THE RIVAL QUEENS.

What is now France was at that time divided into three kingdoms, Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy, King Chilperic reigning over Austrasia; King Sigebert over Neustria. But the power behind the throne lay in the wives of these kings, with whom alone we have to do. Contrasted characters they were,—Fredegonde wicked, faithless, self-seeking; Brunehild patriotic and devoted to the good of her country; yet in the end wickedness triumphed, and honesty died a violent and frightful death. With this preliminary we may proceed with our tale.

Fredegonde was the daughter of poor peasants, who dwelt in the vicinity of Montdidier in Picardy. But so striking and notable was her beauty that at an early age she was made, under circumstances of which we are not informed, one of the ladies in waiting on Queen Andovere, the first wife of King Chilperic. The poor queen was destined to suffer from the artfulness of her maid. The beauty of Fredegonde quickly attracted the attention of the king, and her skilful and unscrupulous arts soon made her a power in the court. The queen was in her way; but no long time passed before, on the pretext of a spiritual relationship with her husband which rendered the marriage illegal, the hapless Andovere was repudiated and banished to a convent.

But Chilperic was not yet ready to marry a peasant. He chose for his second wife Galsuinthe, daughter of the king of the Visigoths. This marriage lasted a still shorter time than the other. Galsuinthe was found strangled in her bed; and now, no longer able to restrain his passion for the beautiful and artful maid of honor, Chilperic married Fredegonde, and raised the peasant maiden to the throne for which she had so deeply and darkly wrought.

The marriage of Galsuinthe had been preceded by that of her younger sister, Brunehild, who became the wife of Sigebert, brother of Chilperic and king of Austrasia. The murder of Galsuinthe was ascribed by Brunehild to Fredegonde, with excellent reason if we may judge from her subsequent career, and from that day on an undying hatred existed between the two queens. To this the stirring incidents of their after lives were due. War broke out between the two kings, probably inspired by Brunehild's thirst for revenge for her sister's death on the one hand, and the ambition and hatred of Fredegonde on the other. Sigebert was successful in the field, but treachery soon robbed him of the fruits of victory. He was murdered in his tent (in the year 575) by two assassins in the pay of Queen Fredegonde.

This murder gave Chilperic the ascendancy. Sigebert's army disbanded, and Brunehild, as the only means of preserving her life, sought an asylum in the cathedral of Paris. And now the scene becomes one of rapid changes, in which the unscrupulous Fredegonde plays the leading part. Chilperic, not daring to offend the church by slaying the fugitive queen under its protection, sent her to Rouen. Here the widowed lady, her beauty rendered more attractive by her misfortunes, was seen and loved by Merovée, the son of Chilperic by his first wife, then in that town on a mission from his father. Fired with passion for the hapless queen, he married her privately, the Bishop of Rouen sealing their union.

This imprudent action soon became known at the court of Chilperic, and the ambitious Fredegonde hastened to turn it to her advantage. Merovée was heir to the throne of Chilperic. He was in her way, and had now given her a pretext for his removal. Chilperic, who seems to have been the weak slave of her designs, would have seized both Merovée and his bride but for the Austrasians, who demanded that their queen Brunehild should be restored to them, and enforced their demands with threats. She was surrendered; but Merovée, under the influence of his step-mother, was imprisoned, then shorn and shut up in a monastery, and afterwards became a fugitive, and was urged to head a rebellion against his father. Such was the terror, however, which the unhappy youth entertained for his cruel step-mother, that he put an end to his existence by suicide, inducing a faithful servant to strike him dead.

Fredegonde's success in getting rid of one of the heirs to the throne, only partly satisfied her ambitious views. There was another son, Clovis, brother of Merovée. To rid herself of him the wily queen took another course. Three of her own children had recently died, and she ascribed their death to Clovis, whom she accused of sorcery. He was seized under this charge, thrown into prison, and there ended his career, a poniard-thrust closing his brief tale of life. The tale of murders in this direction was completed by that of the repudiated Queen Andovere, who was soon found strangled in the convent to which she had been consigned.

Fredegonde had thus rid herself of all claimants to the throne outside of herself and her descendants, Galsuinthe having left no children. Though death had recently robbed her of three children, one survived, a son named Clotaire, then a few months old. Her next act of treachery was to make away with her weak and confiding husband, perhaps that she might reign alone, perhaps through fear that Chilperic might discover her guilty relations with Landry, an officer of the court, and subsequently mayor of the palace. Whatever the reason, soon after these events, King Chilperic, while in the act of dismounting on his return from the chase, was struck two mortal blows by a man who took to rapid flight, while all around the cry was raised, "Treason! it is the hand of the Austrasian Childebert against our lord the king!"

The readiness with which this cry was raised seemed evidence of its falsity. Men ascribed it and the murder to emissaries of Fredegonde. But, heedless of their opinions, she installed herself as sovereign guardian of her infant son, and virtual reigning queen of Neustria. It was now the year 584. Fredegonde had by her beauty, ambition, boldness, and unscrupulousness raised herself from the lowly rank of a peasant's daughter to the high position of sovereign over a great dominion, a queenship which she was to hold during the remainder of her life, her strong will, effrontery, artifice, skill in deception, and readiness to strengthen her position by crime, enabling her to overcome all resistance and maintain her ascendancy over the restless and barbarous elements of the kingdom she ruled. She was a true product of the times, one born to become dominant over a barbarous people.

Gregory of Tours tells a story of Chilperic and Fredegonde, which will bear repetition here. In addition to the sons of Chilperic, of whom the queen disposed as we have seen, he had a daughter, Rigouthe by name, whom he promised in marriage to Prince Recared, son of the king of the Visigoths of Spain.

"A grand deputation of Goths came to Paris to fetch the Frankish princess. King Chilperic ordered several families in the fiscal domains to be seized and placed in cars. As a great number of them wept and were not willing to go, he had them kept in prison that he might more easily force them to go away with his daughter. It is said that several, in their despair, hung themselves, fearing to be taken from their parents. Sons were separated from fathers, daughters from mothers, and all departed with deep groans and maledictions, and in Paris there reigned a desolation like that of Egypt. Not a few, of superior birth, being forced to go away, even made wills whereby they left their possessions to the churches, and demanded that, so soon as the young girl should have entered Spain, their wills should be opened just as if they were already in their graves.

"When King Chilperic gave up his daughter to the ambassadors of the Goths, he presented them with vast treasures. Queen Fredegonde added thereto so great a quantity of gold and silver and valuable vestments that, at the sight thereof, the king thought he must have nought remaining. The queen, perceiving his emotion, turned to the Franks, and said to them,—

"'Think not, warriors, that there is here aught of the treasures of former kings. All that ye see is taken from my own possessions, for my most glorious king has made me many gifts. Thereto have I added of the fruits of my own toil, and a great part proceeds from the revenues I have drawn, either in kind or in money, from the houses that have been ceded unto me. Ye yourselves have given me riches, and ye see here a portion thereof; but there is here nought of the public treasure.'

"And the king was deceived into believing her words. Such was the multitude of golden and silver articles and other precious things that it took fifty wagons to hold them. The Franks, on their part, made many offerings; some gave gold, others silver, sundry gave horses, but most of them vestments.

"At last the young girl, with many tears and kisses, said farewell. As she was passing through the gate an axle of her carriage broke, and all cried out 'Alack!' which was interpreted by some as a presage. She departed from Paris, and at eight miles' distance from the city she had her tents pitched. During the night fifty men arose and, having taken a hundred of the best horses, and as many golden bits and bridles, and two large silver dishes, fled away, and took refuge with King Childebert. During the whole journey whoever could escape fled away with all that he could lay hands on. It was required also of all the towns that were traversed on the way that they should make great preparations to defray expenses, for the king forbade any contribution from the treasury. All the charges were met by extraordinary taxes levied upon the poor."

In this story there is probably much exaggeration, but it has its significance as a picture of life in the dark ages, from one to the manner born. So far as Fredegonde was concerned, the marriage of Rigouthe removed from her path one possible future rival for the throne.

Twice in the foregoing pages Childebert of Austrasia has been mentioned. Who was this Childebert, it may be asked? He was the son of Brunehild, whom the Austrasians had preserved after the murder of their king, and as a guardian for whom they had insisted on the return, by Chilperic, of the captive queen. Brunehild from that time reigned in Austrasia during the minority of her son, and in a manner in striking contrast with the reign of her wicked rival.

Unlike the latter, she was a princess by birth, and of that race of Gothic kings who had preserved some traces of the Roman civilization. Fredegonde was a barbarian, Brunehild a scion of a semi-civilization and far superior to her rival in culture and intellectual power. As a queen she did so much for her country that her name as a public benefactor was long afterwards remembered in the land. The highways, the bridges, all the public works of the state received her careful attention, so much so that the Roman roads in Austrasia received, and long retained, the name of "Brunehild's Causeways." Her name was associated with many other things in the land. In a forest near Bourges men long pointed out "Brunehild's castle," at Etampes was shown "Brunehild's tower," and near Cahors "Brunehild's fort." A more interesting evidence of her activity for the good of her people for ages existed in the by-word of "Brunehild's alms," which long retained the evidence of her abundant charities. She protected men of letters,—a rare production in that day,—and in return we find one of them, Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, dedicating poems to her.

But the life of Queen Brunehild was far from being a quiet one. In addition to her conflicts with her mortal foe, Queen Fredegonde, she had her own nobles to fight against. They seem to have detested her from the fact that her palace was filled with royal officers and favorites, whose presence excited the jealousy of the great landholders and warriors. But Brunehild protected them, with unyielding courage, against their foes, and proved herself every inch a queen. It was a semblance of the Roman imperial monarchy which she wished to establish in Austrasia, and to her efforts in this direction were due her struggles with the turbulent lords of the land, whose opposition gave her more and more trouble as time went on.

A story of this conflict is told by Gregory of Tours. One of the palace officers of the queen, Lupus, a Roman by birth, but made by her duke of Champagne, "was being constantly insulted and plundered by his enemies, especially by Ursion Bertfried. At last, having agreed to slay him, they marched against him with an army. At the sight, Brunehild, compassionating the evil case of one of her lieges unjustly presented, assumed a manly courage, and threw herself among the hostile battalions, crying, 'Stay, warriors; refrain from this wicked deed; persecute not the innocent; engage not, for a single man's sake, in a battle which will desolate the country!' 'Back, woman!' said Ursion to her; 'let it suffice thee to have ruled under thy husband's sway. Now it is thy son that reigns, and his kingdom is under our protection, not thine. Back! if thou wouldst not that the hoofs of our horses trample thee under as the dust of the ground!' After the dispute had lasted some time in this strain, the queen, by her address, at last prevented the battle from taking place."

The words of Ursion were prophetic. To be trampled under horses' hoofs into the dust was the final fate of the queen, though for many years yet she was to retain her power and to keep up her strife with the foes who surrounded her. Far nobler of soul than Fredegonde, she was as strong in all those qualities which go to make a vigorous queen.

But we must hasten on to the end of these royal rivals. Fredegonde died quietly in Paris, in 597, powerful to her death, and leaving on the throne her son Clotaire II., whom she had infected with all her hatred against the queen of Austrasia. Brunehild lived till 614, thirty-nine years after the death of her husband Sigebert, and through the reigns of her son and two of her grandsons, who were but puppets in her hands. Her later years were marked by lack of womanly virtue, and by an unscrupulousness in ridding herself of her enemies significant of barbarous times. At length, when she had reached the advanced age of eighty years, she was deserted by her army and her people whom the crimes imputed to her had incensed, and fell into the hands of her mortal foe, Clotaire II., in whom all the venom of his cruel mother seemed retained.

After having subjected the aged queen to base and gross insults and severe tortures, the crowned wretch had her paraded on a camel in front of his whole army, and then tied by one arm, one foot, and hair of her head to the tail of an unbroken horse, which dashed and kicked her to pieces as he rushed away in affright, before the eyes of the ferocious Clotaire and his army.

By the death of Brunehild and her sons, whom Clotaire also put to death, this king became master of Austrasia, and thus lord of all the Frankish realm, the successor in power of the two queens whose story stands out so prominently in that dark and barbarous age.

ROLAND AT RONCESVALLES.

All these mountain valleys are filled with legends, centring around a great event and a mighty hero of the remote past, whose hand and sword made famous the little vale of Roncesvalles, which lies between the defiles of Sizer and Val Carlos, in the land of the Basques. This hero was Roland, the nephew of the great emperor Charlemagne, who has been given by romantic fiction the first place among the legendary Paladins of France, and made memorable in epic poetry as the hero of the celebrated "Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto, and the less notable "Orlando Innamorato" of Boiardo.

All these stories are based upon a very slender fabric of history, which would have been long since forgotten had not legend clung to it with so loving a hand, and credited its hero with such a multitude of marvellous deeds. The history of the event is preserved for us by Eginhard, the secretary and annalist of Charlemagne. He takes few words to tell what has given rise to innumerable strophes.

In the year 778, Charlemagne invaded Spain, then almost wholly in the hands of the Saracens. His march was a victorious one until Saragossa was reached. Here he found himself before a well-supplied, strongly-fortified, and fully-garrisoned city, while his own army was none too well provided with food. In the end he found it expedient to retreat, leaving Saragossa still in Saracen hands.

The retreat was conducted without loss until the Pyrenees were reached. These were crossed by the main body of the army without hostile disturbance, leaving to follow the baggage-train and a rear-guard under the king's nephew Roland, prefect of the Marches of Brittany, with whom were Eginhard, master of the household, and Anselm, count of the palace; while legend adds the names of Oliver, Roland's bosom friend, the warlike Archbishop Turpin, and other warriors of renown.

Their route lay through the pass of Roncesvalles so narrow at points that only two, or at most three men could move abreast, while the rugged bordering hills were covered with dense forest, affording a secure retreat for an ambushing foe. It was when the main body of the army was miles in advance, and the rear-guard struggling up this narrow defile, that disaster came. Suddenly the surrounding woods and mountains bristled with life. A host of light-armed Basque mountaineers emerged from the forest, and poured darts and arrows upon the crowded columns of heavily-armed Franks below. Rocks were rolled down the steep declivities, crushing living men beneath their weight. The surprised troops withdrew in haste to the bottom of the valley, death pursuing them at every step. The battle that followed was doubtless a severe and hotly-contested one; the prominent place it has gained in tradition indicates that the Franks must have defended themselves valiantly; but they fought at a terrible disadvantage, and in the end they were killed to a man. Then the assailants, rich with the plunder which they had obtained from the baggage-wagons and the slain bodies, vanished into the forests whence they came, leaving to Charlemagne, when he returned in search of Roland and his men, only the silence of death and the livid heaps of the slain in that terrible valley of slaughter.

Such is the sober fact. Fancy has adorned it with a thousand loving fictions. In the valleys are told a multitude of tales connected with Roland's name. A part of his armor has given its name to a flower of the hills, the casque de Roland, a species of hellebore. The breiche de Roland, a deep fissure in the mountain crest, is ascribed to a stroke of his mighty blade. The sound of his magic horn still seems to echo around those rugged crests and pulse through those winding valleys, as it did on the day when, as legend says, it was borne to the ears of Charlemagne miles away, and warned him of the deadly peril of his favorite chieftain.

This horn is reputed to have had magical powers. Its sound was so intense as to split all other horns. The story goes that Roland, himself sadly wounded, his fellows falling thickly around him, blew upon it so mighty a blast that the veins and nerves of his neck burst under the effort. The sound reached the ears of Charlemagne, then encamped eight miles away, in the Val Carlos pass.

"It is Roland's horn," he cried. "He never blows it except the extremity be great. We must hasten to his aid."

"I have known him to sound it on light occasions," answered Ganalon, Roland's secret foe. "He is, perhaps, pursuing some wild beast, and the sound echoes through the wood. It would be fruitless to lead back your weary host to seek him."

Charlemagne yielded to his specious argument, and Roland and all his followers died. Charles afterwards discovered the body with the arms extended in the form of a cross, and wept over it his bitterest tears. "There did Charlemagne," says the legend, "mourn for Orlando to the very last day of his life. On the spot where he died he encamped and caused the body to be embalmed with balsam, myrrh, and aloes. The whole camp watched it that night, honoring his corpse with hymns and songs, and innumerable torches and fires kindled in the adjacent mountains."

At the battle of Hastings the minstrel Taillefer, as we have elsewhere told, rode before the advancing Norman host, singing the "Song of Roland," till a British hand stilled his song and laid him low in death. This ancient song is attributed, though doubtfully, to Turold, that abbot of Peterborough who was so detested by Hereward the Wake. From it came many of the stories which afterwards were embodied in the epic legends of mediæval days. To quote a few passages from it may not be amiss. The poet tells us that Roland refused to blow his magic horn in the beginning of the battle. In the end, when ruin and death were gathering fast around, and blood was flowing freely from his own veins, he set his lips to the mighty instrument, and filled vales and mountains with its sound.

The fight goes on. More of the warriors fall. Oliver dies. Roland and Turpin continue the fight. Once more a blast is sent from the magic horn.

Turpin dies. Roland remains the sole survivor of the host, and he hurt unto death. He falls on the field in a swoon. A wounded Saracen rises, and, seeing him, says,—

"Vanquished, he is vanquished, the nephew of Charles! There is his sword, which I will carry off to Arabia." He knew not the power of the dying hero.

And here let us take our leave of Roland the brave, whose brief story of fact has been rounded into so vast a story of fiction that the actual histories of few men equal in extent that of this hero of romance.

CHARLEMAGNE AND THE AVARS.

Against such a conceivable fate of Europe Charlemagne served as a mighty bulwark, and built by his genius an impermeable wall against the torrent of savage invasion, saying to its inflowing waves, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther." Attila, the "Scourge of God," in the track of whose horses' hoofs "no grass could grow," met his only great defeat at Châlons-sur-Marne, on the soil of Gaul. He died in Hungary; his hordes were scattered; Europe again began to breathe. But not long had the Huns of Attila ceased their devastations when another tribe of Hunnish origin appeared, and began a like career of ravage and ruin. These called themselves Avars. Small in numbers at first, they grew by vanquishing and amalgamating other tribes of Huns until they became the terror and threatened to become the masters of Europe. Hungary, the centre of Attila's great circle of power, was made their place of abode. Here was the palace and stronghold of their monarchs, the Chagans, and here they continued a threat to all the surrounding nations, while enjoying the vast spoils which they had wrung from ruined peoples.

Time passed on; civilization showed feeble signs of recovery; France and Italy became its abiding-places; but barbarian invasion still threatened these lands, and no security could be felt while the hordes of the north and east remained free to move at will. This was the task that Charlemagne was born to perform. Before his day the Huns of the east, the Saxons of the north, the Moors of the south kept the growing civilization of France in constant alarm. After his day aggression by land was at an end; only by sea could the north invade the south.

The record of the deeds of Charlemagne is a long one. The Saxons were conquered and incorporated into the kingdom of the Franks. Then collision with the Avars took place. The story of how Charlemagne dealt with these savage hordes is one of the most interesting episodes in the extended tale of his wars, and we therefore select it for our present theme. The Avars had long been quiet, but now again began to stir, making two invasions, one of Lombardy, the other of Bavaria. Both were repelled. Stung by defeat, they raised a greater army than before, and in 788 crossed the Danube, determined in their savage souls to teach these proud Franks a lesson, and write on their land in blood the old story of the prowess and invincibility of the Huns. To their alarm and astonishment they found themselves not only checked, but utterly routed, thousands of them being left dead upon the field, and other thousands swallowed up by the Danube, in their wild effort to swim that swollen stream.

This brings us to the record of the dealings of Charlemagne with the Huns, who had thus dared to invade his far-extending kingdom. Vast had been the work of this mighty monarch in subduing the unquiet realms around him. Italy had been made a part of his dominions, Spain invaded and quieted, and the Saxons, the fiercest people of the north, forced to submit to the power of the Franks. Now the Avars of Hungary, the most dangerous of the remaining neighbors of Charlemagne's great empire, were to be dealt with.

During the two years succeeding their defeat, overtures for peace passed between the Avars and Charlemagne, overtures which, perhaps, had their chief purpose in the desire to gain time to prepare for war.

These nomadic hordes were celebrated alike for their cunning and their arrogance,—cunning when they had an object to gain, arrogance when they had gained it. In their dealings with Charlemagne they displayed the same mixture of artfulness and insolence which they had employed in their dealings with the empire of the East. But they had now to do with a different man from the weak emperors of Constantinople. Charlemagne continued his negotiations, but prepared for hostilities, and in the spring of 791 put himself at the head of a powerful army, prepared to repay the barbarian hordes with some of the havoc which they had dealt out to the other nations of Europe.

It was no light task he had undertaken, and the great general made ready for it with the utmost care and deliberation. He was about to invade a country of great resources, of remarkable natural and artificial defences, and inhabited by a people celebrated for their fierceness and impetuosity, and who had hitherto known little besides victory. And he was to leave behind him in his march a kingdom full of unquiet elements, which needed the presence of his strong arm and quick mind to keep it in subjection. He knew not but that the Saxons might rise upon his march and spread ruin upon his path. There was one way to avoid this, and that he took. Years before, he had incorporated the Lombards with his army, and found them to fight as valiantly for him as against him. He now did the same with the Saxons, drafting a large body of them into his ranks, with the double purpose of weakening the fighting power of the nation, and employing their fierce courage in his own service. All winter the world of the Franks was in commotion, preparing for war. The chroniclers of the times speak of "innumerable multitudes" which the great conqueror set in motion in the early spring.

The army marched in three grand divisions. One entered Bavaria, joined to itself recruits raised in that country, and descended the Danube in boats, which carried also an abundance of provisions and military stores. A second division, under Charlemagne himself, marched along the southern side of the river; and a third, under his generals Theoderic and Meginfried, along its northern banks. The emperor had besides sent orders to his son Pepin, king of Italy, bidding him to lead an army of Lombards and other Italians to the frontier of Hungary, and co-operate with the other troops.

Before telling the story of the expedition, it behooves us to give some account of the country which the king of the Franks was about to invade, and particularly to describe the extraordinary defences and interior conditions with which it is credited by the gossipy old Monk of St. Gall, the most entertaining, though hardly the most credible, writer of that period. All authors admit that the country of the Avars was defended by an ingenious and singular system of fortifications. The account we propose to give, the Monk of St. Gall declares that he wrote down from the words of an eye-witness, Adelbart by name, who took part in the expedition. But one cannot help thinking that either this eye-witness mingled a strong infusion of imagination with his vision, or that the monk added fiction to his facts, with the laudable purpose of making an attractive story. Such as it is, we give it, without further comment.

Nine concentric circles of palisaded walls, says the garrulous old monk, surrounded the country of the Avars, the outer one enclosing the entire realm of Hungary, the inner ones growing successively smaller, the innermost being the central fortification within which dwelt the Chagan, with his palace and his treasures. These walls were made of double rows of palisades of oak, beech, and pine logs, twenty feet high and twenty feet asunder, the interval between them being filled with stone and lime. Thus was formed a great wall, which at a distance must have presented a singular appearance, since the top was covered with soil and planted with bushes and trees.

The outermost wall surrounded the whole country. Within it, at a distance of twenty Teutonic, or forty Italian, miles, was a second, of smaller diameter, but constructed in the same manner. At an equal distance inward was a third, and thus they continued inward, fortress after fortress, to the number of nine, the outer one rivalling the Chinese wall in extent, the inner one—the ring, as it was called—being of small diameter, and enclosing a central space within which the Avars guarded the accumulated wealth of centuries of conquest and plunder.

The only places of exit from these great palisaded fortifications were very narrow gates, or sally-ports, opening at proper intervals, and well guarded by armed sentinels. The space between the successive ramparts was a well-wooded and thickly-settled country, filled with villages and homesteads, so close together that the sound of a trumpet could be heard from one to the other, and thus an alarm from the exterior be conveyed with remarkable rapidity throughout the whole land.

This and more the veracious Monk of St. Gall tells us. As to believing him, that is quite another matter. Sufficient is told by other writers to convince us that the country was guarded by strong and singular defences, but the nine concentric circles of breastworks, surpassing the Chinese wall in length and size, the reader is quite privileged to doubt.

Certainly the defences failed to check the advance of the army of Charlemagne. Though he had begun his march in the spring, so extensive were his preparations that it was September before he reached the banks of the river Enns, the border line between Bavaria and Hungary. Here the army encamped for three days, engaged in prayers for victory, and here encouraging news came to Charlemagne. His son Pepin, with the Duke of Friuli, had already invaded Hungary, met an army of the Avars, and defeated it with great slaughter. The news of this success must have invigorated the army under Charlemagne. Breaking camp, they invaded the country of the Avars, advancing with the usual impetuosity of their great leader. One after another the Hungarian lines of defence were taken, until three had fallen, while the country between them was laid waste. No army appeared in the path of the invaders; sword in hand, Charlemagne assailed and broke through the strong walls of his foes; soon he reached the river Raab, which he followed to its junction with the Danube.

Until now all had promised complete success. Those frightful Huns, who had so long kept Europe in terror, seemed about to be subdued and made subjects of the great monarch of the Franks. But, through that fatality which so often ruins the best-laid plans of men, Charlemagne suddenly found himself in a perilous and critical situation. His army was composed almost wholly of cavalry. As he lay encamped by the Danube, a deadly pestilence attacked the horses, and swept them off with such rapidity that a hasty retreat became necessary. Nine-tenths of the horses had perished before the retiring army reached Bavaria. Good fortune, however, attended the retreat. Had the Avars recovered from the panic into which their successive defeats had thrown them, they might have taken a disastrous revenge upon the invaders. But as it was, Charlemagne succeeded in retiring without being attacked, and was able to take with him the valuable booty and the host of prisoners which were the trophies of his victorious progress.

He fully intended to return and complete the conquest of Hungary in the spring, and, to facilitate his advance, had a bridge of boats constructed, during the winter, across the Danube. He never returned, as it happened. Circumstances hindered. But in 794 his subject, the margrave Eric, Duke of Friuli, again invaded Hungary, which had in the interval been exhausted by civil wars. All the defences of the Avars went down before him, and his victorious troops penetrated to that inner fortress, called the Ring, which so long had been the boasted stronghold of the Chagans, and within whose confines were gathered the vast treasures which the conquering hordes had accumulated during centuries of victory and plunder, together with the great wealth in gold and silver coin which they had wrung by way of tribute from the weak rulers of the Eastern Empire. A conception of the extent of this spoil may be gathered from the fact that the Greek emperor during the seventh century paid the Avars annually as tribute eighty thousand gold solidi, and that on a single occasion the Emperor Heraclius was forced to pay them an equal sum.

In a nation that had made any progress towards civilization this wealth would have been distributed and perhaps dissipated. But the only use which the half-savage Avars seem to have found for it was to store it up as spoil. For centuries it had been accumulating within the treasure-house of the Ring, in convenient form to be seized and borne away by the conquering army which now broke into this long-defiant stronghold. The great bulk of this wealth, consisting of gold and silver coin, vessels of the precious metals, garments of great value, rich weapons and ornaments, jewels of priceless worth, and innumerable other articles, was taken to Aix-la-Chapelle, and laid at the feet of Charlemagne, to be disposed of as he saw fit. So extensive was it, that, as we are told, fifteen wagons, each drawn by four oxen, were needed to convey it to the capital of the mighty emperor.

Charlemagne dealt with it in a very different manner from that pursued by the monarchs of the Avars. He distributed it with a liberal hand, the church receiving valuable donations, including some of the most splendid objects, a large share being set aside for the pope, and most of the balance being given to the poor and to the royal officers, nobles, and soldiers. The amount thus divided was so great that, as we are told, the nation of the Franks "became rich, whereas they had been poor before." That treasure which the barbarian invaders had been centuries in collecting from the nations of Europe was in a few months again scattered far and wide.

Eric's invasion was followed by one from Pepin, king of Italy, who in his turn entered the Ring, took the wealth which Eric's raiders had left, demolished the palace of the Chagan, and completely destroyed the central stronghold of the Avars. They were not, however, fully subdued. Risings afterwards took place, invading armies were destroyed, and not until 803 was a permanent conquest made. The Avars in the end accepted baptism and held themselves as vassals or subjects of the great Frankish monarch, who permitted them to retain some of their old laws and governmental forms. At a subsequent date they were nearly exterminated by the Moravians, and after the year 827 this once powerful people disappear from history. Part of their realm was incorporated with Moravia, and remained so until the incursion of the Magyars in 884.

As regards the location of the Ring, or central stronghold of the Avars, it is believed to have been in the wide plain between the Danube and the Theiss, the probable site being the Pusste-Sarto-Sar, on the right of the Tatar. Traces of the wonderful circular wall, or of the palisaded and earth-filled fortifications of the Avars, are said still to exist in this locality. They are known as Avarian Rings, and in a measure sustain the old stories told of them, though hardly that of the legend-loving Monk of St. Gall and his romancing informant.

THE CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE.

Augustulus, the last emperor of the west, had ceased to reign in 476. The Eastern Empire was still alive, or rather half-alive, for it was a life without spirit or energy. The empire of the west had vanished under the flood of barbarism, and for more than three centuries there had been no claimant of the imperial crown. But here was a strong man, a noble man, the lord and master of a mighty realm which included the old imperial city; it seemed fitting that he should take the title of emperor and rule over the western world as the successor of the famous line of the Cæsars.

So thought the pope, Leo III., and so thought his cardinals. He had already sent to Charlemagne the keys of the prison of St. Peter and the banner of the city of Rome. In 799 he had a private interview with the king, whose purpose no one knew. In August of the year 800, having settled the affairs of his wide-spread kingdom, Charlemagne suddenly announced in the general assembly of the Franks that he was about to make a journey to Rome. Why he went he did not say. The secret was not yet ready to be revealed.

On the 23d of November the king of the Franks arrived at the gates of Rome, a city which he was to leave with the time-honored title of Emperor of the West. "The pope received him as he was dismounting; then, on the next day, standing on the steps of the basilica of St. Peter and amidst general hallelujahs, he introduced the king into the sanctuary of the blessed apostle, glorifying and thanking the Lord for this happy event."

In the days that followed, Charlemagne examined the grievances of the Church and took measures to protect the pope against his enemies. And while he was there two monks came from Jerusalem, bearing with them the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary, and the sacred standard of the holy city, which the patriarch had intrusted to their care to present to the great king of the Franks. Charlemagne was thus virtually commissioned as the defender of the Church of Christ and the true successor of the Christian emperors of Rome.

Meanwhile, Leo had called a synod of the Church to consider whether the title of emperor should not be conferred on Charles the Great. At present, he said, the Roman world had no sovereign. The throne of Constantinople was occupied by a woman, the Empress Irene, who had usurped the title and made it her own by murder. It was intolerable that Charles should be looked on as a mere patrician, an implied subordinate to this unworthy sovereign of the Eastern Empire. He was the master of Italy, Gaul, and Germany, said Leo. Who was there besides him to act as Defender of the Faith? On whom besides could the Church rest, in its great conflict with paganism and unbelief?

The synod agreed with him. It was fitting that the great king should be crowned emperor, and restore in his person the ancient glory of the realm. A petition was sent to Charles. He answered that, however unworthy the honor, he could not resist the desire of that august body. And thus was formally completed what probably had been the secret understanding of the pope and the king months before. Charles, king of the Franks, was to be given the title and dignity of Charles, Emperor of the West.

The season of the Feast of the Nativity, Christmas-day of the year 800, duly came. It was destined to be a great day in the annals of the Roman city. The chimes of bells which announced the dawning of that holy day fell on the ears of great multitudes assembled in the streets of Rome, all full of the grand event that day to be consummated, and rumors of which had spread far and wide. The great basilica of St. Peter was to be the scene of the imposing ceremony, and at the hour fixed its aisles were crowded with the greatest and the most devoted and enthusiastic assemblage it had ever held, all eager to behold and to lend their support to the glorious act of coronation, as they deemed it, fixed for that day, an act which, as they hoped, would restore Rome to the imperial position which that great city had so many centuries held.

It was a noble pile, that great cathedral of the early church. It had been recently enriched by costly gifts set aside by Charles from the spoils of the Avars, and converted into the most beautiful of ornaments consecrated to the worship of Christ. Before the altar stood the golden censers, containing seventeen pounds weight of solid gold. Above gleamed three grand coronas of solid silver, of three hundred and seven pounds in weight, ablaze with a glory of wax-lights, whose beams softly illuminated the whole great edifice. The shrine of St. Peter dazzled the eyes by its glittering "rufas," made of forty-nine pounds of the purest gold, and enriched by brilliant jewels till they sparkled like single great gems. There also hung superb curtains of white silk, embroidered with roses, and with rich and intricate borders, while in the centre was a splendid cross worked in gold and purple. Suspended from the keystone of the dome hung the most attractive of the many fine pictures which adorned the church, a peerless painting of the Saviour, whose beauty drew all eyes and aroused in all souls fervent aspirations of devoted faith. Never had Christian church presented a grander spectacle; never had one held so immense and enthusiastic an audience; for one of the greatest ceremonies the Christian world had known was that day to be performed.

Through the wide doors of the great church filed a procession of bronzed veterans of the Frankish army; the nobility and the leading people of Rome; the nobles, generals, and courtiers who had followed Charlemagne thither; warriors from all parts of the empire, with their corslets and winged helmets of steel and their uniforms of divers colors; civic functionaries in their gorgeous robes of office; dignitaries of the church in their rich vestments; a long array of priests in their white dalmatics, until all Christendom seemed present in its noblest and most showy representatives. Heathendom may have been represented also, for it may be that messengers from the great caliph of Bagdad, the renowned Haroun al Raschid, the hero of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," were present in the church. Many members of the royal family of Charlemagne were present to lend dignity to the scene, and towering above them all was the great Charles himself, probably clad in Roman costume, his garb as a patrician of the imperial city, which dignity had been conferred upon him. Loud plaudits welcomed him as he rose into view. There were many present who had seen him at the head of his army, driving before him hosts of flying Saracens, Saxons, Lombards, and Avars, and to them he was the embodiment of earthly power, the mighty patron of the church, and the scourge of pagans and infidels; and as they gazed on his noble form and dignified face it seemed to some of them as if they looked with human eyes on the face and form of a representative of the Deity.