s national
character, bears witness to the prolonged importance attained in Europe
by this incident in the history of Charlemagne. Three centuries later
the comrades of William the Conqueror, marching to battle at Hastings for
the possession of England, struck up _The Song of Roland_ "to prepare
themselves for victory or death," says M. Vitel, in his vivid estimate
and able translation of this poetical monument of the manners and first
impulses towards chivalry of the middle ages. There is no determining
how far history must be made to participate in these reminiscences of
national feeling; but, assuredly, the figures of Roland and Oliver, and
Archbishop Turpin, and the pious, unsophisticated and tender character of
their heroism are not pure fables invented by the fancy of a poet, or the
credulity of a monk. If the accuracy of historical narrative must not be
looked for in them, their moral truth must be recognized in their
portrayal of a people and an age.

The political genius of Charlemagne comprehended more fully than would be
imagined from his panegyrist's brief and dry account all the gravity of
the affair of Roncesvalles. Not only did he take immediate vengeance by
hanging Duke Lupus of Aquitaine, whose treason had brought down this
mishap, and by reducing his two sons, Adairic and Sancho, to a more
feeble and precarious condition, but he resolved to treat Aquitaine as he
had but lately treated Italy, that is to say, to make of it, according to
the correct definition of M. Fauriel, "a special kingdom," an integral
portion, indeed, of the Frankish empire, but with an especial
destination, which was that of resisting the invasions of the Andalusian
Arabs, and confining them as much as possible to the soil of the
Peninsula. This was, in some sort, giving back to the country its
primary task as an independent duchy; and it was the most natural and
most certain way of making the Aquitanians useful subjects by giving play
to their national vanity, to their pretensions of forming a separate
people, and to their hopes of once more becoming, sooner or later, an
independent nation. Queen Hildegarde, during her husband's sojourn at
Casseneuil, in 778, had borne him a son, whom he called Louis, and who
was, afterwards, Louis the Debonnair. Charlemagne, summoned a second
time to Rome, in 781, by the quarrels of Pope Adrian I. with the imperial
court of Constantinople, brought with him his two sons, Pepin aged only
fou