1

CHAP. Conspirators dispersed the unarmed multitude,
XLIX. and assaulted with blows and wounds the sa-
cred person of the pope. But their enterprise
on his life or liberty was disappointed, perhaps
by their own confusion and remorse.
Leo was
left for dead on the ground; on his revival from
the swoon, the effect of his loss of blood, he re-
covered his speech and sight; and this natural
event was improved to the miraculous restora-
tion of his eyes and tongue, of which he had
been deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of
the assassins. From his prison, he escaped to
the Vatican; the duke of Spoleto hastened to
his rescue, Charlemagne sympathised in his in-
jury, and in his camp of Paderborn in West-
phalia accepted or solicited a visit from the Ro-
man pontiff. Leo repassed the Alps with a
commission of counts and bishops, the guards
of his safety and the judges of his innocence;
and it was not without reluctance, that the con-
queror of the Saxons delayed till the ensuing
year the personal discharge of this pious office.
In his fourth and last pilgrimage, he was re-
ceived at Rome with the due honours of king
and patrician: Leo was permitted to purge
himself by oath of the crimes imputed to his
charge his enemies were silenced, and the sa-

y The assurance of Anastasius (tom. iii, pars i, p. 197, 198) is sup-
ported by the credulity of some French aunalists; but Eginhard, and
other writers of the same age, are more natural and sincere.
"Unus
"ei oculus pauilulum est læsus," says John the deacon of Naples,
(Vit. Episcop. Napol in Scriptores Muratori, tom. i, pars ii, p. 312).
Theodolphus, a contemporary bishop of Orleans, observes with pru-
dence, (1. iii, carm. 3),

Reddita sunt? mirum est: mirum est auferre nequisse.
Est tamen in dubio, hinc mirer aut inde magis.

XLIX.

crilegious attempt against his life was punished CHAP. by the mild and insufficient penalty of exile. On the festival of Christmas, the last year of the eighth century, Charlemagne appeared in the church of St. Peter; and, to gratify the vanity of Rome, he had exchanged the simple dress of his country for the habit of a patrician. After the celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo suddenly placed a precious crown on his head,a and the dome resounded with the acclamations of the people.-" Long life and vic"tory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, "crowned by God the great and pacific em

peror of the Romans!" The head and body of Charlemagne were consecrated by the royal unction: after the example of the Cæsars he was saluted or adored by the pontiff; his coronation-oath represents a promise to maintain the faith and privileges of the church; and the first fruits were paid in his rich offerings to the shrine of the apostle. In his familiar conversation, the emperor protested his ignorance of the intentions of Leo, which he would have disappointed by his absence on that memorable day. But the preparations of the ceremony must

z Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, he appeared at Romelongâ tunicâ et chlamyde amictus, et calceamentis quoque Romano more formatis. Eginhard (c. xxiii, p. 109-113) describes, like Suetonius, the simplicity of his dress, so popular in the nation, that when Charles the Bald returned to France in a foreign habit, the patriotic dogs barked at the apostate, (Gaillard. Vie de Charlemagne, tom. iv, p. 109).

See Anastasius (p. 199) and Eginhard, (c. xxviii, p. 124-128). The unction is mentioned by Theophanes, (p. 399), the oath by Sigomus, (from the Ordo Romanus), and the pope's adoration more antiquorum principum, by the Annales Bertiniani, (Script. Murator. tom. ii, pars ii, p. 505).

XLIX.

CHAP. have disclosed the secret; and the journey of Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and expectation: he had acknowledged that the imperial title was the object of his ambition, and a Roman senate had pronounced, that it was the only adequate reward of his merit and services.

Reign and

character

magne,

814.

The appellation of great has been often beof Charle- stowed and sometimes deserved, but CHARLE1. D. 768- MAGNE is the only prince in whose favour the title has been indissolubly blended with the name. That name, with the addition of saint, is inserted in the Roman calendar; and the saint, by a rare felicity, is crowned with the praises of the historians and philosophers of an enlightened age. His real merit is doubtless enhanced by the barbarism of the nation and the times from which he emerged: but the apparent magnitude of an object is likewise enlarged by an unequal comparison; and the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual splendour from the nakedness of the surrounding desert. Without injustice to his fame, I may discern

This great event of the translation or restoration of the empire, is related and discussed by Natalis Alexander, (secul. ix, dissert. i, p. 390397); Pagi, (tom. iii, p. 418); Muratori, (Aunali d'Italia, tom. vi, p. 339-352); Sigonius, (de Reguo Italiæ, l. iv; Opp. tom. ii, p. 247-251; Spanheim, de fictà Translatione Imperii); Giannone, (tom. i, p. 395405); St. Marc, (Abregé Chronologique, tom. i, p. 438-450); Gaillard, (Hist. de Charlemagne, tom. ii, p. 386-446). Almost all these moderns have some religious or national bias.

C

By Mably, (Observations sur l'Histoire de France); Voltaire, (Histoire Generale); Robertson, (History. of Charles V), and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, 1. xxxi, c. 18). In the year 1782, M. Gaillard published his Histoire Charlemagne, (in 4 vols 12mo), which I have freely and profitably used. The author is a man of sense and humanity; and his work is laboured with industry and elegance. But I have likewise examined the original monuments of the reigus of Pepin and Charlemagne, in the vth volume of the Historians of France.

с

XLIX.

some blemishes in the sanctity and greatness of CHAP. the restorer of the western empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is not the most conspicuous; but the public happiness could not be materially injured by his nine wives or concubines, the various indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the long celibacy and licentious manners of his daughters, whom the father was suspected of loving with too fond a passion. I shall be scarcely permitted to accuse the ambition of a conqueror; but in a day of equal retribution, the sons of his brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes of Aquitain, and the four thousand five hundred Saxons who were beheaded on the same spot, would have something to allege against the justice and humanity of Charlemagne. His treatment of the vanquished Saxons was an abuse of the right of conquest; his laws

The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven years after the death of Charlemagne, shews him in purgatory, with a vulture who is perpetually gnawing the guilty member, while the rest of his body, the emblem of his virtues, is sound and perfect, (see Gaillard, tom. ii, p. 317-360).

* The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the probrum aud suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without excepting his own wife, (c. xix, p. 98-100, cum Notis Scqmincke). The husband must have been too

strong for the historian.

Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain of death was pronounced against the following crimes.-1. The refusal of baptism. 2. The false pretence of baptism. 3. A relapse to idolatry. 4. The murder of a priest or bishop. 5. Human sacrifices. 6. Eating meat in Lent. But every crime night be expiated by baptism or penance, (Gaillard, tom. ii, p. 241-247): and the Christian Saxous became the friends and equals of the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicæ, p. 133).

XLIX.

CHAP. were not less sanguinary than his arms, and in the discussion of his motives, whatever is subtracted from bigotry must be imputed to teinper. The sedentary reader is amazed by his incessant activity of mind and body; and his subjects and enemies were not less astonished at his sudden presence, at the moment when they believed him at the most distant extremity of the empire; neither peace nor war, nor suminer nor winter, were a season of repose: and our fancy cannot easily reconcile the annals of his reign with the geography of his expeditions. But this activity was a national rather than a personal virtue; the vagrant life of a Frank was spent in the chace, in pilgrimage, in military adventures; and the journeys of Charleinagne were distinguished only by a more numerous train and a more important purpose. His military renown must be tried by the scrutiny of his troops, his enemies, and his actions. Alexander conquered with the arms of Philip, but the two heroes who preceded Charlemagne, bequeathed him their name, their examples, and the companions of their victories. At the head of his veteran and superior armies, he oppressed the savage or degenerate nations, who were incapable of confederating for their common safety: nor did he ever encounter an equal antagonist in numbers, in discipline, or in arms. The science of war has been lost and revived with the arts of peace; but his campaigns are not illustrated by any siege or battle of singular difficulty and success; and he might behold, with envy, the Saracen trophies of hi