y
struggling for dominion, or, in other words, were ever troubling and
endangering the social condition. Let there but arise, in the midst of
this chaos of unruly forces and selfish passions, a great man, one of
those elevated minds and strong characters that can understand the
essential aim of society and then urge it forward, and at the same time
keep it well in hand on the roads that lead thereto, and such a man will
soon seize and exercise the personal power almost of a despot, and people
will not only make him welcome, but even celebrate his praises, for they
do not quit the substance for the shadow, or sacrifice the end to the
means. Such was the empire of Charlemagne. Amongst annalists and
historians, some, treating him as a mere conqueror and despot, have
ignored his merits and his glory; others, that they might admire him
without scruple, have made of him a founder of free institutions, a
constitutional monarch. Both are equally mistaken. Charlemagne was,
indeed, a conqueror and a despot; but by his conquests and his personal
power he, so long as he was by, that is, for six and forty years, saved
Gallo-Frankish society from barbaric invasion without and anarchy within.
That is the characteristic of his government and his title to glory.

What he was in his wars and his general relations with his nation has
just been seen; he shall now be exhibited in all his administrative
activity and his intellectual life, as a legislator and as a friend to
the human mind. The same man will be recognized in every ease; he will
grow in greatness, without changing, as he appears under his various
aspects.

There are often joined together, under the title of Capitularies
(_capitula,_ small chapters, articles) a mass of Acts, very different in
point of dates and objects, which are attributed indiscriminately to
Charlemagne. This is a mistake. The Capitularies are the laws or
legislative measures of the Frankish kings, Merovingian as well as
Carlovingian. Those of the Merovingians are few in number and of slight
importance, and amongst those of the Carlovingians, which amount to one
hundred and fifty-two, sixty-five only are due to Charlemagne. When an
attempt is made to classify these last according to their object, it is
impossible not to be struck with their incoherent variety; and several of
them are such as we should nowadays be surprised to meet with in a code
or in a special law. Amongst Charlemagne's sixty-five