Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part IV

It was after the Nycene synod, and under the reign of the pious
Irene, that the popes consummated the separation of Rome and
Italy, by the translation of the empire to the less orthodox
Charlemagne. They were compelled to choose between the rival
nations: religion was not the sole motive of their choice; and
while they dissembled the failings of their friends, they beheld,
with reluctance and suspicion, the Catholic virtues of their
foes. The difference of language and manners had perpetuated the
enmity of the two capitals; and they were alienated from each
other by the hostile opposition of seventy years. In that schism
the Romans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of sovereignty:
their submission would have exposed them to the revenge of a
jealous tyrant; and the revolution of Italy had betrayed the
impotence, as well as the tyranny, of the Byzantine court. The
Greek emperors had restored the images, but they had not restored
the Calabrian estates 85 and the Illyrian diocese, 86 which the
Iconociasts had torn away from the successors of St. Peter; and
Pope Adrian threatens them with a sentence of excommunication
unless they speedily abjure this practical heresy. 87 The Greeks
were now orthodox; but their religion might be tainted by the
breath of the reigning monarch: the Franks were now contumacious;
but a discerning eye might discern their approaching conversion,
from the use, to the adoration, of images. The name of
Charlemagne was stained by the polemic acrimony of his scribes;
but the conqueror himself conformed, with the temper of a
statesman, to the various practice of France and Italy. In his
four pilgrimages or visits to the Vatican, he embraced the popes
in the communion of friendship and piety; knelt before the tomb,
and consequently before the image, of the apostle; and joined,
without scruple, in all the prayers and processions of the Roman
liturgy. Would prudence or gratitude allow the pontiffs to
renounce their benefactor? Had they a right to alienate his gift
of the Exarchate? Had they power to abolish his government of
Rome? The title of patrician was below the merit and greatness of
Charlemagne; and it was only by reviving the Western empire that
they could pay their obligations or secure their establishment.
By this decisive measure they would finally eradicate the claims
of the Greeks; from the debasement of a provincial town, the
majesty of Rome would be restored: the Latin Christians would be
united, under a supreme head, in their ancient metropolis; and
the conquerors of the West would receive their crown from the
successors of St. Peter. The Roman church would acquire a zealous
and respectable advocate; and, under the shadow of the
Carlovingian power, the bishop might exercise, with honor and
safety, the government of the city. 88

85 (return) [ Theophanes (p. 343) specifies those of Sicily and
Calabria, which yielded an annual rent of three talents and a
half of gold, (perhaps 7000 L. sterling.) Liutprand more
pompously enumerates the patrimonies of the Roman church in
Greece, Judaea, Persia, Mesopotamia Babylonia, Egypt, and Libya,
which were detained by the injustice of the Greek emperor,
(Legat. ad Nicephorum, in Script. Rerum Italica rum, tom. ii.
pars i. p. 481.)]

86 (return) [ The great diocese of the Eastern Illyricum, with
Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, (Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise,
tom. i. p. 145: ) by the confession of the Greeks, the patriarch
of Constantinople had detached from Rome the metropolitans of
Thessalonica, Athens Corinth, Nicopolis, and Patrae, (Luc.
Holsten. Geograph. Sacra, p. 22) and his spiritual conquests
extended to Naples and Amalphi (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i.
p. 517-524, Pagi, A. D 780, No. 11.)]

87 (return) [ In hoc ostenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab errore
reversis, in aliis duobus, in eodem (was it the same?) permaneant
errore.... de diocessi S. R. E. seu de patrimoniis iterum
increpantes commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit hereticum
eum pro hujusmodi errore perseverantia decernemus, (Epist.
Hadrian. Papae ad Carolum Magnum, in Concil. tom. viii. p. 1598;)
to which he adds a reason, most directly opposite to his conduct,
that he preferred the salvation of souls and rule of faith to the
goods of this transitory world.]

88 (return) [ Fontanini considers the emperors as no more than
the advocates of the church, (advocatus et defensor S. R. E. See
Ducange, Gloss Lat. tom. i. p. 297.) His antagonist Muratori
reduces the popes to be no more than the exarchs of the emperor.
In the more equitable view of Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles.
p. 264, 265,) they held Rome under the empire as the most
honorable species of fief or benefice—premuntur nocte
caliginosa!]

Before the ruin of Paganism in Rome, the competition for a
wealthy bishopric had often been productive of tumult and
bloodshed. The people was less numerous, but the times were more
savage, the prize more important, and the chair of St. Peter was
fiercely disputed by the leading ecclesiastics who aspired to the
rank of sovereign. The reign of Adrian the First 89 surpasses the
measure of past or succeeding ages; 90 the walls of Rome, the
sacred patrimony, the ruin of the Lombards, and the friendship of
Charlemagne, were the trophies of his fame: he secretly edified
the throne of his successors, and displayed in a narrow space the
virtues of a great prince. His memory was revered; but in the
next election, a priest of the Lateran, Leo the Third, was
preferred to the nephew and the favorite of Adrian, whom he had
promoted to the first dignities of the church. Their acquiescence
or repentance disguised, above four years, the blackest intention
of revenge, till the day of a procession, when a furious band of
conspirators dispersed the unarmed multitude, and assaulted with
blows and wounds the sacred 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 recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event
was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and
tongue, of which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the
knife of the assassins. 91 From his prison he escaped to the
Vatican: the duke of Spoleto hastened to his rescue, Charlemagne
sympathized in his injury, and in his camp of Paderborn in
Westphalia accepted, or solicited, a visit from the Roman
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 conqueror
of the Saxons delayed till the ensuing year the personal
discharge of this pious office. In his fourth and last
pilgrimage, he was received at Rome with the due honors 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
sacrilegious attempt against his life was punished 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. 92 After the celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo
suddenly placed a precious crown on his head, 93 and the dome
resounded with the acclamations of the people, “Long life and
victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the
great and pacific emperor of the Romans!” The head and body of
Charlemagne were consecrated by the royal unction: after the
example of the Caesars, 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 his apostle. In his familiar
conversation, the emperor protested the 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 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 synod had pronounced, that it was the only
adequate reward of his merit and services. 94

89 (return) [ His merits and hopes are summed up in an epitaph of
thirty-eight-verses, of which Charlemagne declares himself the
author, (Concil. tom. viii. p. 520.) Post patrem lacrymans
Carolus haec carmina scripsi. Tu mihi dulcis amor, te modo plango
pater... Nomina jungo simul titulis, clarissime, nostra Adrianus,
Carolus, rex ego, tuque pater. The poetry might be supplied by
Alcuin; but the tears, the most glorious tribute, can only belong
to Charlemagne.]

90 (return) [ Every new pope is admonished—“Sancte Pater, non
videbis annos Petri,” twenty-five years. On the whole series the
average is about eight years—a short hope for an ambitious
cardinal.]

91 (return) [ The assurance of Anastasius (tom. iii. pars i. p.
197, 198) is supported by the credulity of some French annalists;
but Eginhard, and other writers of the same age, are more natural
and sincere. “Unus ei oculus paullulum est laesus,” 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 prudence (l. iii. carm. 3.) Reddita sunt?
mirum est: mirum est auferre nequtsse. Est tamen in dubio, hinc
mirer an inde magis.]

92 (return) [ Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, he
appeared at Rome,—longa tunica 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.)]

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

94 (return) [ This great event of the translation or restoration
of the empire is related and discussed by Natalis Alexander,
(secul. ix. dissert. i. p. 390-397,) Pagi, (tom. iii. p. 418,)
Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 339-352,) Sigonius, (de
Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opp. tom. ii. p. 247-251,) Spanheim, (de
ficta Translatione Imperii,) Giannone, (tom. i. p. 395-405,) St.
Marc, (Abrege 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.]

The appellation of great has been often bestowed, and sometimes
deserved; but Charlemagne is the only prince in whose favor 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. 95 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 splendor from the nakedness
of the surrounding desert. Without injustice to his fame, I may
discern some blemishes in the sanctity and greatness of the
restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is
not the most conspicuous: 96 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, 97 whom
the father was suspected of loving with too fond a passion. 971 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
98 was an abuse of the right of conquest; his laws were not less
sanguinary than his arms, and in the discussion of his motives,
whatever is subtracted from bigotry must be imputed to temper.
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 summer nor winter, were a season of repose; and our fancy
cannot easily reconcile the annals of his reign with the
geography of his expeditions. 981 But this activity was a
national, rather than a personal, virtue; the vagrant life of a
Frank was spent in the chase, in pilgrimage, in military
adventures; and the journeys of Charlemagne 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 his grandfather. After the Spanish
expedition, his rear-guard was defeated in the Pyrenaean
mountains; and the soldiers, whose situation was irretrievable,
and whose valor was useless, might accuse, with their last
breath, the want of skill or caution of their general. 99 I touch
with reverence the laws of Charlemagne, so highly applauded by a
respectable judge. They compose not a system, but a series, of
occasional and minute edicts, for the correction of abuses, the
reformation of manners, the economy of his farms, the care of his
poultry, and even the sale of his eggs. He wished to improve the
laws and the character of the Franks; and his attempts, however
feeble and imperfect, are deserving of praise: the inveterate
evils of the times were suspended or mollified by his government;
100 but in his institutions I can seldom discover the general
views and the immortal spirit of a legislator, who survives
himself for the benefit of posterity. The union and stability of
his empire depended on the life of a single man: he imitated the
dangerous practice of dividing his kingdoms among his sons; and
after his numerous diets, the whole constitution was left to
fluctuate between the disorders of anarchy and despotism. His
esteem for the piety and knowledge of the clergy tempted him to
intrust that aspiring order with temporal dominion and civil
jurisdiction; and his son Lewis, when he was stripped and
degraded by the bishops, might accuse, in some measure, the
imprudence of his father. His laws enforced the imposition of
tithes, because the daemons had proclaimed in the air that the
default of payment had been the cause of the last scarcity. 101
The literary merits of Charlemagne are attested by the foundation
of schools, the introduction of arts, the works which were
published in his name, and his familiar connection with the
subjects and strangers whom he invited to his court to educate
both the prince and people. His own studies were tardy,
laborious, and imperfect; if he spoke Latin, and understood
Greek, he derived the rudiments of knowledge from conversation,
rather than from books; and, in his mature age, the emperor
strove to acquire the practice of writing, which every peasant
now learns in his infancy. 102 The grammar and logic, the music
and astronomy, of the times, were only cultivated as the
handmaids of superstition; but the curiosity of the human mind
must ultimately tend to its improvement, and the encouragement of
learning reflects the purest and most pleasing lustre on the
character of Charlemagne. 103 The dignity of his person, 104 the
length of his reign, the prosperity of his arms, the vigor of his
government, and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish him
from the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new aera from his
restoration of the Western empire.

95 (return) [ By Mably, (Observations sur l’Histoire de France,)
Voltaire, (Histoire Generale,) Robertson, (History of Charles
V.,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 18.) In the
year 1782, M. Gaillard published his Histoire de Charlemagne, (in
4 vols. in 12mo.,) which I have freely and profitably used. The
author is a man of sense and humanity; and his work is labored
with industry and elegance. But I have likewise examined the
original monuments of the reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, in the
5th volume of the Historians of France.]

96 (return) [ The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven
years after the death of Charlemagne, shows 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.)]

97 (return) [ The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of
Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the
probum and suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without
excepting his own wife, (c. xix. p. 98-100, cum Notis Schmincke.)
The husband must have been too strong for the historian.]

971 (return) [ This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly
observes, “seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage
of Eginhard.” Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol.i. p. 16.—M.]

98 (return) [ 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 might
be expiated by baptism or penance, (Gaillard, tom. ii. p.
241-247;) and the Christian Saxons became the friends and equals
of the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p.133.)]

981 (return) [ M. Guizot (Cours d’Histoire Moderne, p. 270, 273)
has compiled the following statement of Charlemagne’s military
campaigns:—

1. Against the Aquitanians.
18. ” the Saxons.
5. ” the Lombards.
7. ” the Arabs in Spain.
1. ” the Thuringians.
4. ” the Avars.
2. ” the Bretons.
1. ” the Bavarians.
4. ” the Slaves beyond the Elbe
5. ” the Saracens in Italy.
3. ” the Danes.
2. ” the Greeks. ___
53 total.—M.]

99 (return) [ In this action the famous Rutland, Rolando,
Orlando, was slain—cum compluribus aliis. See the truth in
Eginhard, (c. 9, p. 51-56,) and the fable in an ingenious
Supplement of M. Gaillard, (tom. iii. p. 474.) The Spaniards are
too proud of a victory, which history ascribes to the Gascons,
and romance to the Saracens. * Note: In fact, it was a sudden
onset of the Gascons, assisted by the Beaure mountaineers, and
possibly a few Navarrese.—M.]

100 (return) [ Yet Schmidt, from the best authorities, represents
the interior disorders and oppression of his reign, (Hist. des
Allemands, tom. ii. p. 45-49.)]

101 (return) [ Omnis homo ex sua proprietate legitimam decimam ad
ecclesiam conferat. Experimento enim didicimus, in anno, quo illa
valida fames irrepsit, ebullire vacuas annonas a daemonibus
devoratas, et voces exprobationis auditas. Such is the decree and
assertion of the great Council of Frankfort, (canon xxv. tom. ix.
p. 105.) Both Selden (Hist. of Tithes; Works, vol. iii. part ii.
p. 1146) and Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 12)
represent Charlemagne as the first legal author of tithes. Such
obligations have country gentlemen to his memory!]

102 (return) [ Eginhard (c. 25, p. 119) clearly affirms, tentabat
et scribere... sed parum prospere successit labor praeposterus et
sero inchoatus. The moderns have perverted and corrected this
obvious meaning, and the title of M. Gaillard’s dissertation
(tom. iii. p. 247-260) betrays his partiality. * Note: This point
has been contested; but Mr. Hallam and Monsieur Sismondl concur
with Gibbon. See Middle Ages, iii. 330, Histoire de Francais,
tom. ii. p. 318. The sensible observations of the latter are
quoted in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii. p. 451. Fleury, I
may add, quotes from Mabillon a remarkable evidence that
Charlemagne “had a mark to himself like an honest, plain-dealing
man.” Ibid.—M.]

103 (return) [ See Gaillard, tom. iii. p. 138-176, and Schmidt,
tom. ii. p. 121-129.]

104 (return) [ M. Gaillard (tom. iii. p. 372) fixes the true
stature of Charlemagne (see a Dissertation of Marquard Freher ad
calcem Eginhart, p. 220, &c.) at five feet nine inches of French,
about six feet one inch and a fourth English, measure. The
romance writers have increased it to eight feet, and the giant
was endowed with matchless strength and appetite: at a single
stroke of his good sword Joyeuse, he cut asunder a horseman and
his horse; at a single repast, he devoured a goose, two fowls, a
quarter of mutton, &c.]

That empire was not unworthy of its title; 105 and some of the
fairest kingdoms of Europe were the patrimony or conquest of a
prince, who reigned at the same time in France, Spain, Italy,
Germany, and Hungary. 106 I. The Roman province of Gaul had been
transformed into the name and monarchy of France; but, in the
decay of the Merovingian line, its limits were contracted by the
independence of the Britons and the revolt of Aquitain.
Charlemagne pursued, and confined, the Britons on the shores of
the ocean; and that ferocious tribe, whose origin and language
are so different from the French, was chastised by the imposition
of tribute, hostages, and peace. After a long and evasive
contest, the rebellion of the dukes of Aquitain was punished by
the forfeiture of their province, their liberty, and their lives.

Harsh and rigorous would have been such treatment of ambitious
governors, who had too faithfully copied the mayors of the
palace. But a recent discovery 107 has proved that these unhappy
princes were the last and lawful heirs of the blood and sceptre
of Clovis, and younger branch, from the brother of Dagobert, of
the Merovingian house. Their ancient kingdom was reduced to the
duchy of Gascogne, to the counties of Fesenzac and Armagnac, at
the foot of the Pyrenees: their race was propagated till the
beginning of the sixteenth century; and after surviving their
Carlovingian tyrants, they were reserved to feel the injustice,
or the favors, of a third dynasty. By the reunion of Aquitain,
France was enlarged to its present boundaries, with the additions
of the Netherlands and Spain, as far as the Rhine. II.

The Saracens had been expelled from France by the grandfather and
father of Charlemagne; but they still possessed the greatest part
of Spain, from the rock of Gibraltar to the Pyrenees. Amidst
their civil divisions, an Arabian emir of Saragossa implored his
protection in the diet of Paderborn. Charlemagne undertook the
expedition, restored the emir, and, without distinction of faith,
impartially crushed the resistance of the Christians, and
rewarded the obedience and services of the Mahometans. In his
absence he instituted the Spanish march, 108 which extended from
the Pyrenees to the River Ebro: Barcelona was the residence of
the French governor: he possessed the counties of Rousillon and
Catalonia; and the infant kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon were
subject to his jurisdiction. III. As king of the Lombards, and
patrician of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of Italy,
109 a tract of a thousand miles from the Alps to the borders of
Calabria. The duchy of Beneventum, a Lombard fief, had spread, at
the expense of the Greeks, over the modern kingdom of Naples. But
Arrechis, the reigning duke, refused to be included in the
slavery of his country; assumed the independent title of prince;
and opposed his sword to the Carlovingian monarchy. His defence
was firm, his submission was not inglorious, and the emperor was
content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his fortresses,
and the acknowledgement, on his coins, of a supreme lord. The
artful flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation of
father, but he asserted his dignity with prudence, and Benventum
insensibly escaped from the French yoke. 110 IV. Charlemagne was
the first who united Germany under the same sceptre. The name of
Oriental France is preserved in the circle of Franconia; and the
people of Hesse and Thuringia were recently incorporated with the
victors, by the conformity of religion and government. The
Alemanni, so formidable to the Romans, were the faithful vassals
and confederates of the Franks; and their country was inscribed
within the modern limits of Alsace, Swabia, and Switzerland. The
Bavarians, with a similar indulgence of their laws and manners,
were less patient of a master: the repeated treasons of Tasillo
justified the abolition of their hereditary dukes; and their
power was shared among the counts, who judged and guarded that
important frontier. But the north of Germany, from the Rhine and
beyond the Elbe, was still hostile and Pagan; nor was it till
after a war of thirty-three years that the Saxons bowed under the
yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne. The idols and their votaries
were extirpated: the foundation of eight bishoprics, of Munster,
Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and Minden, of Bremen, Verden, Hildesheim,
and Halberstadt, define, on either side of the Weser, the bounds
of ancient Saxony these episcopal seats were the first schools
and cities of that savage land; and the religion and humanity of
the children atoned, in some degree, for the massacre of the
parents. Beyond the Elbe, the Slavi, or Sclavonians, of similar
manners and various denominations, overspread the modern
dominions of Prussia, Poland, and Bohemia, and some transient
marks of obedience have tempted the French historian to extend
the empire to the Baltic and the Vistula. The conquest or
conversion of those countries is of a more recent age; but the
first union of Bohemia with the Germanic body may be justly
ascribed to the arms of Charlemagne. V. He retaliated on the
Avars, or Huns of Pannonia, the same calamities which they had
inflicted on the nations. Their rings, the wooden fortifications
which encircled their districts and villages, were broken down by
the triple effort of a French army, that was poured into their
country by land and water, through the Carpathian mountains and
along the plain of the Danube. After a bloody conflict of eight
years, the loss of some French generals was avenged by the
slaughter of the most noble Huns: the relics of the nation
submitted the royal residence of the chagan was left desolate and
unknown; and the treasures, the rapine of two hundred and fifty
years, enriched the victorious troops, or decorated the churches
of Italy and Gaul. 111 After the reduction of Pannonia, the
empire of Charlemagne was bounded only by the conflux of the
Danube with the Teyss and the Save: the provinces of Istria,
Liburnia, and Dalmatia, were an easy, though unprofitable,
accession; and it was an effect of his moderation, that he left
the maritime cities under the real or nominal sovereignty of the
Greeks. But these distant possessions added more to the
reputation than to the power of the Latin emperor; nor did he
risk any ecclesiastical foundations to reclaim the Barbarians
from their vagrant life and idolatrous worship. Some canals of
communication between the rivers, the Saone and the Meuse, the
Rhine and the Danube, were faintly attempted. 112 Their execution
would have vivified the empire; and more cost and labor were
often wasted in the structure of a cathedral. 1121

105 (return) [ See the concise, but correct and original, work of
D’Anville, (Etats Formes en Europe apres la Chute de l’Empire
Romain en Occident, Paris, 1771, in 4to.,) whose map includes the
empire of Charlemagne; the different parts are illustrated, by
Valesius (Notitia Galliacum) for France, Beretti (Dissertatio
Chorographica) for Italy, De Marca (Marca Hispanica) for Spain.
For the middle geography of Germany, I confess myself poor and
destitute.]

106 (return) [ After a brief relation of his wars and conquests,
(Vit. Carol. c. 5-14,) Eginhard recapitulates, in a few words,
(c. 15,) the countries subject to his empire. Struvius, (Corpus
Hist. German. p. 118-149) was inserted in his Notes the texts of
the old Chronicles.]

107 (return) [ On a charter granted to the monastery of Alaon
(A.D. 845) by Charles the Bald, which deduces this royal
pedigree. I doubt whether some subsequent links of the ixth and
xth centuries are equally firm; yet the whole is approved and
defended by M. Gaillard, (tom. ii. p.60-81, 203-206,) who affirms
that the family of Montesquiou (not of the President de
Montesquieu) is descended, in the female line, from Clotaire and
Clovis—an innocent pretension!]

108 (return) [ The governors or counts of the Spanish march
revolted from Charles the Simple about the year 900; and a poor
pittance, the Rousillon, has been recovered in 1642 by the kings
of France, (Longuerue, Description de la France, tom i. p.
220-222.) Yet the Rousillon contains 188,900 subjects, and
annually pays 2,600,000 livres, (Necker, Administration des
Finances, tom. i. p. 278, 279;) more people, perhaps, and
doubtless more money than the march of Charlemagne.]

109 (return) [ Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. ii. p. 200,
&c.]

110 (return) [ See Giannone, tom. i. p 374, 375, and the Annals
of Muratori.]

111 (return) [ Quot praelia in eo gesta! quantum sanguinis
effusum sit! Testatur vacua omni habitatione Pannonia, et locus
in quo regia Cagani fuit ita desertus, ut ne vestigium quidem
humanae habitationis appareat. Tota in hoc bello Hunnorum
nobilitas periit, tota gloria decidit, omnis pecunia et congesti
ex longo tempore thesauri direpti sunt. Eginhard, cxiii.]

112 (return) [ The junction of the Rhine and Danube was
undertaken only for the service of the Pannonian war, (Gaillard,
Vie de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 312-315.) The canal, which would
have been only two leagues in length, and of which some traces
are still extant in Swabia, was interrupted by excessive rains,
military avocations, and superstitious fears, (Schaepflin, Hist.
de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p. 256. Molimina
fluviorum, &c., jungendorum, p. 59-62.)]

1121 (return) [ I should doubt this in the time of Charlemagne,
even if the term “expended” were substituted for “wasted.”—M.]