conducted me to a gallery which is called the Hochmünster. In this place
is the arm-chair of Charlemagne. It is low, exceedingly wide, with a
round back; is formed of four pieces of white marble, without ornaments
or sculpture, and has for a seat an oak board, covered with a cushion of
red velvet. There are six steps up to it, two of which are of granite,
the others of marble. On this chair sat--a crown upon his head, a globe
in one hand, a scepter in the other, a sword by his side, the imperial
mantle over his shoulders, the cross of Christ round his neck, and his
feet in the sarcophagus of Augustus--Carolus Magnus in his tomb, in
which attitude he remained for three hundred and fifty-two years--from
852 to 1166, when Frederick Barbarossa, coveting the chair for his
coronation, entered the tomb. Barbarossa was an illustrious prince and a
valiant soldier; and it must, therefore, have been a moment singularly
strange when this crowned man stood before the crowned corpse of
Charlemagne--the one in all the majesty of empire, the other in all the
majesty of death. The soldier overcame the shades of greatness; the
living became the despoliator of inanimate worth. The chapel claimed the
skeleton, and Barbarossa the marble chair, which afterward became the
throne where thirty-six emperors were crowned. Ferdinand the First was
the last; Charles the Fifth preceded him.

In 1804, when Bonaparte became known as Napoleon, he visited
Aix-la-Chapelle. Josephine, who accompanied him, had the caprice to sit
down on this chair; but Napoleon, out of respect for Charlemagne, took
off his hat, and remained for some time standing, and in silence. The
following fact is somewhat remarkable, and struck me forcibly. In 814
Charlemagne died; a thousand years afterward, most probably about the
same hour, Napoleon fell.

In that fatal year, 1814, the allied sovereigns visited the tomb of the