "Who thenmay resist this people, " said Turks and Saracens one to another, "sostubborn and cruel, whom, for the space of a year, nor famine, nor thesword, nor any other danger could cause to abandon the siege of Antioch, and who now are feeding upon human flesh?" In fact a rumor had spreadthat, in their extreme distress for want of provisions, the crusaders hadeaten corpses of Saracens found in the moats of Marrah. 

Several of the chiefs, hitherto undecided, now followed the popularimpulse, whilst others still hesitated. But on the approach of spring, 1099, more than eight months after the capture of Antioch, Godfrey ofBouillon, his brother, Eustace of Boulogne, Robert of Flanders, and theirfollowing, likewise began to march. Bohemond, after having accompaniedthem as far as Laodicea, left them with a promise of rejoining thembefore Jerusalem, and returned to Antioch, where he remained. Freshcrusaders arrived from Flanders, Holland, and England, and amongst themthe Saxon prince, Edgar Atheling, who had for a brief interval been kingof England, between the death of Harold and the coronation of William theConqueror. The army pursued its way, pretty slowly, still stopping fromtime to time to besiege towns, which they took and which the chiefscontinued to dispute for amongst themselves. Envoys from the khalif ofEgypt, the new holder of Jerusalem, arrived in the crusaders' camp, withpresents and promises from their master. They had orders to offer fortythousand pieces of gold to Godfrey, sixty thousand to Bohemond, the mostdreaded by the Mussulmans of all the crusaders, and other gifts to diversother chiefs. Aboul-Kacem further promised liberty of pilgrimage andexercise of the Christian religion in Jerusalem; only the Christians mustnot enter, unless unarmed. At this proposal the crusader chiefs criedout with indignation, and declared to the Egyptian envoys that they weregoing to hasten their march upon Jerusalem, threatening at the same timeto push forward to the borders of the Nile. At the end of the month offlay, 1099, they were all masse upon the frontiers of Phoenicia andPalestine, numbering according to the most sanguine calculations, onlyfifty thousand fighting men. 

Upon entering Palestine, as they came upon spots known in sacred historyor places of any importance, the same feelings of greed and jealousywhich had caused so much trouble in Asia Minor and Syria caused divisionsonce more amongst the crusaders. The chieftain, the simple warrioralmost, who was the first to enter city, or burgh, or house, and planthis flag there halted in it and claimed to be its possessor; whilst those"whom nothing was dearer than the commandments of God, " say thechroniclers, pursued their march, barefooted, beneath the banner of thecross, deplored the covetousness and the quarrels of their brethren. When the crusaders arrived a Emmaus, some Christians of Bethlehem cameand implore their aid against the infidels. Tancred was there; and he, with the consent of Godfrey, set out immediately, in the middle of thenight, with a small band of one hundred horsemen, and went and plantedhis own flag on the top of the church at Bethlehem at the very hour atwhich the birth of Jesus Christ had been announced to the shepherds ofJudea. Next day, June 10th 1099, on advancing, at dawn of day, over theheights of Emmaus, the army of the crusaders had, all at once, beneaththeir gaze the Holy City. 

"Lo! Jerusalem appears in sight. Lo! every hand point, out Jerusalem. Lo! a thousand voices are heard as one in salutation of Jerusalem. 

"After the great, sweet joy which filled all hearts at this first glimpsecame a deep feeling of contrition, mingled with awful and reverentialaffection. Each scarcely dared to raise the eye towards the city whichhad been the chosen abode of Christ, where He died, was buried, and roseagain. 

"In accents of humility, with words low spoken, with stifled sobs, withsighs and tears, the pent-up yearnings of a people in joy and at the sametime in sorrow sent shivering through the air a murmur like that which isheard in leafy forests what time the wind blows through the leaves, orlike the dull sound made by the sea which breaks upon the rocks, orhisses as it foams over the beach. "

It was better to quote these beautiful stanzas from "Jerusalem Delivered"than to reproduce the pompous and monotonous phrases of the chroniclers. The genius of Tasso was capable of understanding and worthy to depict theemotions of a Christian army at sight of the Jerusalem they had come todeliver. 

We will not pause over the purely military and technical details of thesiege. It was calculated that there were in the city twenty thousandarmed inhabitants and forty thousand men in garrison, the most valiantand most fanatical Mussulmans that Egypt could furnish. According toWilliam of Tyre, the most judicious and the best informed of thecontemporary historians, "When the crusaders pitched their camp overagainst Jerusalem, there had arrived there about forty thousand personsof both sexes, of whom there were at the most twenty thousand foot, wellequipped, and fifteen hundred knights. " Raymond d'Agiles, chaplain tothe count of Toulouse, reduces still further to twelve thousand thenumber of foot capable of bearing arms, and that of the knights to twelveor thirteen hundred. This weak army was destitute of commissariat andthe engines necessary for such a siege. Before long it was a prey to thehorrors of thirst. "The neighborhood of Jerusalem, " says William ofTyre, "is arid; and it is only at a considerable distance that there areto be found rivulets, fountains, or wells of fresh water. Even thesesprings had been filled up by the enemy a little before the arrival ofour troops. The crusaders issued from the camp secretly and in smalldetachments to look for water in all directions; and just when theybelieved they had found some hidden trickier, they saw themselvessurrounded by a multitude of folks engaged in the same search; disputesforthwith arose amongst them, and they frequently came to blows. Horses, mules, asses, and cattle of all kinds, consumed by heat and thirst, felldown and died; and their carcasses, left here and there about the camp, tainted the air with a pestilential smell. " Wood, iron, and all thematerials needful for the construction of siege machinery were as much toseek as water. But a warlike and pious spirit made head against all. Trees were felled at a great distance from Jerusalem; and scaling-towerswere roughly constructed, as well as engines for hurling the stones whichwere with difficulty brought up within reach of the city. "All ye whoread this, " says Raymond d'Agiles, "think not that it was light labor; itwas nigh a mile from the spot where the engines, all dismounted, had tobe transported to that where they were remounted. " The knights protectedagainst the sallies of the besieged the workmen employed upon this work. One day Tancred had gone alone to pray on the Mount of Olives and to gazeupon the holy city, when five Mussulmans sallied forth and went to attackhim; he killed three of them, and the other two took to flight. Therewas at one point of the city ramparts a ravine which had to be filled upto make an approach; and the count of Toulouse had proclamation made thatbe would give a denier to every one who would go and throw three stonesinto it. In three days the ravine was filled up. After four weeks oflabor and preparation, the council of princes fixed a day for deliveringthe assault; but as there had been quarrels between several of thechiefs, and, notably, between the count of Toulouse and Tancred, it wasresolved that before the grand attack they should all be reconciled at ageneral supplication, with solemn ceremonies, for divine aid. After astrict fast, all the crusaders went forth armed from their quarters, andpreceded by their priests, bare-footed and chanting psalms, they moved, in slow procession, round Jerusalem, halting at all places hallowed bysome fact in sacred history, listening to the discourses of theirpriests, and raising eyes full of wrath at hearing the scoffs addressedto them by the Saracens, and seeing the insults heaped upon certaincrosses they had set up and upon all the symbols of the Christian faith. "Ye see, " cried Peter the Hermit; "ye hear the threats and blasphemies ofthe enemies of God. Now this I swear to you by your faith; this I swearto you by the arms ye carry: to-day these infidels be still full of prideand insolence, but to-morrow they shall be frozen with fear; thosemosques, which tower over Christian ruins, shall serve for temples to thetrue God, and Jerusalem shall hear no longer aught but the praises of theLord. " The shouts of the whole Christian army responded to the hopes ofthe apostle of the crusade; and the crusaders returned to their quartersrepeating the words of the prophet Isaiah: "So shall they fear the nameof the Lord from the West, and His glory from the rising of the sun. "

On the 14th of July, 1099, at daybreak, the assault began at diverspoints; and next day, Friday, the 15th of July, at three in theafternoon, exactly at the hour at which, according to Holy Writ, JesusChrist had yielded up the ghost, saying, "Father, into Thy hands Icommend My spirit, " Jerusalem was completely in the hands of thecrusaders. We have no heart to dwell on the massacres which accompaniedthe victory so clearly purchased by the conquerors. The historians, Latin or Oriental, set down at seventy thousand the number of Mussulmansmassacred on the ramparts, in the mosques, in the streets, underground, and wherever they had attempted to find refuge: a number exceeding thatof the armed inhabitants and the garrison of the city. Battle-madness, thirst for vengeance, ferocity, brutality, greed, and every hatefulpassion were satiated without scruple, in the name of their holy cause. When they were weary of slaughter, "orders were given, " says Robert themonk, "to those of the Saracens who remained alive and were reserved forslavery, to clean the city, remove from it the dead, and purify it fromall traces of such fearful carnage. They promptly obeyed; removed, withtears, the dead; erected outside the gates dead-houses fashioned likecitadels or defensive buildings; collected in baskets dissevered limbs;carried them away, and washed off the blood that stained the floors oftemples and houses. "

Eight or ten days after the capture of Jerusalem, the crusader chiefsassembled to deliberate upon the election of a king of their prize. There were several who were suggested for it and might have pretended toit. Robert Shorthose, duke of Normandy, gave an absolute refusal, "liking better, " says an English chronicler, "to give himself up torepose and indolence in Normandy than to serve, as a soldier, the King ofkings: for which God never forgave him. " Raymond, count of Toulouse, wasalready advanced in years, and declared "that he would have a horror ofbearing the name of king in Jerusalem, but that he would give his consentto the election of anyone else. " Tancred was and wished to be only thefirst of knights. Godfrey de Bouillon the more easily united votes inthat he did not seek them. He was valiant, discreet, worthy, and modest;and his own servants, being privately sounded, testified to hispossession of the virtues which are put in practice without any show. Hewas elected King of Jerusalem, and he accepted the burden whilst refusingthe insignia. "I will never wear a crown of gold, " he said, "in theplace where the Saviour of the world was crowned with thorns. " And heassumed only the title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. 

It is a common belief amongst historians that after the capture ofJerusalem, and the election of her king, Peter the Hermit entirelydisappeared from history. It is true that he no longer played an activepart, and that, on returning to Europe, he went into retirement near Huy, in the diocese of Lige, where he founded a monastery, and where he diedon the 11th of July, 1115. But William of Tyre bears witness thatPeter's contemporaries were not ungrateful to him, and did not forget himwhen he had done his work. "The faithful, " says he, "dwellers atJerusalem, who, four or five years before had seen the venerable Peterthere, recognizing at that time in the same city him to whom thepatriarch had committed letters invoking the aid of the princes of theWest, bent the knee before him, and offered him their respects in allhumility. They recalled to mind the circumstances of his first voyage;and they praised the Lord who had endowed him with effectual power ofspeech and with strength to rouse up nations and kings to bear so manyand such long toils for love of the name of Christ. Both in private andin public all the faithful at Jerusalem exerted themselves to render toPeter the Hermit the highest honors, and attributed to him alone, afterGod, their happiness in having escaped from the hard servitude underwhich they had been for so many years groaning, and in seeing the holycity recovering her ancient freedom. "

END OF VOLUME I.