administration of Charlemagne ; lastly, he comes to his do mestic life, his personal character.

It is evident that this is not written at hazard, without plan or aim; we here recognize 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 history 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 splendor 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 revolution.

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 century3. 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 merchandize, 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 lest 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.'

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, 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 em

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

pire, this was its arrangement: it formed three kingdoms, divided according to this table :

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

It comprehend- It comprehend- It comprehended, 1. Italy, ed the countries ed the countries with the exception of Calabria; situated between situated between 2. The countries situated bethe Scheldt, the the Meuse, the Saone, north the Rhone, the Elbe, Mediterranean, Alps. the Ebro, and the Ocean.

Rhine,
sea,
and

the tween the Rhone, the Saone, and the the Meuse, to the West, the the Rhine, and the Alps to the East, that is, Provence, Dauphine, Savoy, Switzerland, la FrancheComté, a part of Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace, and a part of the Netherlands.

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:

7*

Table of the Dismemberment of the Empire of Charlemagne, about the end of the Ninth Century.

Extent.

The countries included between the Scheldt, the Meuse, the Saone, the Rhone, the Pyrenees, and the Ocean, and a portion of the north of Spain beyond the Pyrenees, formerly the county of Barcelona.

Almost all the north of Spain, between the Pyrenees and the Ebro.

The countries included between the Saone, the Rhone, the Alps, the Jura, and the Mediterranean.

The countries between the Jura, the Pennine Alps, and the Reuss, that is, Switzerland, Valais, the country of Geneva, Chablais, and Bugey.

The countries between the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt.

The countries between the Rhine, the North Sea, the Elbe, the Oder, and the Alps.

All Italy to the frontier of the kingdom of Naples, then the principality of Bénévento, and Calabria.

I return to the internal state of the kingdom of France. In 843, two princes only, a king of Aquitaine, and a duke of Brittany, shared his territories with Charles le Chauve. In 888, the dismemberment was carried still farther, and by a cause which was not destined to stop. Every one knows that the possessors of domains and royal offices, that is to say, the beneficiaries and the dukes, counts, viscounts, centeniers, and other governors of provinces or districts, were constantly bent upon rendering themselves independent and hereditary, and assuring themselves the perpetual possession of their lands and governments. In 877, we find a capitulary of Charles le Chauve conceived in the following terms: