city comparable with Aix-la-Chapelle?"

"Your gorgeous capital of Aix-la-Chapelle, the capital of your Germanic
possessions, is not Gaul. Gaul has remained to you a strange country.
You love forests that lend themselves to your autumn hunting parties,
and the rich domains, whence every year the revenues are carted to your
residences on the other side of the Rhine. But you do not love Gaul,
seeing that you exhaust her resources in men and money in order to carry
on your wars. Frightful misery desolates our provinces. Millions of
God's creatures, deprived almost of bread, shelter and clothes, toil
from dawn to dusk, and die in slavery--all in order to sustain the
opulence of their masters. If you cause instruction to be given to some
pupils in your Palatine school, you allow, on the other hand, millions
of God's creatures to live like brutes! Such is the condition of Gaul
under your reign, Charles the Great!"

"Old man," rejoined the Emperor, with a somber face and rising anger,
"after treating you as a friend this whole day, I looked for different
language. You are more than severe, you are unjust."

"I have been sincere towards you, the same as I was towards your
grandfather."

"Mindful of the service that you rendered my grandfather at the battle
of Poitiers, I meant to be generous towards you. I meant to do the right
thing by myself, by your people, and by you. I hoped to see you, after
this day spent in close intimacy with me, drop your prejudices, and to
be able to say to you: I have vanquished the Bretons by force of arms; I
desire to affirm my conquest by persuasion. Return to your country;
report to your countrymen the day that you spent with Charles; they will
trust your words, seeing that they place implicit confidence in you. You
were the soul of the last two wars that they sustained against me. Be
now the soul of our pacification. A conquest founded on force is often
ephemeral; a conquest cemented in mutual affection and esteem is
imperishable. I trust in your loyalty to gain the hearts of the Bretons
to me. Such was my hope. The bitter injustice of your words dashes it.
Let us think of it no more. You shall remain here as a hostage. I shall
treat you as a brave soldier, who saved my grandfather's life. Perhaps
in time you will judge me more justly. When that day shall have come,
you will be allowed to return to your own country, and I feel sure you
will then tell them what is right, as to-day you would o