urpose. The ignorant clergy, alive only
to their present temporal interests, and not appreciating the great
salvation he had wrought out for them, could never forgive him. Their
inconceivable greed could not bear to be taxed even in its own defence.
"It is because Prince Charles," says the Council of Kiersi to one of his
descendants, "was the first of all the kings and princes of the Franks
who separated and dismembered the goods of the Church; it is for that
sole cause that he is eternally damned. We know, indeed, that St.
Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans, being in prayer, was carried up into the
world of spirits, and that among the things which the Lord showed to
him, he beheld Charles tormented in the lowest depths of hell. The angel
who conducted him, being interrogated on this matter, answered him that,
in the judgment to come, the soul and body of him who has taken, or who
has divided the goods of the Church, shall be delivered over, even
before the end of the world, to eternal torments by the sentence of the
saints, who shall sit together with the Lord to judge him. This act of
sacrilege shall add to his own sins the accumulated sins of all those
who thought that they had purchased their redemption by giving for the
love of God their goods to holy places, to the lights of divine worship,
and to the alms of the servants of Christ." This amusing but instructive
quotation strikingly shows how quickly the semi barbarian Frankish
clergy had caught the methods of Rome in the defence of temporal
possessions.

[Sidenote: The epoch of Pepin.]

[Sidenote: His conspiracy with the pope.]

[Sidenote: Its results.]

Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, introduces us to an epoch and a policy
resembling in many respects that of Constantine the Great; for he saw
that by an alliance with the Church it would be possible for him to
displace his sovereign and attain to kingly power. A thorough
understanding was entered upon between Pepin and the pope. Each had his
needs. One wanted the crown of France, the other liberation from
Constantinople and the Lombards. Pepin commenced by enriching the clergy
with immense gifts, and assigning to the bishops seats in the assembly
of the nation. In thus consolidating ecclesiastical power he occasioned
a great social revolution, as was manifested by the introduction of the
Latin and the disuse of the Frankic on those occasions, and by the
transmuting of military reviews into theological assemblies.