picture is
relieved only by the lives of some remarkable saints.

[Sidenote: The Karling House.]

The first, of course, is S. Arnulf, Bishop of Metz, the
great-grandfather of Charles Martel. Born about 582, he died in 641,
and the holy simplicity of his life as statesman and priest comes like
a ray of sunshine in the gloom of the days of "half heathen and wholly
vicious" kings. Mr. Hodgkin, with an eye no doubt to modern affairs,
comments thus on the career of the prelate so different from the
greedy, turbulent, and licentious men whom {145} Gregory of Tours
describes: "In reading his life one cannot but feel that in some way
the Frankish nation, or at least the Austrasian part of it, has groped
its way upwards since the sixth century." [Sidenote: S. Arnulf.] Arnulf
was a type of the good bishops of the Middle Ages, strong, able to hold
his own with kings, a friend of the poor, eager to pass from the world
to a quiet eventide in some monastic shade. The tale that is told of
him is typical of the sympathies and passions of his age. Bishop of
Metz, and chief counsellor of Dagobert whose father Chlothochar he had
helped to raise to the throne, when he expressed his wish to retire
from the world the king cried out that if he did he would slay his two
sons. "My sons' lives are in the hands of God," said Arnulf. "Yours
will not last long if you slay the innocent"; and when Dagobert drew
his sword on him he said, "Would you return good for evil? Here am I
ready to die in obedience to Him Who gave me life and Who died for me."
Queen and nobles cried out, and the king fell penitent at the bishop's
feet. Like S. Arnulf's is the romantic figure of his descendant
Carloman, who turned from the rule of kingdoms and the command of
armies to the seclusion of Soracte and Monte Cassino. The "great
renunciation" is a striking tale. The disappearance, the long days of
patient submission to rule, the discovery of the real position of the
humble brother, and then the last dramatic appearance to follow an
unpopular cause, make a story as striking as any which have come to us
from the Middle Age. But before Carloman come many other noble
figures. The fifty years that followed Arnulf's death are but a dreary
tale of anarchy and blood. It is broken here and there {146} by
records of Christian endurance or martyrdom: bishops who tried to serve
the State often served not wisely but too well and met the fate of
unsuccessful political