prostrate almost
as soon as the hand of their architect was cold. His institutions had not
struck down into the soil. There were no extensive and vigorous roots to
nourish, from below, a flourishing Empire through time and tempest.

Moreover, the Carlovingian race had been exhausted by producing a race of
heroes like the Pepins and the Charleses. The family became, soon, as
contemptible as the ox-drawn, long-haired "do-nothings" whom it had
expelled; but it is not our task to describe the fortunes of the
Emperor's ignoble descendants. The realm was divided, sub-divided, at
times partially reunited, like a family farm, among monarchs incompetent
alike to hold, to delegate, or--to resign the inheritance of the great
warrior and lawgiver. The meek, bald, fat, stammering, simple Charles, or
Louis, who successively sat upon his throne--princes, whose only historic
individuality consists in these insipid appellations--had not the sense
to comprehend, far less to develop, the plans of their ancestor.

Charles the Simple was the last Carlovingian who governed Lotharingia, in
which were comprised most of the Netherlands and Friesland. The German
monarch, Henry the Fowler, at that period called King of the East Franks,
as Charles of the West Franks, acquired Lotharingia by the treaty of
Bonn, Charles reserving the sovereignty over the kingdom during his
lifetime. In 925, A.D., however, the Simpleton having been imprisoned and
deposed by his own subjects, the Fowler was recognized King, of
Lotharingia. Thus the Netherlands passed out of France into Germany,
remaining, still, provinces of a loose, disjointed Empire.

This is the epoch in which the various dukedoms, earldoms, and other
petty sovereignties of the Netherlands became hereditary. It was in the
year 922 that Charles the Simple presented to Count Dirk the territory of
Holland, by letters patent. This narrow hook of land, destined, in future
ages, to be the cradle of a considerable empire, stretching through both
hemispheres, was, thenceforth, the inheritance of Dirk's descendants.
Historically, therefore, he is Dirk I., Count of Holland.

Of this small sovereign and his successors, the most powerful foe for
centuries was ever the Bishop of Utrecht, the origin of whose greatness
has been already indicated. Of the other Netherland provinces, now or
before become hereditary, the first in rank was Lotharingia, once the
kingdom of Lothaire, now the dukedom of Lorraine. In 9