by any weaker hand. In the dark ages of European history the reign of Charlemagne affords a
solitary resting-place between two long periods of turbulence and ignominy, deriving the advantages
of contrast both from that of the preceding dynasty and of a posterity for whom he had formed an
empire which they were unworthy and unequal to maintain."
G. P. R. James (History of Charlemagne, Lond., 1847, p. 499): "No man, perhaps, that ever
lived, combined in so high a degree those qualities which rule men and direct events, with those
which endear the possessor and attach his contemporaries. No man was ever more trusted and loved
by his people, more respected and feared by other kings, more esteemed in his lifetime, or more
regretted at his death.
Milman (Book V. ch. 1): "Karl, according to his German appellation, was the model of a
Teutonic chieftain, in his gigantic stature, enormous strength, and indefatigable activity; temperate
in diet, and superior to the barbarous vice of drunkenness. Hunting and war were his chief
occupations; and his wars were carried on with all the ferocity of encountering savage tribes. But
he was likewise a Roman Emperor, not only in his vast and organizing policy, he had that one vice
of the old Roman civilization which the Merovingian kings had indulged, though not perhaps with
more unbounded lawlessness. The religious emperor, in one respect, troubled not himself with the
restraints of religion. The humble or grateful church beheld meekly, and almost without
remonstrance, the irregularity of domestic life, which not merely indulged in free license, but treated
the sacred rite of marriage as a covenant dissoluble at his pleasure. Once we have heard, and but
once, the church raise its authoritative, its comminatory voice, and that not to forbid the King of
the Franks from wedding a second wife while his first was alive, but from marrying a Lombard
princess. One pious ecclesiastic alone in his dominion, he a relative, ventured to protest aloud.’)
Guizot (Histoire de la civilisation en France, leçon XX.): "Charlemagne marque la limite
à laquelle est enfin consommée la dissolution de l’ancien monde romain et barbare, et où commence
la formation du monde nouveau."
Vétault (Charlemagne, 455, 458): "Charlemagne fut, en effet, le père du monde moderne
et de la societé européenne .... Si Ch. ne peut être légitemement honoré comme un saint, il a droit
du moins à la première place, parmis tous les héros, dans l’admiration des hommes; car on ne
trouverait pas un autre souverain qui ait autant aimé l’humanité et lui ait fait plus de bien. Il est le
plus glorieux, parce que ... il a mérite d’ être proclamé le plus honnête des grands hommes."
Giesebrecht, the historian of the German emperors, gives a glowing description of
Charlemagne (I. 140): "Many high-minded rulers arose in the ten centuries after Charles, but none
had a higher aim. To be ranked with him, satisfied the boldest conquerors, the wisest princes of
peace. French chivalry of later times glorified Charlemagne as the first cavalier; the German
burgeoisie as the fatherly friend of the people and the most righteous judge; the Catholic Church
raised him to the number of her saints; the poetry of all nations derived ever new inspiration and
strength from his mighty person. Never perhaps has richer life proceeded from the activity of a
mortal man (Nie vielleicht ist reicheres Leben von der Wirksamkeit eines sterblichen Menschen
ausgegangen)."
We add the eloquent testimony of an American author, Parke Godwin (History of France,
N. Y., 1860, vol. i. p. 410): "There is to me something indescribably grand in the figure of many
of the barbaric chiefs—Alariks, Ataulfs, Theodoriks, and Euriks—who succeeded to the power of
the Romans, and in their wild, heroic way, endeavored to raise a fabric of state on the ruins of the
ancient empire. But none of those figures is so imposing and majestic as that of Karl, the son of
rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
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