assassins with poisoned daggers. "Thirteen sovereigns reigned over
the Franks in one hundred and fourteen years, only two of whom
attained to man's estate, and not one to the full development of
intellectual powers. There was scarcely one who did not live in a
state of perpetual intoxication, or who did not rival Sardanapalus
in effeminacy, and Commodus in cruelty." As these sovereigns were
good churchmen, their iniquities were glossed over by Gregory of
Tours. In HIS annals they may pass for saints, but history
consigns them to an infamous immortality.

It is difficult to conceive a more dreary and dismal state of
society than existed in France, and in fact over all Europe, when
Charlemagne began to reign. The Roman Empire was in ruins, except
in the East, where the Greek emperors reigned at Constantinople.
The western provinces were ruled by independent barbaric kings.
There was no central authority, although there was an attempt of
the popes to revive it,--a spiritual rather than a temporal power;
a theocracy whose foundation was secured by Leo the Great when he
established the jus divinum principle,--that he was the successor
of Peter, to whom were given the keys of heaven and hell. If there
was an interesting feature in the times it was this spiritual
authority exercised by the bishops of Rome: the most useful and
beneficent considering the evils which prevailed,--the reign of
brute force. The barbaric chieftains yielded a partial homage to
this spiritual power, and it was some check on their rapacity of
violence. It is mournful to think that so little of the ancient
civilization remained in the eighth century. Its eclipse was
total. The shadows of a dark and long night of superstition and
ignorance spread over Europe. Law was silenced by the sword.
Justinian's glorious legacy was already forgotten. The old