824-828 824-987 Prince in the Diets of the Empire. During that magnificent ceremonial, when Harold the Dane performed homage, Charles is described by an eye-witness as joyfully coursing along the marble pavement before them : Anxieties of Louis-le for the ment and safety of Charles. Ante patrem pulcher Carolus inclitus auro Lætus abit, plantis marmora pulsat ovans. Procedit. The unshaken confidence of Louis-le-débonnaire in Count Bernard we have already noticed. He was brought higher into trust, treated as the most intimate friend of the imperial family; and the Count of Septimania was intruded as an imperial vicar into the dominions of Louis-leGermanique, certainly trenching upon the privileges of that son. § 3. The paternal fondness of Louis-le-dédébonnaire bonnaire for his young Charles was now darkestablish- ening into the great trouble of his reign and life. The tripartite division of the Empire between Lothair, Pepin and Louis-le-Germanique was intended to be final and conclusive. Advisedly promulgating the grant upon the request of the States of the Empire, Louis had placed his sons in possession. Again, in the Placitum at Nimeguen, the Prelates and Nobles confirmed the compact, equally appertaining to the Sovereigns and the people. Consistently with this ratification, this act of settlement, what provision could be made for the young Charles? Louis-le 824-828 débonnaire had scarcely anything left to him 824-987 worth acceptance which he could bestow: an abbey, when one should become vacant, was the only valuable appanage he could grant: the best of these preferments were appropriated and the Court filled with greedy expectants for the first which should open to competition. But all doubts and uncertainties must have merged in a more fearful anticipative inquiry: how was Louis to protect the freedom, the life of his child? How would the Emperor Lothair, King Pepin and King Louis act towards the son of the suspected, defamed and hated step-mother-a half-brother, excluded by the legislative entail? They, however did not allow him even this claim to consanguinity. The sons of Hermengarda, or their partizans, asserted that "Charlot" was an adulterine bastard, a mamzer, no brother at all. Perhaps, according to family custom, they would cause him to be degraded, or shorn in a monastery, like Hugh and Drogo and Thierry, or condemn him to death upon suspicion, and then pardoning him. like King Bernard, as a great mercy put out his eyes. 828. débonnaire Lothair to assent to In this strait, Judith unquestionably co- Louis-leoperating, the hopes and plans of Louis turned treats with wholly to the one object of securing a Kingdom for Charles: a desire which could not be without a radical unsettlement of the revoking the act declared to be irrevocable. the endow effected ment of Empire, the expence Charles at of Louis-le He German 824-987 might be encouraged in this dangerous attempt by the discontents which the Charta divisionis 824-829 and the Treaty of Nimeguen had already occasioned amongst the benefitted parties. A political schism had arisen between the three crowned brothers: Pepin and Louis-le-Germanique groaned at their senior's supremacy, and the senior because his seniority north of the Alps was imperfectly defined. Lothair, the Emperor, might not have any objection to sanction a further subdivision of his brothers' portions in Germany and the Gauls, by which process their powers would be diminished. Louis therefore treated with Lothair secretly, and obtained his assent to the promotion and endowment of Charles-le-Chauve. Louis-le-débonnaire proposed that the endowment should be effected at the expence of Louis-le-Germanique, a fourth partition of the Empire. Louisle-débonnaire planned that this new kingdom should be composed of the territories of which Duke Bernard had assumed the government,"Alemannia, Rhætia and Transjurane Burgundy," a territory wholly of the German tongue. A Worms, Diet was convened at Worms, to which all the fourth par 829. Council at tition of the sons were summoned. Pepin kept away. LoAlemannia, thair retracted his dishonest consent, united Empire: &c. taken le-Germa from Louis- himself to Louis-le-Germanique: both were afnique, and fronted and offended in the highest degree, and given to Charles-le- testified against the dismemberment. But Louis Chauve. 829-830 le-débonnaire persevered: the before-mentioned 824-987 dominions were given to Charles; and the young Prince, placed under Bernard's care, was sent to take possession of the newly erected realm. This was the fourth partition of the empire. The education of Charles was entrusted to Bernard, and, notwithstanding the troubles of the times, pursued steadily.. cultivation of Charlesle-Chauve. Charles-le-Chauve became as well imbued Literary with literature as his father and his grandsire, and talent Important chronicles by which we now profit, owe their origin to the liberal obedience which his suggestions commanded. His court was the resort of the learned, whom he encouraged by munificence, but more efficiently by example and generous rivalry. An acute metaphysical theologian, he delighted in epistolary discussions, exercising the ability of opponent and respondent. Charlemagne gave to the Western Church the sublime hymn Veni Creator: his grandson, instructed by the example, cultivated the same noble talent, and his compositions were adopted in the Gallican liturgies.-An expressive token of his classical taste may be discerned in the name Carlopolis, by which he sought to honour his favourite palace-Compiègne, and the city he there designed to found. § 4. Louis-le-débonnaire, aware of the 829-830. machinations forming against him and Judith, of the re VOL. I. T Progress 829-830 volution : part taken by Wala 824-987 trusted the more implicitly to Count Bernard, accumulating upon this minion every token of confidence. The attacks directed against the active favourite were construed into evidences of his loyalty. This conduct accelerated the progress of the revolution. The rays of general discontent acquire their fiercest heat when concentrated upon the one hated head. No political change is so strenuously prosecuted, as when the propelling agents are vivified by their antipathy to the one man singled out for the sacrifice: the abstract sentiment concreted by individual feeling, national grievances exaggerated by particular jealousy. Or it may be asked whether any popular movement ever takes place until circumstances render some one man the visible and tangible mark of rancour, rightly or wrongly entertained. Laud swung down the monarchy in the person of Charles Stuart Judge Jefferies determined the Revolution. Count Bernard was of peculiar hated by the Emperor Lothair, by King Pepin and Bernard the object enmity. by King Louis-le-Germanique, as the efficient supporter of their detested pseudo-brother Charles. Equally so by Archbishop Agobard, possibly on account of his immorality; but worst of all was Bernard hated by his own brother-in-law Wala, his loudest, most inveterate, most cogent and dogged accuser. It is a strange moral insanity that kindred can rarely see the absurdity of befouling their own nest. The close connexion |