Epoch men, and the results of their lives

Front matter

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Prefatory Note

jISTORY," says E. Bulwer-Lytton, "is rarely more than the Biography of great men." With this idea in view, the author of the following papers has attempted to narrate some of the more striking events of History, through the medium of the lives of the great men of each Epoch. The subjects have been chosen from various periods and countries, and from different ranks and pursuits. They exhibit forcibly, it is hoped, the power of persistent purpose in the world, and prove that there is ample scope in human life for the display of individual effort and energy.

Contents

PAGK

Charlemagne — Modern Europe. — a.d. 742-814, • 1

chapter i. — prolusion, .... 3 chapter ii. — charlemagne, his early life, times,

Chapter I. Prolusion

N the olden ages of the world the various forms of government arose singly — " at sundry times and in divers manners/' The patriarchal, the kingly, the sacerdotal, the oligarchic, and the democratic systems of sovereignty may not have manifested themselves in distinct and chronological succession; but they did not develop themselves in parallel order, neither did they attempt to work together in harmony and union. The grand purpose of the period, included in the term, Ancient History, seems to have been to give rise to those differing schemes by which men may be governed, and by a process of "progress by antagonism" to raise each of these to its highest powei and noblest individual development. This purpose being fulfilled, the kind and degree of each being so tried, tested, and known, and each in its turn having failed to maintain pre-eminence, and produce the highest and holiest good to the people, a new problem arose — viz., How, by a due admixture of these, to secure the greatest possible amount of stability in government, and the highest possible state of civilisation in all classes of the people ? This integration and harmonious union of all the possible varieties of government appears to us to have been and to be the legislative problem, if, indeed, it is not the life problem, of Modern History. Accordingly, we find that in passing from the records of ancient to those of modem times, the object of contest and dispute is changed. It is no longer the selfexistent supremacy of any one form of government which is aimed at, but rather the degrees, the times, the manners, and the circumstances in which each shall be supreme, yet each subordinate in turn. Individual, continuous, and unshared dominion is found to be impolitic, if not impossible, for any; and hence a system of collocation, mutually agreed upon for each, has become a desideratum. We believe that the true era of this change may be safely regarded as beginning with the Carlovingian dynasty, and as finding its articulate and definitive place in modern policy during the reign of Charlemagne.

To make this evident, it will be advisable to throw back our thoughts into the past, and by a comprehensive review of the tendencies exhibited there, prove that his reign constituted a true Epoch, and that he who led the van in its accomplishment imparted a new impulse to human life.

Rome inherited from the great empires of pre-Christian times a knowledge of those forms of government which had influenced, combined, and divided the various political associations or #?;zsociations of antiquity — the imperial magnificence of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, the theocratic or sacerdotal mysteries of Judea, the municipal and civic independence of Greece, and the military renown of Macedonia. By the conquest of Gaul and Germany a rude and hardy personal independence had been added to the experiences of the past; and now, on this vast stage, the grand drama of civilisation was to reach its prolusio, the curtain was to

Early State of Modern Europe. 5

fall at the close of a contest between the forces of Imperialism and Personality.

The banks of the majestic Rhine were then most singular in the contrast of their inhabitants. Want and barbaric rudeness possessed the one, while wealth and all the discipline and pomp of imperial civilisation occupied the other. The natural result of such a state was war. Disciplined skill for a time held the turbulent forces of barbarism in subjection and fear : at length, however, need gave birth to leagues and combinations, and well-knit confederacies of the Germanic barbarians were arranged, in which chieftainhood speedily passed into kingship. The civil contentions in Rome during the third and fourth centuries afforded ample scope for disciplining those barbaric hordes in the arts and practices of war. The overthrow of the Mistress Empire of the world by Alaric, 405 a.d., gave unbounded licence to experiment and change in all things except such as the Church had managed to acquire the mastery of. Even the memories and traditions of the past were endangered in the inebriety of conquest ; but luckily (or shall we not, in preference, assert providentially ?) the greed of acquisition overpowered the bonds by which the aggressors had been held in union, and the divisions which ensued made it impossible to effect a thorough overthrow of all that deserved to be cherished in ancient civilisation. It is a singular illustration of the power of strong passions working in the souls of men intent on personal independence, that in all the contests of this period, the least united and the least advanced in the arts of life or the polity of nations were most successful in their efforts.

The Goths vanquished the Romans, and in Gaul, the Franks, rude, restless, and loosely held together, eventually subdued the firmly confederated Goths and Burgundians. In the early part of the fifth century each Frankish town, territory, or band, had its petty and independent temporary chief. They had no common capital, no universally acknowledged head. The chieftaincy was the prize of the man most skilled in managing other men ; he who could most advantageously plan and conduct schemes of plunder or projects for settlements ; he who could assemble around him the greatest number of roving bands, and subjugate them most entirely to his controlling will. Such a one was Clovis, the founder of the French monarchy. He was the chief of a small band of Franks settled at Tournay. By guile and perfidy he contrived to entrap and overcome many of the rival chiefs of the Franks, often assassinating whole families in his jealous ambition. The Merovingian kings who succeeded him pursued much the same plan. Gross indulgence of the criminal passions and mutual murder thinned their race, and weakened it. Relationship became a cause of enmity, and seldom did a monarch live to see a son of age to succeed himself. Regencies first became frequent, then perpetual. The possession of a shadowy royalty could not content those who felt themselves intrusted with all the essential duties, responsibilities, and cares of kings. Usurpation transferred the name and title to those who had long worn the dignity and exercised the power. Pepin, the majordo7no of the palace, threw aside the hypocrite's pretensions, and claimed the kingdom by the tenure of power and possession. Childeric III. was dethroned, and France exchanged a mock for a real monarch.

The Franks, and indeed the Goths, in general, were not fitted for national life. They were accustomed to soldierly, but not to civic and municipal, restraints. It was requisite

The Growth of Modem Europe. 7

that they should be brought under national institutions, led within the scope of the magnificent imperial traditions of the mother-city of nations, and educated to united obedience, action, and finance. To effect such purposes, the Western Empire must renew its youth, resume for a time its former vigour, and weld together, by the strong force of military prowess, the disjunct nationalities, or rather chieftaincies, which abounded in the misrule resulting from the fall of Rome.

It may be observed, as a general law, that in the infancy of civilisation vast imperial organisations are necessary. Luxury riots in courts, and invention is bribed into activity. Each new pleasure, as it palls upon the court, is welcomed to the homes of the class below. The strong, the independent, and the dangerous, are drafted off into the army ; the weak are subjected to the mere will of their masters ; and the middle classes live on the bounty of the courts, the spoils of the army, or the gains of commerce. For a time these co-operate and co-exist. So long as a sovereign with a clear head and an energetic hand holds the government in his grasp, the latent elements of discord are repressed in their activity : but the vitality of self-interest at length asserts itself. If a wreak monarch, a divided or disputed sovereignty succeeds a strong, united, or uncontested one, class after class appears ready to try any change, in the hope that it will lead to betterment. The aspirants to dominion throw baits to each class, or at least to such classes as are powerful and clamorous enough to be annoying, and thus by natural processes of growth and decadence do vast empires advance to the maturity of extended rule, then dehisce^ for the production of other and younger nations.

To compound, to blend, to amalgamate, all that was good in the sublime organic governments of olden times with the youthful impetuosity, the hardy independence, the rude effervescence of personal being, and the undeterred experimentalism of modern times ; to suffuse the noble endurance and manly heroism of barbarism with the holy influences of civilisation, and to impregnate an effete civilisation with new life and energy, the Western Empire of modern Europe was essential. The hour came, and the man. The landmarks of civilisation had been swept away ; colossal crime infested Europe ; anarchy, confusion, and ignorance reigned over the territories of the Caesars. A steadfast and heroic man is wanted. Who is he who accepts the crown and government, resolved to quiet, by resolute and indomitable perseverance, the noisy wranglings of many classes and many kings % Charlemagne, the restorer of social order, letters, and rule.

Chapter II. Charlemagne, His Early Life, Times, And Character

HARLEMAGNE, the eldest legitimate son of Pefiin-le-bref, mayor of the palace under Childeric III., one of the Merovingian nominal kings of the Franks, was born April 2, 742 a.d. There is a considerable discordance among historians regarding the precise place of his birth. Aix-la-Chapelle, Ingelheim, Carlstadt, and Salzburg, have each been named as entitled to that honour. There is no sufficing proof of any of these assertions. All that can be regarded as certain is, that he was born somewhere near the banks of the Rhine, whither his mother, Bertha, daughter of Caribert, Count of Laon, had followed her husband, who was at this period in Aquitania, engaged in suppressing a revolt which was headed by the duke of that territory. As the civil contest then waging lasted for some years, Bertha and her young son must have passed a somewhat wandering life. In 744, when his father had gained the victory, they would return to court, and he would doubtlessly be brought up after the manner of the age, in the company of the young people whose parents held office near royalty or under the mayor, in the knowledge and practice of all the military arts, and some of the xo Charlemagne.

elements of civil polity. At this time, however, genius had withered, and learning was at the point of death. The imperial schools in which the scions of the Roman nobility had received that culture which fitted them for the exercise of power, and enabled them to adorn society, were destroyed by the irruptions of the barbarians, and long years of neglect, discouragement, and opposition, had chased learning and literature into obscurity, where it lingered sicklily in grief and prostration. To the youth of Charles the chivalric accomplishments and the notes and exercises of war were well and thoroughly explained \ but the grace of letters, the refinement of thought, the means, the taste, the power, or the opportunity of reading, were almost wholly denied.

We can form but an imperfect idea of a life from which the schoolmaster is excluded, or of the dense ignorance of the times when the priests of religion themselves, in too many instances, had sunk into deplorable machines, who uttered a round of uncomprehended worship, and had little or no acquaintance with the language of Roman literature and of Church legislation. Yet we can scarcely express regret that Charlemagne was not brought under the mental discipline to which youth is usually subjected, but that he spent his early years in the pursuits of the chase, of war, and of political intrigue. Had he been exposed to the former, his own mind and will would have been somewhat effeminated ; he would have lost the resolute, unresting, practical energy of his nature ; the breadth of theoretic thought, which would then have stretched before him, would have stayed his hand when the stroke required to be given; and the widening of the horizon would have weakened the intensity and clearness with which he saw and did the one thing that seemed best in any exigency. Had he been deprived

Early Life and Training. 1 1

of aught of the latter, he would have lacked the ready skill and the powerful influence which could curb and check, outwit and brave, resist and conquer danger, revolt, or opposition. We do not grieve, then, but rather rejoice, that, in his case, the practical and the real in life were the earliest educative influences amid which he grew up, and that the attractions and pleasures of scholarship were recognised by him as weapons of polity, as well as occasions of true and lasting enjoyment only in the latter part of a life whose first duty was to effect the inauguration of a new empire by the power of the sword, which should be afterwards established by the power of thought — an empire which should unite m itself power and intelligence.

Pepin, Charlemagne's father, was a consummate politician and intriguant, as well as a notable warrior. He inherited the ambitious schemes of Pepin d'Heristal and Charles Martel, his grandfather and father, and doubtlessly educated his son in all the traditions of his house and lineage. They were the parties who introduced the fashion of shadowy and do-nothing royalty, a plan by which, without the nominal honours of regal state, they exerted its real powers, and yet escaped the odium of their own abuses of those powers. This scheme had at length produced its intended results; the regal power had been totally severed from the regal title, and the attentions and regards of aspiring courtiers were turned from the nominal to the virtual dispensers of place, patronage, and pay. Love, affection, and interest, had been diverted from the king to the mayor, and the time seemed ripe for a bold attempt to seize the nominal, as well as retain the real, sovereignty of the Frankish empire. The Church was greedy of power, and was already corrupted by a love of wealth, splendour, and rule. Pepin saw this, and by a craftily framed question obtained the papal sanction to the moral legislation, which enacts that " it is better that he who exercises regal power should also possess the regal title." The sanction of the Pope having been gained to this axiom, Pepin speedily placed himself at the head of the disaffected nobility, and by a cunningly-devised and well- worked revolution, dethroned Childeric III., and "reigned in his stead. n This happened in 750, when Charlemagne was about nine years of age. He who was but a courtier s son had now become a crown prince, and his mother and sister were ennobled, in fact, by the success of Pepin. Though this was accomplished, however, there is little doubt that great art and care required to be exercised, lest those lately acquired honours should lead to the manufacture of new enemies and new rebellions. Even in childhood, therefore, Charlemagne would be trained to practise a conciliating policy, and to conceal deep-laid and boldly-planned schemes by an artless demeanour and blandness of manner. In March 752, Archbishop Boniface, the apostle of Germany, solemnly, in the name and by the authority of the Pope, consecrated and anointed Pepin King of the Franks, at Soissons, the very place where, two hundred and sixty-six years before, Clovis, the first of the Merovingians, by a victory over Syagrius, the Roman provincial governor, established the Frankish sovereignty. Of this pageant Charlemagne and Carloman, with their sister Gisla, would form no unattractive part, and the prince-made youth would observe, with keen tact and evident relish, the potency of ceremonial pomp. A subsequent lesson would teach this even more impressively. The wise courage of Pepin having subdued opposition and silenced discontent, — having consolidated his power and vanquished his foes, — had time left him to be courteous,

Early Life and Circumstances. 13

affable, and kingly. The popedom at this period had got enmeshed in great difficulty. Aistulph, King of Lombardy, had invaded and conquered Ravenna, and now sought tribute and submission from the reigning pontiff. Such a humiliation was in nowise compatible with the schemes of the pontificate. Pope Stephen III. bethought him, in this extremity, of the Rome-sanctioned usurper of the dominion of the Franks, and besought his friendly aid. This Pepin granted, on condition that he, the Pope, should re-anoint him king, as well as baptize and consecrate his two sons. Stephen accordingly crossed the Alps in 753, and sojourned at Minister, where, during the winter of that year, Pepin held his court. Here Pepin was re-consecrated ; here his children were baptized, and declared to be the only legitimate successors to the throne and dominion of Pepin. On this occasion the Pope lifted the crown prince from the font with his own hands, so specially did he desire to mark his favour to the new dynasty. There can be little doubt that Charlemagne, in the spring of the following year, 754, accompanied his father in his march towards Italy. Pepin, having crossed the Alps with a numerous army, encountered Aistulph, King of Lombardy, near Susa, and overcame him. This done, he compelled him, by treaty, to resign all claim to sovereignty over the see of Rome, to deliver to him the Exarchate of Ravenna, and all the cities he had seized belonging to the Roman dukedom, whose powers the Popes exercised. Aistulph agreed, but, shortly afterwards, infringed the convention ; then Pepin returned, severely chastised his duplicity, and made a formal grant of his conquests to the Pope and his successors in the apostolic chair. The Pope having sanctified his usurpation by the forms of religion, he sanctified the Pope's domination by the power of the sword. A fair and goodly exchange, equally advantageous to each of the contracting parties. On Charlemagne, of course, these forms of policy could not be lost. As Pepin intended to convey the empire to his children, he would make a point of sedulously instructing them in all the diplomatic arts of the age, in all the strategies by which power might be gained and retained, and in all the punctilios and observances by which outward homage may be paid, while the realities of dominion are laid hold of and appropriated.

The renown of Pepin speedily rang through the world. As he seemed dangerous, his neighbouring princes sought to propitiate him by gifts, favours, and treaties. Even Constantine, Emperor of the East, observing the rise of a rival, found it politic to send ambassadors, and to open negotiations with him. By this act, Charlemagne was brought into connexion with the magnificent traditional despotism of the East, learned its method, and became acquainted with its practices.

Deprived, as Charlemagne was, by the necessities of his times, of any denned, intentional, mental training, we can only form an idea of what his early life must have been, by considering the circumstances amid which he lived, the history enacted before his eyes, and shedding its influences into his mind. We know little or nothing directly of his "youth's doings," and can only estimate, from what we know was passing around him, the nature of the thoughts and aspirations which were growing up within him, training him for empire, and fitting him for working out, however unwittingly, the purposes of Providence. Hence, though we are relating no definite and well-ascertained fact regarding the early years of Charlemagne's life, we are tracing the progress of that practical education which made him what he was, and led him to do what he did.

Home and Married Life. 1 5

We have seen that he was well versed and trained in military and chivalric arts, in the manoeuvres of diplomacy, and in the practices of government ; that he had seen court, camp, and church life ; that he had been specially taught to look upon himself as destined to rule ; that he had been introduced to an acquaintance with forms of etiquette and systems of sovereignty of various kinds, despotic, sacerdotal, kingly, and ducal; and that he had been practically instructed to use any or all of these, whichever seemed most likely to suit him at the time, for the elaboration of his own purposes, and the defeat of the intentions of others. More than this, he had enjoyed in the love of his mother Bertha, the affection of his sister Gisla, the fraternal competition of his brother Carloman, and the earnest counsels of his father, a considerable share, such as it was, of that too uncommon blessing — home education. To be sure, some portion of this instruction, and that which belongs to the sacredest elements of human life most of all, was not by any means of the best kind. We may specially instance Charlemagne's low estimate of marital relations. He had espoused, while yet young, a lady of good family, named Huniltrude. But when Pepin saw that the Lombardine king could only be managed by a marriage connexion, he advised, and his mother Bertha joined in the advice, that he should contract a politic marriage with the daughter of Desiderius, who had then become King of Lombardy. Desira did not relish the position in which she was thus placed, and the union was, as might have been expected, unhappy. Pepin died in 768, and Charlemagne became king. A new era began in his life. The hero-king and scholar had a work to perform. We shall follow him, in the next chapter, to empire and greatness.

Chapter III. His Reign And Labours

[HE empire over which Pepin had borne sway, and to which Charlemagne ultimately succeeded, — for in this place we need say nought of the brief and eventless co-reign of his brother Carloman, — was very extensive. It consisted of three states, — viz., (i.) Aus-irasia, or the Eastern Empire, comprising within itself the northeast of Gaul and the south of Germany, so much, at least, as lies between the Tyrol and the Thuringerwald, the Rhine* and the Inn. (2.) Neustria, or the Western Empire, which included the north-west of Gaul, between the Waal and the Loire. (3.) Burgundy, or the Southern Empire, in which were comprehended Provence and parts of Aquitania, Switzerland, and Alsace. In other words, it extended from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, and from the English Channel to the Noric Alps. The monarch of such a territory could not but be, in the then unsettled state of the European powers, important as an ally, formidable as an enemy, and worthy of jealous watching as either. Northern Europe was, as yet, only the cradle of valiant emigrant races, unconsolidated under any form of government except that of military

His Accession to the Throne. 1 7

leaders. The south-west peninsula was peopled by a tribe of Visigoths, who zealously held out against the farther progress of the Saracens, whose religious ardour had carried them into Spain. Italy was, as it has too long unfortunately been, a divided country; the Longobards possessed the upper part, the Romans the middle, and the Greeks the lower portion and Sicily. Rome itself was in a state of semi-anarchy, the Pope, the senate, and the people being at variance with each other, at the same time that Charlemagne held the rank of a Roman patrician, wielded the war-legions of France, and was linked by marriage with the Longobards, the fiercest enemies of Rome. In Austria and Hungary the Avari, effeminate through luxury and indolence, had their treasure cities encircled by walls and moats, but undefended by strong arms or stout hearts. Eastern Germany was inhabited by various disunited and often contentious tribes of Sclaves and Vandals ; in the north of Germany, the Saxons, a free and manly race, dwelt under the government of self-elected chiefs, and worshipped in the primeval forests their fathers' ancient gods ; but South Germany was considerably under his dominion, and, with the exception of the Bavarians, seemed inclined to take kindly to the foreign yoke. England was a secluded and uninfluential island, subject to the incursions of the Danes, and not yet harmonised and united into one kingdom, under one king. There was no great empire near him, no formidable power around ; for the Greek empire, although it still existed, was, at Charlemagne's accession, great in name only, not in reality ; it was no longer the empire of Con - stan tine, but an effete life-simulating State.

Such, in brief terms, was the condition of Europe when Charlemagne, in his twenty-sixth year, succeeded to the

B

<3 ■ throne of his father, as before stated, in a.d. 768. At Pepin's death, the empire was divided between Charlemagne and Carloman, the former being sovereign of Austrasia and Neustria, the latter of Burgundy. The brothers had married sisters, daughters of Desiderius, king of the Longobards. Charlemagne had, however, repudiated his wife, and her father had immediately resented the rejection of his daughter by exciting and encouraging revolt in his son-in-law's kingdom. Some of the nobles were, of course, anxious to be independent, and this favoured the design of Desiderius. The seeds of sedition are easily sown ; and though no rising of importance took place in Charlemagne's allotment, the nobles and people of Aquitania made an attempt to throw off their allegiance to the empire. Carloman besought the aid of his brother, which was readily granted, as it might read a lesson to his own nobility of the power and determination with which he would resent any infringement of the regal dignity, any neglect of a subject's duty. While Charlemagne was in the field his brother fled, and left him to maintain the conflict alone against superior odds. The valour with which he pursued his purpose, and the firmness with which he continued the dubious contest, convinced the nobility of the whole empire that he possessed military skill, energy, and resources sufficient, not only to curb revolt, but to extend conquest. Nor was he slow in perceiving that, on his part, some means should be adopted by which the nobles might be employed in foreign war, rather than in the fomenting of domestic discord.

On Carloman s death, in a.d. 771, he was invited to accept of the sovereignty of that portion of his late father's possessions, of which he would doubtless have made himself master, even though uninvited. Carloman's wife fled, with

Discord, War, and Enmity. 19

her two sons, to her father ; and now the court of the Longobards contained two women whose wrongs called for vengeance on the head of Charlemagne. Desiderius set himself to gratify at once their anxious thirst and his own ambition in a somewhat circuitous manner. Pope Stephen IV., who had been opposed to the union of the regal families of Pepin and Desiderius, died in the early part of 772, and was succeeded by Pope Adrian I. Desiderius seized the opportunity of this new accession to demand from the Popedom the anointment of Carloman's two sons as the true and real heirs to their father's kingdom, threatening wTar as the consequence of a refusal. Adrian did refuse, advised Charlemagne of the course pursued by his father-in-law, and sought help to maintain the papal authority, and to mar the designs of his enemy, whose defeat would, of course, serve Charlemagne's interest as well as his own. Charlemagne promised that as soon as possible he would devote himself to the humiliation of the haughty claimant of his dominion, and the insubordinate enemy of the Pope in Upper Italy.

Meanwhile, however, he had provided full occupation for himself, his nobles, and his armies, by declaring war against the Saxons. This he did at an imperial diet, held at Worms in 772, where he enlarged upon the predatory character of the Saxons, the shamefulness of the heathen worship they practised, and the merit which would be due to the Frankish empire if they could be converted to Christianity. Conversions were then more frequently made by the sword of a temporal king than by " the sword of the Spirit ; ^ as if a religion which could be donned to order might not as easily be doffed by a countermand from a stronger power. Having declared war ostensibly to bring the Saxons under the dominion of "the true and saving faith," he made his first irruption into their territories about the middle of that same year. It was a short, successful, and briskly conducted campaign. Leaving Worms, he entered Hesse, advanced to the banks of the Weser, took Eresberg, [Statberg,] destroyed the statue of Irmin, an object peculiarly venerable in the eyes of the Saxons, and compelled them to conclude a peace, giving twelve chiefs as their hostage for its fulfilment.

At the very moment of his victory, ominous tidings reached him from Rome. The plot on which Desiderius had resolved had begun to effect its purpose ; the Pope be^ ing embroiled, had asked Charlemagne for such help as he needed, and as it was easy to see that it was his own quarrel forced upon a third party, he could not refuse. Girding up his loins, therefore, he determined upon graciously aiding the Pope to maintain his supremacy, at the same time that he would settle his own dispute with his father-in-law, and might mayhap extend his own influence, if not his own dominion, in the Italian peninsula.