f Charlemagne._]

That scheme is, in the majority of the _chansons_, curiously uniform.
It has, since the earliest studies of them, been remarked as odd that
Charlemagne, though almost omnipresent (except of course in the
Crusading cycle and a few others), and though such a necessary figure
that he is in some cases evidently confounded both with his ancestor
Charles Martel and his successor Charles the Bald, plays a part that
is very dubiously heroic. He is, indeed, presented with great pomp and
circumstance as _li empereres a la barbe florie_, with a gorgeous
court, a wide realm, a numerous and brilliant baronage. But his
character is far from tenderly treated. In _Roland_ itself he appears
so little that critics who are not acquainted with many other poems
sometimes deny the characteristic we are now discussing. But elsewhere
he is much less leniently handled. Indeed the plot of very many
_chansons_ turns entirely on the ease with which he lends an ear to
traitors (treason of various kinds plays an almost ubiquitous part,
and the famous "trahis!" is heard in the very dawn of French
literature), on his readiness to be biassed by bribes, and on the
singular ferocity with which, on the slightest and most unsupported
accusation, he is ready to doom any one, from his own family
downwards, to block, stake, gallows, or living grave. This
combination, indeed, of the irascible and the gullible tempers in the
king defrays the plot of a very large number of the _chansons_, in
which we see his best knights, and (except that they are as intolerant
of injustice as he is prone to it) his most faithful servants, forced
into rebellion against him, and almost overwhelmed by his own violence
following on the machinations of their and his worst enemies.

[Sidenote: _Other characters and characteristics._]

Nevertheless, Charlemagne is always the defender of the Cross, and
the antagonist of the Saracens, and the part which these latter play
is as ubiquitous as his own, and on the whole more considerable. A
very large part of the earlier _chansons_ is occupied with direct
fighting against the heathen; and from an early period (at least if
the _Voyage a Constantinoble_ is, as is supposed, of the early twelfth
century, if not the eleventh) a most important element, bringing the
class more into contact with romance generally than some others which
have been noticed, is introduced in the love of a Saracen princess,
daughter of emperor or "a