year, in the calends of January, they have seen, at Rome, both day and night, near the church, dancers overrunning the public places, according to the custom of the pagans, and raising clamours, after their fashion, and singing sacrilegious songs; and this day, they say, and till night-time, the tables are loaded with meats, and no one will lend to his neighbour either fire or iron, or anything in his house. They say also, that they have seen women carry phylacteries, and fillets attached to their legs and arms, and offer all sorts of things for sale to the passers by; and all these things, seen by carnal men, and those but little instructed, are subjects of derision, and an obstacle to our preaching, and to the faith.... If your paternity interdict these pagan customs in Rome, it will acquire a great reputation, and will assure us a great progress in the doctrine of the church." 1.

I might cite many other letters, written with as much freedom, and which prove the same sincerity. But a fact speaks louder than all the letters in the world. After having founded new bishoprics and many monasteries, at the highest point of his success and glory, in 753, that is, at seventythree years of age, the Saxon missionary demanded and obtained authority to quit his bishopric of Mayence, and to place therein his favourite disciple Lullus, and to again prosecute the works of his youth among the still pagan Frisons. He in fact went amid woods, morasses, and barbarians, and was massacred in 755, with many of his companions.

At his death, the bringing over of Germany to Christianity was accomplished, and accomplished to the profit of papacy. But it was also to the profit of the Franks of Austrasia, to the good of their safety and their power. It follows that it was for them as much as for Rome, that Boniface had laboured; it was upon the soil of Germany, in the enterprise of converting its tribes by Saxon missionaries, that the two new powers, which were to prevail, the one in the civil society, the other in the religious society, encountered each other, the mayors of the palace of Austrasia, and the popes. In order to consummate their alliance, and to make it bear all its

1 S. Bonif. Ep. ad Zacharium, ep. 132; Bib. Pat., vol. xiii., p. 125, ed of Lyons.

fruits, an occasion was only wanting on either side; it was not long in presenting itself.

I have already spoken of the situation of the bishop of Rome with regard to the Lombards, and of their incessant efforts to invade a territory which daily became more positively his domain. Another real, although less pressing danger, also approached him. As the Franks of Austrasia, with the Pepins at their head, had on the north to combat the Frisons and the Saxons, and on the south the Saracens, so the popes were pressed by the Saracens and the Lombards. Their situation was analogous; but the Franks achieved victory under Charles Martel; the papacy, not in a condition to defend herself, everywhere sought soldiers. She tried to obtain them from the emperor of the east: he had none to send her. In 739, Gregory III. had recourse to Charles Martel. Boniface took charge of the negotiation; it was without result: Charles Martel had too much to do on his own account; he cared not to involve himself in a new war; but the idea was established at Rome that the Franks alone could defend the church against the Lombards, and that sooner or later they would cross the Alps for her good.

Some years after, the chief of Austrasia, Pepin, son of Charles Martel, in his turn, had need of the pope. He wished to get himself declared king of the Franks, and, however well his power might be established, he wanted a sanction to it. I have many times remarked, and am not tired of repeating it, that power does not suffice to itself; it wants something more than success, it wants to be converted into right; it demands that characteristic, sometimes of the free assent of men, sometimes of religious consecration. Pepin invoked both. More than one ecclesiastic, perhaps Boniface, suggested to him the idea of getting his new title of king of the Franks sanctioned by the papacy. I shall not enter into the details of the negotiation undertaken upon this subject; it offers some rather embarrassing questions and chronological difficulties: it is not the less certain that it took place, and that Boniface conducted it, as his letters to the pope often show; we see him, among others, charge his disciple Lullus to inform the pope of certain important affairs which he would rather not commit to writing. Lastly, in 751,

"Burchard, bishop of Wurtzburg, and Fulrad, a chaplain

priest, were sent to Rome to pope Zachary, in order to consult the pontiff touching the kings who were then in France, and who had merely the name without any power. The pope answered by a messenger, that he thought that he who already possessed the power of the king, was the king; and giving his full assent, he enjoined that Pepin should be made king. . . Pepin was then proclaimed king of the Franks, and anointed for this high dignity with the sacred unction by the holy hand of Boniface, archbishop and martyr of happy memory, and raised upon the throne, according to custom of the Franks, in the town of Soissons. With regard to Childeric, who invested himself with the false name of king, Pepin had him shaved and put in a monastery."

Such was the progressive march of the revolution; such were the indirect and true causes of it. It has been represented in later times2 (and I myself have contributed to propagate this idea3) as a new German invasion, as a recent conquest of Gaul by the Franks of Austrasia, more barbarians, more Germans, than Franks of Neustria, who had gradually amalgamated with the Romans. Such was in fact the result, and, so to speak, the external character of the event; but its character does not suffice to explain it; it had far more distant and more profound causes than the continuation or renewal of the great German invasion. I have just placed them before you. The civil Gallo-Frankish society was in a complete dissolution; no system, no power had come to establish itself in it, and to found it in ruling it. The religious society had fallen almost into the same state. Two principles of regeneration were gradually developed; the mayor of the palace among the Franks of Austrasia; and the papacy at Rome. These new powers were naturally drawn together by the mediation of the conversion of the German tribes, in which they had common interest. The missionaries, and especially the Anglo Saxon missionaries, were the agents of this junction. Two particular circumstances, the perils in which the Lombards involved the papacy, and the need which Pepin had of the pope in order to get his title of king sanc

1 Annales d'Eginhard, vol. iii., p. 4, in my Collection des Memoires rela tifs a l'Histoire de France.

2 Histoire des Français, by M. de Sismondi, vol. ii., p. 168-171. 3 See my Essais sur l'Histoire de France, third Essai, p. 67-85.

tioned, made it a close alliance. It raised up a new race of sovereigns in Gaul, destroyed the kingdom of the Lombards in Italy, and impelled civil and religious GalloFrankish society into a route which tended to make royalty prevail in the civil order, and papacy in the religious order Such will appear to you the character of the attempts at civilization made in France by the Carlovingians, that is to say, by Charlemagne, the true representative of that new direction, although it failed in its designs, and did nothing but throw, as it were, a bridge between barbarism and feudalism. This second epoch, the history of civilization in France under the Carlovingians, in its various phases, will be the subject of the following lectures.

TWENTIETH LECTURE.

Reign of Charlemagne-Greatness of his name-Is it true that he settled nothing? that all that he did has perished with him?-Of the action of great men They play a double part-That which they do, in virtue of the first, is durable; that which they attempt, under the second, passes away with them-Example of Napoleon-Necessity of being thoroughly acquainted with the history of events under Charlemagne, in order to understand that of civilization-How the events may be recapitulated in tables-1. Charlemagne as a warrior and conqueror: Table of his principal expeditions-Their meaning and results-2. Charlemagne as an administrator and legislator-Of the government of the provinces-Of the central government-Table of national assemblies under his reignTable of his capitularies-Table of the acts and documents which remain of this epoch-3. Charlemagne as a protector of intellectual development: Table of the celebrated cotemporaneous men-Estimation of the general results, and of the character of his reign.

WE enter into a second great epoch of the history of French civilization, and as we enter, at the first step, we encounter a great man. Charlemagne was neither the first of his race, nor the author of its elevation. He received an already established power from his father Pepin. I have attempted to make you understand the causes of this revolution and its true character. When Charlemagne became king of the Franks, it was accomplished; he had no need even to defend it. He, however, has given his name to the second dynasty; and the instant one speaks of it, the instant one thinks of it, it is Charlemagne who presents himself before the mind as its founder and chief. Glorious privilege of a great man! No one disputes that Charlemagne had a right to give name his race and age. The homage paid to him is often blind and undistinguishing; his genius and glory are extolled