cordiality; the bishops, as was proper, celebrated the
sacrament of the mass, and they afterwards sat down to dinner. When the
meal was over, King Robert offered Henry immense presents of gold and
silver and precious stones, and a hundred horses richly caparisoned, each
carrying a cuirass and a helmet; and he added that all that the emperor
did not accept of these gifts would be so much deducted from their
friendship. Henry, seeing the generosity of his friend, took of the
whole only a book containing the Holy Gospel, set with gold and precious
stones, and a golden amulet, wherein was a tooth of St. Vincent, priest
and martyr. The empress, likewise, accepted only two golden cups. Next
day, King Robert crossed with his bishops into the territories of the
emperor, who received him magnificently, and, after dinner, offered him a
hundred pounds of pure gold. The king, in his turn, accepted only two
golden cups; and, after having ratified their pact of friendship, they
returned each to his own dominions."

[Illustration: NOTRE DAME----310]

Let us add to this summary of Robert's reign some facts which are
characteristic of the epoch. In A.D. 1000, in consequence of the sense
attached to certain words in the Sacred Books, many Christians expected
the end of the world. The time of expectation was full of anxieties;
plagues, famines, and divers accidents which then took place in divers
quarters, were an additional aggravation; the churches were crowded;
penances, offerings, absolutions, all the forms of invocation and
repentance multiplied rapidly; a multitude of souls, in submission or
terror, prepared to appear before their Judge. And after what
catastrophes? In the midst of what gloom or of what light? These were
fearful questions, of which men's imaginations were exhausted in
forestalling the solution. When the last day of the tenth and the first
of the eleventh centuries were past, it was like a general regeneration;
it might have been said that time was beginning over again; and the work
was commenced of rendering the Christian world worthy of the future.
"Especially in Italy and in Gaul," says the chronicler Raoul Glaber, "men
took in hand the reconstruction of the basilicas, although the greater
part had no need thereof. Christian peoples seemed to vie one with
another which should erect the most beautiful. It was as if the world,
shaking itself together and casting off its old garments, would have
decked