I 56. CHARLES THE GREAT. A.D. 7G3-814. 243
these proud and faithless savages finally surrendered, he removed 10,000 of their families from their homes on the banks of the Elbe to different parts of Germany and Gaul to prevent a future revolt. It was indeed a war of religion for the annihilation of heathenism, but conduetcd on the Mohammedan principle : sub mission to the faith, or death. This is contrary to the spirit of Christianity which recognizes only the moral means of persuasion and conviction.1
The most serious defect in his private character was his incon tinence and disregard of the sanctity of the marriage tie. In this respect he was little better than an Oriental despot or a Mohammedan Caliph. He married several wives and divorced them at his pleasure. Pie dismissed his first wife (unknown by name) to marry a Lombard princess, and he repudiated her within a year. After the death of his fifth wife he contented himself with three or four concubines. He is said even to have encouraged his own daughters in dissolute habits rather than give them in marriage to princes who might become competitors for a share in the kingdom, but he had them carefully educated. It is not to the credit of the popes that they never rebuked him for this vice, while with weaker and less devoted monarchs they displayed such uncompromising zeal for the sanctity of marriage.2
HIS DEATH AXD BURIAL.
The emperor died after a short illness, and after receiving the holy communion, Jan. 28, 814, in the 71st year of his age, and the 47th of his reign, and was buried on the same day in the
1 Bossuet justified all his conquests because they were an extension of Chris tianity. " Les conquctes prodigieuscs" he says, "furent la dilatation du r^gne de Dieu, ct il se moutra trts chretien dans toutcs ses centres."
2 Pope Stephen III. protested, indeed, in the most violent language against the second marriage of Charles with Desiderata, a daughter of the king of Lombardy, but not on the ground of divorce from his, first wife, which would have furnished a very good reason, but from opposition to a union with the "per fidious, leprous, and fetid brood of the Lombards, a brood hardly reckoned human." Charles married the princess, to the delight of his mother, but repu diated her the next year and sent her back to her father. See Milman, Bk. iv., ch. 12 (n. 439).
244 FOUETH PERIOD. A.D. 590-1049.
cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle "amid the greatest lamentations of the people." * Very many omens, adds Eginhard (ch. 32), had portended his approaching end, as he had recognized himself. Eclipses both of the sun and the moon were very frequent during the last three years of his life, and a black spot was visible on the sun for seven days. The bridge over the Ehine at Mayence? which he had constructed in ten years, was consumed by fire ; the palace at Aix-la-Chapelle frequently trembled ; the basilica was struck by lightning, the gilded ball on the roof shattered by a thunderbolt and hurled upon the bishop's house adjoining; and the word Prineeps after Karolus inscribed on an arch was eifaced a few months before his decease. " But Charles despised, or affected to despise, all these things as having no reference whatever to him."
THE CHARLEMAGNE OF POETRY.
The heroic and legendary poetry of the middle ages represents Charles as a giant of superhuman strength and beauty, of enor mous appetite, with eyes shining like the morning star, terrible in war, merciful in peace, as a victorious hero, a wise lawgiver, an unerring judge, and a Christian saint. He suffered only one defeat, at Roncesvalles in the narrow passes of the Pyrenees, when, on his return from a successful invasion of Spain, his rear guard with the flower of the French chivalry, under the com mand of Roland, one of his paladins and nephews, was surprised and routed by the Basque Mountaineers (778) .2
1 " Maximo totius populi luctu" says Eginhard.
2 The historic foundation of this defeat is given by Eginhard, ch. 9. It was then marvellously embellished, and Roland became the favorite theme of min strels and poets, as Theroulde's Chanson de Roland, Turpin's Chronique, Bojardo's Orlando Innamorato, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, etc. His enchanted Horn sounded so loud that the birds fell dead at its blast, and the whole Saracen army drew back terror-struck. When he was attacked in the Pyrenees, he blew the horn for the last time so hard that the veins of his neck started, and Charlemagne heard it several miles off at St. Jean Pied de Port, but too late to save
" The dead who, deathless all, Were slain at famous Koncevall."