ately, and, driven from position to position, was obliged to go
and shut himself up in Pavia, the strongest place in his kingdom, whither
Charlemagne, having received on the march the submission of the principal
counts and nearly all the towns of Lombardy, came promptly to besiege
him.

To place textually before the reader a fragment of an old chronicle will
serve better than any modern description to show the impression of
admiration and fear produced upon his contemporaries by Charlemagne, his
person and his power. At the close of this ninth century a monk of the
abbey of St. Gall, in Switzerland, had collected, direct from the mouth
of one of Charlemagne's warriors, Adalbert, numerous stories of his
campaigns and his life. These stories are full of fabulous legends,
puerile anecdotes, distorted reminiscences, and chronological errors, and
they are written sometimes with a credulity and exaggeration of language
which raise a smile; but they reveal the state of men's minds and fancies
within the circle of Charlemagne's influence and at the sight of him.
This monk gives a naive account of Charlemagne's arrival before Pavia and
of the king of the Lombards' disquietude at his approach. Didier had
with him at that time one of Charlemagne's most famous comrades, Ogier
the Dane, who fills a prominent place in the romances and epopoeas,
relating to chivalry, of that age. Ogier had quarrelled with his great
chief and taken refuge with the king of the Lombards. It is probable
that his Danish origin and his relations with the king of the Danes,
Gottfried, for a long time an enemy of the Franks, had something to do
with his misunderstanding with Charlemagne. However that may have been,
"when Didier and Ogger (for so the monk calls him) heard that the dread
monarch was coming, they ascended a tower of vast height, whence they
could watch his arrival from afar off and from every quarter. They saw,
first of all, engines of war such as must have been necessary for the
armies of Darius or Julius Caesar. 'Is not Charles,' asked Didier of
Ogger, 'with this great army?' But the other answered, 'No.' The
Lombard, seeing afterwards an immense body of soldiery gathered from all
quarters of the vast empire, said to Ogger, 'Certes, Charles advanceth in
triumph in the midst of this throng.' 'No, not yet; he will not appear
so soon,' was the answer. 'What should we do, then,' rejoined Didier,
who began to be perturbed, 'should he com