he
bounds of habitual or traditional restraint, might seem to disdain easy
and effeminate vice, and to seek a kind of wild zest in the indulgence
of lust, by mingling it with all other violent passions, rapacity, and
inhumanity. Marriage was a bond contracted and broken on the lightest
occasion. Some of the Merovingian kings took as many wives, either
together or in succession, as suited either their passions or their
politics. Christianity hardly interferes even to interdict incest."
Clotaire and Charibert each married two sisters. The latter was sternly
rebuked by Saint Germanus, but (so the historian informs us) as the king
already had many wives, he bore the rebuke with extreme patience. There
were laws against these irregularities; but, strict as they were in
their terms, they were completely nullified by failure of execution.
These laws, also, are models of the inequality which existed between the
sexes. When punishment for adultery is prescribed, it is always
understood that it refers solely to the wife. The man was burdened by no
legal responsibility in this matter. Free women were not permitted to
marry slaves; to do so reduced them to a position of servitude. This did
not apply to men, excepting such as were too poor to compound the felony
with the abducted slave's owner. The kings were free in this matter.

Under the Carlovingian dynasty, manners were somewhat less ferocious
than those exhibited by the Merovingian kings; but it was rather the
result of the former being more confident of its security than any
evidence of real improvement in morals. Earnest champion of the Church
as was Charlemagne, and much as he honored religion, the records of his
own private life and those of his family are examples of wholesale
libidinosity such as is rarely equalled in history.

Five women were united in marriage to the great emperor. The first was
Desiree, the daughter of the Lombard king, whom Pope Stephen so bitterly
opposed. This union, however, was short lived; during one year only did
Desiree hold the wandering affections of the sturdy monarch. He then
took Hildegarde, a Swabian princess; but in the same indifferent manner
he dissolved this connection, being instigated thereto by the
allegations of a servant named Taland, who was enraged at the contempt
with which the queen received his criminal advances. Charlemagne did not
trouble himself to look into the matter; like Caesar, he held that his
wife should be above