CHARLEMAGNE.

A. D. 742-814.


REVIVAL OF WESTERN EMPIRE.


The most illustrious monarch of the Middle Ages was doubtless
Charlemagne. Certainly he was the first great statesman, hero, and
organizer that looms up to view after the dissolution of the Roman
Empire. Therefore I present him as one with whom is associated an
epoch in civilization. To him we date the first memorable step
which Europe took out of the anarchies of the Merovingian age. His
dream was to revive the Empire that had fallen, he was the first to
labor, with giant strength, to restore what vice and violence had
destroyed. He did not succeed in realizing the great ends to which
he aspired, but his aspirations were lofty. It was not in the
power of any man to civilize semi-barbarians in a single reign; but
if he attempted impossibilities he did not live in vain, since he
bequeathed some permanent conquests and some great traditions. He
left a great legacy to civilization. His life has not dramatic
interest like that of Hildebrand, nor poetic interest like the
lives of the leaders of the Crusades; but it is very instructive.
He was the pride of his own generation, and the boast of succeeding
ages, "claimed," says Sismondi, "by the Church as a saint, by the
French as the greatest of their kings, by the Germans as their
countryman, and by the Italians as their emperor."