expedition was executed, was perhaps less wonderful, than the clear
precision with which each was designed, and the continuous, persevering,
unconquerable determination wherewith each general plan was pursued to
its close. The materials for his wars,--the brave, the active, and the
hardy soldiers,--had been formed by his father and by nature; but when
those troops were to be led through desert and unknown countries, into
which Pepin had never dreamed of penetrating, and in an age when
geography was hardly known--when they were to be supplied at a distance
from all their resources, in a land where roads were unheard of, and
provisions too scanty for the inhabitants themselves--the success was
attributable to Charlemagne, and the honour is his due. His predecessors
had contented themselves with leading an army at once against the point
they intended to assail, or against the host they proposed to combat;
but Charlemagne was the first in modern Europe who introduced the great
improvement in the art of war, of pouring large bodies of men, by
different roads, into the hostile country; of teaching them to
co-operate, though separate, to concentrate when required; and of
combining their efforts and their movements for a general purpose on a
preconcerted plan.

[9] Gibbon makes this observation in depreciation of the
character of Charlemagne, forgetting or concealing that the
great beauty of the French monarch's character appeared not from
a contrast with surrounding barbarism, but from his efforts to
do away that barbarism itself.

His great success in civilization was all his own. Nothing had been done
by those who went before--scarcely a germ--scarcely a seed had been left
him. He took possession of a kingdom torn by factions, surrounded by
enemies, desolated by long wars, disorganized by intestine strife, and