who, as son of the elder brother of Lewis, thought he had a preferable title to the empire of his grandfather Charlemagne. The archbishops of Milan and Cremona espoused his cause; but the unhappy prince was too weak to make his pretensions effectual: abandoned by his troops, he was forced to throw himself on the mercy of his uncle, who inhumanly ordered his eyes to be put out, which occasioned his death.

In the partition of his empire, Lewis had shown the height of imprudence. He had given the whole to his three sons, Lotharius, Pepin, and Lewis. A fourth son was born to him of a second marriage, Charles, afterwards surnamed the Bald, for whom it became necessary to provide a patrimony. This could not be done without giving umbrage to the three elder brothers, who were in fact now independent sovereigns. Each had his party who espoused his interest; and the kingdom was a scene of turbulence and anarchy. Complaints were heard in every quarter of the most outrageous abuses; and Lewis, seriously wishing to redress the grievances of his subjects, called a general assembly, or champ de mai, at Aix-la-Chapelle. Here an arrogant monk, named Valla, either instigated by a party, or by the insolent rancor of his own disposition, took upon him to accuse the emperor publicly as being the author of the general calamities; he reproached him with his design of providing for his youngest son, whom he stigmatized as a bastard, at the expense of the elder, who, he said, had as good a right to their crowns as Lewis to his own. The pusillanimous Lewis patiently heard these invectives; and, instead of inflicting on their author that punishment which he so amply deserved, he contented himself with dismissing the factious monk to his convent, where he remained no longer than till by his incendiary machinations he had brought the three brothers openly to declare war against their father. It was in vain that Lewis proposed terms of accommodation-that he set forth the equity and probity of his intentions, and summoned assemblies of the states to devise the most probable means of securing the peace of the empire. The princes were exasperated; the ecclesiastic had gained to his party several bishops and abbots; and Gregory IV., as the popes now saw it was for their interest to humble the emperors, took a decided part with the rebels. Gregory came to France, and threatened the emperor with excommunication. The French bishops, on the emperor's side, showed a becoming spirit. They threatened the pope, in their turn, with excommunication- Si excommunicaturus veniet, excommunicatus abibit. But Gregory had both resolution and artifice. While a negotiation was on foot, the pope was admitted into Lewis's camp; he corrupted one half of his army, and on the night of his departúre they abandoned their sovereign, and repaired to the standard of Lotharius. The unhappy Lewis surrendered himself a prisoner to his rebellious children, and delivered up the empress, with his

The empress, as

son Charles-the innocent cause of the war. the highest mark of indignity that could be offered to her, had her head shaved, and was thrown into prison; and Charles, then a boy of ten years of age, was confined in a convent. Valla, the monk, now proclaimed the throne vacated by Lewis, and Lotharius was declared emperor. The first step of his administration was infamous and detestable. He compelled his father-whose paternal affection, weak indeed and imprudent, had associated him in the imperial dignity-to do public penance in the church of Notre Dame at Soissons, and to read with a loud voice a list which was given him of his crimes, among which appeared impiety, sacrilege, and murder. He was then conducted to a monastery, where he was confined for a year, till the dissensions of his children again replaced him on the throne. Lewis and Pepin, quarrelling with their elder brother Lotharius, restored Lewis le Débonnaire to his kingdom, and brought the empress and her son from banishment; but he did not long enjoy his change of fortune; for his son Lewis again commencing a rebellion, the weak and unfortunate father died of a broken heart.

The ruinous policy of this unhappy and despicable prince had introduced irrecoverable weakness and disorder into the empire. Lotharius, now emperor, and Pepin, his brother's son, took up arms against the two other sons of Lewis le Débonnaire, Lewis of Bavaria, and Charles the Bald. A battle ensued at Fontenai, in the territory of Auxerre, where it is said there perished 100,000 men. Lotharius and his nephew were vanquished. Charlemagne had compelled the nations whom he subdued to embrace Christianity; Lotharius, to acquire popularity and strengthen his arms, declared an entire liberty of conscience throughout the empire, and many thousands reverted to their ancient idolatry. In punishment of this impiety, Lotharius was now solemnly deposed by a council of bishops, who took upon them to show their authority no less over the victorious than over the vanquished princes. They put this question to Charles the Bald and to Lewis of Bavaria" Do you promise to govern better than Lotharius has done? "We do," said the obsequious monarchs. "Then," returned the bishops, "we, by divine authority, permit and ordain you to reign in his stead "a proceeding in which it is difficult to say whether the arrogance of the clergy most excites our indignation, or the pusillanimity of the monarchs our contempt.

Lotharius, though excommunicated and deprived of his imperial dignity by these overbearing ecclesiastics, found means, at last, to accommodate matters so with his brothers, that they agreed to a new partition of the empire. By the treaty of Verdun, concluded between the brothers, it was settled that the western Frankish empire, or the country now called France, which was to be the share of Charles the Bald, should have for ts boundaries the four great rivers, the Rhone, the Saone, the

Maese, and the Scheldt. Lotharius, together with the title of emperor, was to possess the kingdom-which was in fact little more than a nominal sovereignty; but to which was added, of real territory, those provinces which lay immediately adjoining to the eastern boundary of France, viz. that which from him took the name of Lotharingia, now Lorraine, Franche Comté, Hainault, and the Cambresis. The share of Lewis of Bavaria was the kingdom of Germany.

Thus Germany was finally separated from the empire of the Franks. The shadow of the Roman empire founded by Charlemagne still subsisted. Lotharius, after procuring his son Lewis to be consecrated King of Lombardy by Pope Sergius II., being attacked by a mortal distemper, chose to die in the habit of a monk, which he thought a sure passport to heaven. He was succeeded in the empire and kingdom by his eldest son Lewis. He had assigned Lorraine to his second son Lotharius, and Burgundy to his youngest son Charles. Among these princes and their uncles, Lewis of Bavaria and Charles the Bald, endless contentions arose; and the vast empire of Charlemagne, the scene of perpetual war and disorders, was fast sinking into contempt. On the death of Lewis II., Charles the Bald attempted, but without success, to wrest from the sons of Lewis of Bavaria the empire of Germany. His own kingdom of France was at this time visited by the inroads of his Norman neighbors, and groaned under all the calamities of war at home as well as abroad. The Saracens attacked him on the side of Italy; his nephew Carloman, son of Lewis of Bavaria, had invaded his dominions; and a conspiracy of his nobles threatened both his crown and life. He is said to have fallen a victim to this conspiracy, and to have died by poison.

Charles the Bald was the first of the French monarchs who made dignities and titles hereditary-a policy which gave a severe blow to the regal authority. It was indeed under the reigns of these weak princes of the posterity of Charlemagne that the feudal aristocracy first began to strengthen itself against the power of the crown. Walled castles and fortresses were erected by the nobility throughout France and Germany, from which they sallied out at the head of their armed vassals to plunder and lay waste the possessions of their rivals. We find in the capitularies of Charles the Bald a royal ordonnance prohibiting the erection of such castles, but the edict was contemned, and the sovereign had no power to enforce his prohibition. From this period, the barbarous custom of private war prevailed in all the kingdoms of Europe, and marked alike the weakness of the sovereign power and the general ferocity of manners of the middle ages.

The Normans, a new race of invaders from Scandinavia, began, under the reign of Charles the Bald, to attract the attention and alarm the fears of most of the European nations. The kingdoms

of Scandinavia, which have been termed officina humani generis, seem to have resembled a beehive, of which the stock multiplies so fast, that it is necessary to send off immense swarms from time to time, to seek new establishments for themselves, and to leave a sufficiency of subsistence for those that remain behind. The Normans, or Northernmen, were a new race of Goths, who poured down in a torrent upon the countries to the south of them. They had begun their depredations towards the end of the reign of Charlemagne ; but the terror of his arms prevented them from making any considerable encroachment on his empire. Under Lewis the Débonnaire they made further advances. They were expert at ship-building, and at that time constructed vessels capable of containing about one hundred men. In the year 843 they sailed up the Seine, and plundered the city of Rouen. Another fleet sailed up the Loire, and laid waste the whole country as far as Touraine. They did not confine their depredations to cattle, goods, provisions, or money, but carried off men, women, and children into captivity. Emboldened by the little resistance they met with under a weak and impotent administration, they in the following year covered the sea with their fleets, and landed almost at the same time in England, France, and Spain. Spain, then under a vigorous Mahometan government, took measures to repel the invaders, and succeeded; but in France and England, the state of the country was highly favorable to the success of their enterprise.

In the year 845, the Normans sailed up the Elbe, plundered Hamburgh, and penetrated into Germany. They had at this time a fleet of 600 ships, with Eric, king of Denmark, at their head. He detached Regnier, one of his admirals, with 420 vessels up the Seine; Rouen was plundered a second time, and the corsairs proceeded along the river to Paris. The Parisians took to flight, and, abandoning the city, it was burnt down by the Normans. The city was at that time entirely built of wood. Charles the Bald, too weak to make head against the invaders with his forces, gave them 14,000 marks of silver on condition of their evacuating France-the most effectual means to secure their return. Accordingly, they quitted the Seine, but sailed up the Garonne, and plundered Bourdeaux. Pepin, then king of Aquitaine, conducted himself yet worse than Charles the Bald; for, being unable to resist the invaders, he shamefully joined them, and united his forces to assist them in ravaging the whole kingdom of France. Germany, Flanders, and England shared the miseries of this confederacy. Charles, surnamed the Gross, equally pusillanimous with his predecessors of the blood of Charlemagne, yielded a part of Holland to the Normans, in the view of pacifying them; the consequence was, that they seized upon Flanders, passed without resistance from the Somme to the river Oise, burnt the town of Pontoise, and proceeded a second time with

great alacrity to Paris. The Parisians, however, were now better prepared for their reception. Count Odo, or Eudes, whose valor afterwards raised him to the throne of France, was determined that his countrymen should not basely abandon their capital as before. He made every preparation for defence and for vigorous resistance. The Normans applied the battering ram to the walls, and effected a breach, but were bravely beat off by the besieged. The venerable Bishop Gosselin, an honor to his character and profession, repaired every day to the ramparts, set up there the standard of the cross, and, after bestowing his benedictions on the people, fought gallantly at their head, armed with his battle-axe and cuirass; but the worthy prelate died of fatigue in the midst of the siege. The memory of this good man, although the scruples of pious Catholics have denied him canonization, is more precious, more truly respectable, than half their calendar.

The Normans blocked up the city for eighteen months, during which time the miserable Parisians suffered all the horrors of famine and pestilence. At length, another shameful truce was concluded between the barbarians and Charles the Gross, which, like the former, served only to make them change the scene of their devastations. They laid siege to the town of Sens, and plundered Burgundy, while Charles assembled a parliament at Mentz, which, with great propriety, deprived this pitiful monarch of a throne which he was unworthy to fill. This assembly called to the empire Arnold, a bastard, of the blood of Charlemagne ; while Eudes, count of Paris, was elected king of France.

Raoul, or Rollo, the most distinguished of the Scandinavian leaders, having assembled an immense body of troops, made a landing in England in the year 885. After some successes in that quarter, he steered his course to France, where he began to think of forming a fixed establishment. His son, the second Rollo, repaired the city of Rouen, which he determined to make his capital; and, marrying the daughter of Charles the Simple, to whom Eudes had ceded the crown and part of the dominions of France, Rollo acquired the provinces of Normandy and Britany as her portion. He embraced the Christian faith, and turned his thoughts to the improvement of his provinces and the happiness of his subjects. The Danes and Scandinavians, now settled in Norinandy, and uniting with the Franks, produced that race of warriors whom we shall presently see the conquerors of England and of Sicily.

While the empire of Charlemagne was thus hastening to its downfall under his degenerate successors, that of Constantinople exhibited an appearance in some respects still venerable and respectable. It has been compared by the fanciful Voltaire to an immense tree, still vigorous, though old and stripped of some of its roots, and assailed on every side by violent storms. This empire had nothing left in Africa, and had lost Syria, with part of