swept away; and, at the end of the very year in which he returned from
Italy, a number of acts, diplomas, charters, letters, judgments, and
affairs of all kinds, can be traced to Charlemagne himself, the despatch
of which, together with all those that must have escaped research, would
be utterly inconceivable, were we ignorant of what were the habits of
that great and singular man.

The war dress of Charlemagne himself was wholly composed of steel,
consisting of the casque, breast, and back plates, together with
greaves, gauntlets, and cuissards, formed likewise of iron plates. Nor
were inferior warriors less cumbrously defended; for though the arms of
the earlier Francs were light, in comparison with this heavy panoply,
yet we find that, in the days of Charlemagne, each man in the army,
whose means permitted it, was protected by a suit of armour similar to
to that of the monarch.

[Mr. James's summary of the character of Charlemagne is a delightful
piece of writing:]

The character of Charlemagne can alone be appreciated by comparing it
with the barbarism of the times from which he emerged; nor do his
virtues or his talents acquire any fictitious grandeur from opposition
with objects around; for, though "the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual
splendour from the nakedness of the surrounding desert,"[9] his
excellence lay not alone in adorning, but in cultivating the waste. His
military successes were prepared by the wars and victories both of Pepin
and Charles Martel; but one proof of the vast comprehensiveness of his
mind, is to be found in the immense undertakings which he accomplished
with the same means which two great monarchs had employed on very
inferior enterprises. The dazzling rapidity with which each individual