the state of desolation, that hunger impelled human beings to murder
each other to feed upon the flesh of their bodies, which in many
instances were sold, and bought with eagerness by those who were
famishing with want. Unwholesome food caused thousands to be afflicted
with a disease which was called the sacred fire, the ardent malady, and
the infernal evil, the sufferers feeling as if they were devoured by an
internal flame. To give some idea of the luxury of costume which existed
in those days at Paris, it is but requisite to quote an address of Abbon
the poet to the Parisians, written about the year 890, wherein hen
observes: "An _agraffe_ (a clasp) of gold fastens the upper part of
your dress; to keep off the cold you cover yourselves with the purple
of Tyre, you will have no other cloak than a chlamyde embroidered with
gold, your girdle must be ornamented with precious stones, and gold
must sparkle even upon your shoes, and on the cane which you carry. O
France! if you do not abandon such luxurious extravagance, you will
lose your courage and your country." Hugh Capet, who became king of
France in 987, fixed his residence at Paris, thus again constituting it
the capital of the kingdom, and his son and successor Robert, being a
strict devotee, built and repaired several churches which had been
greatly injured by the Normans, and Paris began in his reign to assume
an appearance of improvement, which continued until it received a check
from an ill-timed joke of Philippe the First, who made a satirical
remark upon William the Conqueror of England having become rather
unwieldy, which so provoked that choleric monarch that he laid waste a
great portion of Philippe's dominions; when his progress was checked by
his falling from his horse, which occasioned his death and thus
delivered Philippe from a most powerful enemy. In the following reign,
that of Lewis the Fat, learning began to make considerable progress, and
the colleges of Paris to acquire a high celebrity, and amongst the
professors whose reputation was of the highest, was Abelard, no one