ART. VIII.-1. La Vie et les Temps de Charlemagne. Par M. DE MOUSART. Paris. 1859

2. Vita et Regnum et Res Gestas Caroli Magni. Leipzig. 1714. 3. The Life and Times of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great. By JAMES H. HENDEL. London.

1842.

IN subjecting any human life to analysis, we find that it results from three elements, which, to produce different individualities, are variously modified and combined. There is a constitution predetermined to the individual, having certain points of identity with all others, but possessing at the same time certain differentia, by which it is distinguished; there is a tide of circumstances or influences into the midst of which it is thrown, which cannot but develop certain peculiarities, the effect of which must be taken into account in any estimate, whether of national or individual character; there is also a line of conduct that is voluntarily chosen, in their judgment of which, mankind are too apt to overlook the influence of the two abovementioned elements.

The first of these, with the causes and reasons of its being thrown into the world at any particular juncture, is known only to the mind of Omniscience. Whence has come this germ of humanity, for what specific purpose devised and fashioned, what part it shall play in the world-drama, what its predetermined destiny, conditional or unconditional, are problems which the finite mind may not undertake beforehand to solve. Undoubtedly, there is in every germ an amount of capacity which death finds undeveloped. It not unfrequently happens that there is no proper correspondence between the first and second of these elements, but on the contrary, judging from the awkwardness of some from their lack of adaptation to surrounding circumstances, we almost fancy that they have no sphere on this planet, so ill conditioned are they to their work and surroundings, yet from which they find it impossible to escape. One goes through life a bungler at the work which accident has cast in his way, who, in his appropriate sphere, could he but find it, would take rank as the superior of those who despise his present feeble efforts. But he finds no stimulus; no occasion offers for the exercise of his natural gifts. It is only when all these elements are in favorable proportion, operating harmoniously, that greatness takes an objective form and becomes. manifest to the world. There must be a constitution-using this term in its most comprehensive sense-capable of great achievement; circumstances adapted to call into exercise its latent powers, and a will to elect and pursue the appropriate course. An exodus demands a Moses, and a Moses is found competent

to control and guide the exodus. No great event calling out his activity, his life would have been passed in quiet seclusion, tending his few sheep on Horeb. Who could have fancied that Xenophon was capable of conducting in so masterly a manner the retreat of the "Ten Thousand?"

The observations which we are about to make on Charlemagne's character, genius, and times, shall be in the light of these considerations. It were unfair to bring him to the standard of our present civilization, and pass judgment in accordance with his relations to that. It is seldom indeed that a genius appears, who, rising above the prejudices of his sphere, untrammelled by the influences of his time, shall so speak and act that his life shall bear the scrutiny of an age, measuring on its dial a thousand years of progress from his own. day. Few reputations will bear such a test. All greatness is relative. As in letters there are some productions which find an echo in all time; applauded as they fell from the lips of the living poet, they have come, ringing down the centuries, excit ing the wonder of myriads who have been captivated by their strains; which are so attuned to the universal and essential in humanity, that they seem even now as young and fresh and wonderful as ever. Because they are striking emblems of human experiences, or deep and many-sided expressions of human thought, divinely struck out by superior genius, they always are, and probably always will be, regarded as the product of superlative wisdom. So in life it is not impossible to find an occasional one, who, rising above the local, accidental, and partial, regulates his life by a law which, comprehending all possible human conceptions of propriety and morality, becomes, so to speak, an incarnation or embodiment of these; and infinite. cycles of progress shall never make him appear otherwise than as the best of men. Charlemagne clearly cannot be brought under this category, nor, as far as our information extends, can many of the heroes, ancient or modern. We must content ourselves with a standard falling somewhat short of perfection, seeing that but few men can answer for one of a thousand of their faults.

The time that Charlemagne comes upon the scene of action, about the middle of the eighth century, (he is supposed to have been born in the year 742, in the village of Ingelheim, but not now to be determined with certainty,) was not only a transitory period, but one of ignorance and barbarism. Men were held in estimation only as they were great saints or great warriors. It would be difficult to find an age affording less stimulus to mental development in the direction of the higher legislative or literary pursuits. A representation of these

times, so far as respects intelligence and progress, would form the darkest picture in the history of Europe.

From the mayors of the palace, who for several generations had ruled the Franks in the name of the Merovingians, Charlemagne inherited the qualities of a warrior and monarch. The kings of that dynasty had so far degenerated as to be utterly unfit for the duties of their high office. A terrible fatality seemed to have overtaken the blood-stained house of Clovis. His descendants either dying young or falling into premature old age, the government passed into the hands of a class of servants who had insensibly risen to great power, resulting almost necessarily from the position they held in the royal household, and the relations which they sustained to the nobles. The maires du palais, for so they were called, were intrusted with all matters pertaining to the royal estates, and being the medium through which requests were presented to the king from the nobles, and through which answers were returned, when the power of the king was in the ascendant they stood firmly by him, and when the nobles were predominant in the state, they came over to their side. When the Merovingians had fallen so low that their flowing locks, the outward mark of crowned supremacy, found no corresponding qualities within, these men became virtually the rulers of the Frank-the office descending in hereditary succession-king in all respects save the name. But the fiction of a puppet-king could not long be imposed upon a people who demanded that their ruler should be their leader, a representative of the passions which burned in their own breasts; that he should be a pattern of all the manly qualities, and of unquestioned prowess in the field. When, therefore, in answer to a question by Pepin, the pontiff responded that "The name of king should be to him who had the power," the last of the line of Clovis, Hilpenk III., shorn of his flowing locks, was thrust into a convent for the remainder of his days, and the father of Charlemagne unanimously elected king.

At the time of this ceremony, (752,) the young prince was in his tenth year, but no historical mention is made of him until two years later, when he is deputed by his father to meet the Bishop of Rome, who, threatened by the Lombards, came to seek protection from the king of the Franks. The vast influence which a powerful religion might be made to exercise over a rude and superstitious people was evident to the shrewd Pepin. Many generations must elapse before the heterogeneous elements under his rule could be assimilated into a political unity. The time had not yet come for the carrying out of those ideas of national unity which have since been developed

and embodied in existing nations, and for which some are struggling at the present hour. But Pepin had a confused notion of certain great things which might be accomplished, were the elements of his kingdom consolidated. The turbulent 'nobles, each aspiring to the leadership of his own province, were only held in check by the known firmness of the reigning king, ready for an insurrection on the slightest occasion, prepared to dispute the royal power on the remotest chances of success. What policy and force could not accomplish-if at all, only by long and patient effort it was possible that religion might arrive at by a shorter road; therefore, it was the settled policy of Pepin to conciliate and strengthen the church.

Ascending the throne, (768,) the policy of Charlemagne was to a certain extent indicated and determined by the course of his predecessors and the exigencies of the times. Before this, we find him, when very young, at the head of an army, marching against the Aquitanians, thus preparing for the time when he should be called to battle for his own kingdom. Unwearied physical activity was a characteristic of the Frankish warrior. Unceasing vigilance, the ability to move troops with celerity between distant points, the personal superintendence of all martial undertakings, while they were the price of peace at home and security from invasion, cultivated a taste for the severe exercise and discipline of the field. The succession not being regulated by any law of primogeniture, the royal power was weakened by its division among the male members of the family; a custom productive of the worst consequences, giving rise to jealousies and family feuds, with which others not immediately interested were ready to sympathize, and which they were by no means anxious to allay. Always ready for an occasion to gratify their thirst for plunder, or to avenge themselves on their more powerful oppressors, their hostilities were hailed with a delight peculiar to the savage instinct. The effects of this Charlemagne might have experienced in some slight degree, as he inherited the kingdom with his brother Carloman, a prince possessing few of the qualities of his brother, but jealous of that genius in another which he himself had not the good fortune to possess-had not death claimed him within three years of his accession, leaving Charlemagne, by the election of the leudes, sole king of the Franks, and master of Pepin's vast possessions.

An estimate of this king should be based, not so much upon what he did, although in actual achievement he stands high above all his successors and predecessors, with perhaps a single exception, but upon his insight into what was necessary to be

done upon his appreciation of those refined and enlightened pursuits to which, amidst his other labors, he was always longing to return; upon the aim of his endeavors, whether in war, legislation, or the encouragement of learning and mental development; by which he left his impress upon his age, in spite of the unimpressibleness of the material with which he had to struggle. To restore and establish his kingdom, as a whole, as well as in all detail, was essential to his happiness. His was one of those minds which can find no peace in the midst of antagonisms, active or passive. His soul, like that of all highly endowed men, was attuned to harmony; instinctively creating around him an atmosphere in which disorder finds it impossible to live. Yet, not having sufficient breadth and penetration of intellect to see the great principles that needed to be applied, while minor influences were brought to bear, his capitularies or rules for the conduct of the empire (for they cannot be called a code of laws) are often trifling, mere surface applications, while the disease and its causes are allowed to rankle in the system.*

His policy demanded an internal unity, a oneness of aim and interest at home, that he might effectually repel the Saxons in the north and the Saracens in the south. The claim to great skill in generalship, which his panegyrists have put forth, fail of being substantiated, for the annalists tell of no instance in which he encountered a foe worthy of his arms, or where the exercise of great military qualities was demanded. The enemies with which he had to contend were generally fierce and brave, but lacking in that discipline which would render them formidable in the aggregate. No great and important battle hands down his name as a conqueror. Sir James Stephens speaks of his skill "in moving detached bodies of men along remote and converging lines, with such mutual concert as to throw their united powers at the same moment on any meditated point of attack;" and M. Thierry finds in his Hungarian war some resemblance to the Austrian campaign of the first Napoleon. But the comparisons instituted between the monarch and other generals are mostly fanciful. his numerous campaigns, eighteen were against the Saxons; a significant proof of the mode of warfare in which he was chiefly engaged, as well as of the buoyancy and elasticity of the tribes against which his efforts were directed. Mostly situated at the extreme limits of the empire, with no possessions

Of

Montesquieu says that it was Charlemagne who gave the Saxons their best laws, the same which we boast to have derived from our ancestors. "Charlemagne qui le premier dompta les Saxons leur donna la loi que nous avons. Il n'y a qu'à lire ces dux derniers codes pour voir qu'ils sortent de mains de vainqueurs."-Esprit des Lois, Liv. XXVIII, Chap. 1.