t
come and sit on the same benches to study grammar, music, and
arithmetic." Thus, in the eighth century, he foreshadowed the extension
which, in the nineteenth, was to be accorded to primary instruction, to
the advantage and honor not only of the clergy, but also of the whole
people.

After so much of war and toil at a distance, Charlemagne was now at
Aix-la-Chapelle, finding rest in this work of peaceful civilization. He
was embellishing the capital which he had founded, and which was called
the king's court. He had built there a grand basilica, magnificently
adorned. He was completing his own palace there. He fetched from Italy
clerics skilled in church music, a pious joyance to which he was much
devoted, and which he recommended to the bishops of his empire. In the
outskirts of Aix-la-Chapelle "he gave full scope," says Eginhard, "to
his delight in riding and hunting. Baths of naturally tepid water gave
him great pleasure. Being passionately fond of swimming, he became so
dexterous that none could be compared with him. He invited not only his
sons, but also his friends, the grandees of his court, and sometimes
even the soldiers of his guard, to bathe with him, insomuch that there
were often a hundred and more persons bathing at a time."

When age arrived, he made no alteration in his bodily habits; but, at
the same time, instead of putting away from him the thought of death, he
was much taken up with it, and prepared himself for it with stern
severity. He drew up, modified, and completed his will several times
over. Three years before his death he made out the distribution of his
treasures, his money, his wardrobe, and all his furniture, in the
presence of his friends and his officers, in order that their voice
might insure, after his death, the execution of this partition, and he
set down his intentions in this respect in a written summary, in which
he massed all his riches in three grand lots. The first two were divided
into twenty-one portions, which were to be distributed among the
twenty-one metropolitan churches of his empire. After having put these
first two lots under seal, he willed to preserve to himself his usual
enjoyment of the third so long as he lived. But after his death, or
voluntary renunciation of the things of this world, this same lot was to
be subdivided into four portions. His intention was that the first
should be added to the twenty-one portions which were to go to the
metropolitan churche