simple, and proves that Eginhard had not imprisoned his soul as well as his life in the monastic habit.

He did not long survive his wife: he died in 839, in the monastery of Sligestadt, which he founded.

Independently of these letters, we have remaining of his -1, the Life of Charlemagne; 2, Annals of his times. Of these two works, the first is, without comparison, the most distinguished piece of history from the sixth to the eighth century-indeed, the only one which can be called a history, for it is the only one in which we recognise any traces of composition, any political and literary pretension. I have as yet only had occasion, for the most part, to speak to you of miserable chroniclers. The Life of Charlemagne is not a chronicle: it is a genuine political biography, written by a man who was present at the events he narrates, and who understood them. Eginhard commences by describing the state of Frankish Gaul under the last Merovingians. We see that their dethronement by Pepin was still a subject of discussion with a certain number of men, and caused some disquietude to the race of Charlemagne. Eginhard took care to explain how it could not be otherwise; he minutely describes the humiliation and powerlessness into which the Merovingians had fallen; proceeds from this exposition to recount the natural accessions of the Carlovingians; says a few words upon the reign of Pepin, upon the beginning of that of Charlemagne, and his relations with his brother Carloman; and enters at last into the account of the reign of Charlemagne alone. The first part of the account is devoted to the wars of that prince, and especially his wars against the Saxons. From wars and conquests, the author passes to the internal government, to the administration of Charlemagne; lastly, he comes to his domestic life, his personal character.

It is evident that this is not written at hazard, without plan or aim; we here recognise intention, a systematic composition-there is art, in a word; and since the great productions of Latin literature, no historical work had borne such characteristics. The work of Gregory of Tours itself, without comparison the most curious which we have encountered on our road, is a chronicle, like the others. The Life of Charlemagne is, on the contrary, a true literary composition, conceived and executed by a reflecting and cultivated mind

:

With regard to the Annals of Eginhard, they have no value beyond that of a chronicle. His title to them has been disputed, and they have been attributed to other writers, but everything leads us to believe that they are by him.

It is said that he composed a detailed Listory of the wars against the Saxons. Nothing of it has come down to us.

Alcuin and Eginhard are, without doubt, the two most distinguished men of the reign of Charlemagne. Alcuin, a man of letters, employed in government affairs; Eginhard, a statesman, who became a man of letters. We are about to see this momentary splendour of the reign of Charlemagne disappear; we are about to be present at the dismemberment of his empire. The intellectual movement, of which we have observed the first steps, will not perish; we shall see it perpetuated as it began; on the one hand, in men who direct the affairs of the world; and on the other, in those who devote themselves to solitary study and learning. Society will often change its state and forms; intellect, reanimated, will now, without stopping, traverse all its revolutions.

TWENTY-FOURTH LECTURE.

The progress and causes of the dismemberment of the empire of Charlemagne-1. State of this empire in 843, after the treaty of VerdunInferior state of the kingdom of France at this epoch-2. In 888, after the death of Charles le Gros-Seven kingdoms-Definitive establishment of the inheritance of fiefs in France-Twenty-nine small states, or important fiefs, founded at the end of the ninth century-3. In 987, at the fall of the Carlovingians-Four kingdoms-In France, fifty-five important fiefs-Explanation of this dismemberment-Their insufficiency— One only, the diversity of races, developed by M. Thierry, is probable, but incomplete-The true cause is the impossibility of a great state at that epoch, and the progressive rise of the local societies which formed the feudal confederation.

WE read in a chronicle of the century in which Charlemagne died:

"Charles, who was always travelling, arrived by chance unexpectedly at a certain maritime town of Narbonnese Gaul. Whilst he was dining, and was as yet unknown by any one, Norman corsairs came to execute their piracies even in the port. When the people saw the vessels, they supposed that they were merchants; according to these, Jews; according to those, Africans; according to others, Britons; but the able monarch, perceiving by the construction and speed of the vessels that they carried not merchants, but enemies, said to his people: These vessels are not filled with merchandise but with cruel enemies.' At these words, all his Franks, in emulation of one another, ran to their vessels, but in vain. The Normans, learning that he whom they used to call Charles le Marteau, was there, feared least their whole fleet should be taken in his port, or perish by wreck; and they

avoided, by an inconceivably rapid flight, not only the sword, but even the eyes of those who followed them. Still the religious Charles, seized with a just awe, rising from the table, went to the window which looked towards the east, and long remained, with a countenance covered with tears. No one daring to interrogate him, this valiant prince, explaining to the great men who surrounded him the cause of his action and his tears, said to them: Know you, my friends, why I weep so bitterly? Truly, I fear not that these men should succeed in harming me by their miserable piracies; but I am deeply affected that, I living, they have dared to touch this shore; and I am troubled with a violent sorrow when I foresee with what evils they will overwhelm my successors and their people." "1

By a singular chance, we know the precise date of this anecdote: it was written about the month of June 884-that is to say, seventy years after the death of Charlemagne, from the account of a man who had taken part in many of his expeditions against the Saxons, the Slaves, the Avares, &c. Omitting the emphasis and tears, which the chronicler doubtless added, we see therein that at the end of his life Charlemagne was occupied with the perils which menaced his kingdom on all sides. Many other texts, less precise, indicate the same uneasiness in him. He was still, surely, very far from foreseeing how brief a space this empire would survive him, and to what a degree the dissolution would be carried.

I do not propose recounting to you the events of this dissolution, but I wish to place before you the principal crises, and to point out their causes.

It took place between the death of Charlemagne in 814, and the accession of Hugh Capet in 987. All this epoch was employed in the accomplishment of this great work. It was by the fall of the race of the Carlovingians, and the accession of the Capetians, that it was definitively consummated.

At the death of Charlemagne, his empire extended from the north-east to the south-west, from the Elbe in Germany

Faits et Gestes de Charles le Grand, by a monk of Saint Loup, in my Collection des Memoires relatifs à l'Histoire de France, vol. iii. p. 251.

to the Ebro in Spain; from north to south, it extended from the North Sea to Calabria, almost at the extremity of Italy. His power was, doubtless, exercised very unequally in this vast territory; upon many points he was not obeyed,—people did not even hear him spoken of, and he cared not for this: that was still his empire.

At the end of twenty-nine years, in 843, after the treaty of Verdun, by which the sons of Louis le Debonnaire, Lothaire, Charles le Chauve, and Louis le Germanique, shared this empire, this was its arrangement: it formed three kingdoms, divided according to this table:—

Table of the Dismemberment of the Empire of Charlemagne, in 843.

Let it not be supposed that each of these kingdoms was compact unity; in that of France, the only one concerning which we have especially to occupy ourselves, two princes, Pepin II., in Aquitaine, (from the year 835), and Nomenoé in Brittany, (from the year 840), likewise assumed the title of king, and took from Charles le Chauve the sovereignty of a considerable portion of his territory.

The dismemberment followed its course: forty-five years after this epoch, in 888, on the death of Charles le Gros, the last of the Carlovingians, who seemed to unite for a moment all the states of Charlemagne, this was the point to which it had come. Instead of three kingdoms, we find seven: