with other classes. He encouraged missions
as well as schools.

There was another Germanic tribe at that time which he held in great
alarm, but which he did not attack, since they were not immediately
dangerous. This tribe or race was the Norman, just then beginning their
ravages,--pirates in open boats. They had dared to enter a port in
Narbonensis Gaul for purposes of plunder. Some took them for Africans,
and others for British merchants. Nay, said Charlemagne, they are not
merchants, but cruel enemies; and he covered his face with his iron
hands and wept like a child. He did not fear these barbarians, but he
wept when he foresaw the evil they would do when he was dead. "I weep,"
said he, "that they should dare almost to land on my shores, in my
lifetime." These Normans escaped him. They conquered and they founded
kingdoms. But they did not replunge Europe in darkness. A barrier had
been made against their inundation. The Saxon conquest was that
barrier. Moreover, the Normans were the noblest race of barbarians which
then roamed through the forests of Germany, or skirted the shores of
Scandinavia. They had grand natural traits of character. They were
poetic, brave, and adventurous. They were superior to the Saxons and the
Franks. When converted, they were the great allies of the Pope, and
early became civilized. To them we trace the noblest development of
Gothic architecture. They became great scholars and statesmen. They were
more refined by nature than the Saxons, and avoided their gluttonous
habits. In after times they composed the flower of European chivalry. It
was providential that they were not subdued,--that they became the
leading race in Northern Europe. To them we trace the mercantile
greatness of England, for they were born sailors. They never lost their
natural heroism, or love of power.

The next important conquest of Charlemagne was that of the Avares,--a
tribe of the Huns, of Slavonic origin. They are represented as very
hideous barbarians, and only thought of plunder. They never sought to
reconstruct. There seemed to be no end of their invasions from the time
of Attila. They were more formidable for their numbers and destructive
ravages than for their military skill. There was a time, however, when
they threatened the combined forces of Germany and Rome; but Europe was
delivered by the battle of Poictiers,--the bloodiest battle on
record,--when they seemed to be annihilated. But they sprang up again