CHAP. I. In and remarkable treaties of alliance on record. March, 842, they met at Strasburg, and in the presence of their respective armies of east and west, Louis of Germany swore in what Nithard calls the Roman tongue, and Charles in the Teudesc or German, to be true to each other, and to join in no plaid or agreement with Lothaire, that should militate against their mutual rights. It was, in fact, the monarchs of France and of Germany who united to cast off and disown the authority of an emperor, and to assert the right of each country to form an independent kingdom. They declared that the judgment of Heaven had been given for this, their independence, in the victory of Fontenailles. Yet their oath was not one which they called Heaven to sanction. It was to their own followers they appealed to withdraw their allegiance from whichever prince should be false to this compact. They had thus recourse to the feudal sanction, and they celebrated the event by a tournament, displaying in full germs the elements of a new order of society, at the same time that they laid the foundation of the first national monarchies of Europe on the ruin of the vainly resuscitated empire. The subsequent efforts of Lothaire to resist his brethren were not made as emperor, but as the local sovereign of a region personally attached to him. As the Germans were the chief givers of victory, he at first tried to raise the Saxon, that is the Saxon serfs, promising to emancipate them from their Frank lords; but his chief support lay in the people of the old Austrasian region, who were unwilling to obey or become inferiors either to the German, whom they had dominated on one side, or the Neustrians, whom they had so often subdued on the other. Their pride upheld Lothaire, and enabled him to come to a treaty of partition with his brothers at Verdun, in 843. Louis, by this agreement, remained master of the regions eastward of the Rhine, the cities of Mayntz, Worms, and Spires being added, propter vini copiam. Charles had I. Neustria and Aquitaine. Lothaire retained the title of CHAP. emperor, which no longer meant supremacy, except over Italy. To maintain this supremacy, he had Austrasia, and the long strip of country which stretched from it westward of the Rhine, and eastward of Saone and Rhone to the Mediterranean. Austrasia, too, included Frisia, which gave Lothaire a supply of the soldiers of the north wherewith to keep the south in subjection. With the treaty of Verdun expired all pretension to an empire, at least in Gaul. Lothaire's first care was indeed to proceed to Rome and exercise imperial rights there. And his son continued after him to play the part of Italian Emperor, with what glory and success may be guessed from the fact of the Saracens having burned St. Peter's in those years. Charles the Bald, who outlived all the princes of his race and time, united almost all their territories towards the close of his reign, and was crowned Emperor by the Pope, in 876. This merely indicated sovereignty over Rome. In France, events were taking place which not only threw into oblivion and disuse the authority of emperors, but proved even that of a king of France as too extended and shadowy for the time, and utterly unequal to the imperative duty of providing for the defence and security of the country. The people showed themselves. ready to accept and obey any prince who would defend them. But none were found; and the populations were obliged to rally under provincial chiefs. For even a kingdom to survive and prevail in France it was necessary to destroy every vestige of that which descended from the Carlovingians, and to plant an altogether new and indigenous branch which might take root as one of the local chieftaincies of the time, and grow up with the whole forest of feudalism, not venturing to out-top its fellows until the advantages to be reaped from manly monarchs came to be felt more strongly than the disgust inspired by an effete and imbecile race of kings. CHAP. CHAP. II. FOUNDATION OF THE MONARCHY. WHATEVER difference existed between the dynasties of Clovis and of Charlemagne, similar circumstances marked their decline. Monasticity destroyed the manhood and self-reliance of the population at both epochs, whilst peace and the establishment of a wide empire allowed military organisation to fall into decay. Martial habits and virtues were not only necessary to give security to the country, and provide for its defence; but they were also required to communicate worth and dignity to man, as well as to give that activity, and establish that most healthy social circulation, by which middle and lower ranks send their best spirits to the highest stations. In civilised ages this is the result of intellect working its way. In rude times physical advantages prevail, and often with happy result. The wars which break forth at that time, in the midst of all the ills they cause, create a demand for the strong arm of the peasant, thus break the bonds of the slave, and enable the serf to start up as a freeman. The proof of this lies in the fact, that it was always on the warlike frontier of an empire that renovation in those dark ages commenced and was accomplished. The empire of Clovis being threatened from the east, it was upon the Rhine that a martial spirit and organisation arose of which the chiefs were the ancestors of Charlemagne. The west of France, unmolested except by the Celts of Brittany, consequently disarmed and unwarlike, was renovated by Charles Martel, and its monks replaced by soldiers. But the Neustrians soon relapsed into a clerical or church-ridden population, and were able to furnish but few soldiers to Charles the Bald in his contest with his brethren. But in the ninth century the enterprising spirit of the Northmen opened a new path over the ocean, when all incursions and conquests by land were precluded by the victorious arms of Charlemagne. The sea rendered pervious to them precisely that part of Gaul and France where the inroads of foreign foe had been rarely known. Four or five great rivers offered ingress for private embarkations to reach far into the country; and in the space of a few years all the towns, churches, and monasteries of the region were first plundered, and then delivered to the flames. Of the population, numbers were slain, but numbers also were driven eastward. To provide for the maintenance and the freedom of these emigrants, as well as to repress their robberies and disorderly life, became a difficulty and a care. But they were wanting as soldiers to defend the rest of the country, and were located on the ravaged lands vacated by the enemy. By degrees the maritime provinces became peopled by the freebooters themselves and their descendants, who betook themselves to agriculture, uniting it with predatory and warlike habits. The more central provinces, organised and trained to resist them, adopted now the same. habits; and thus the west of France became repeopled by a mixed, a manly, and a valiant race, well able and determined to resist any new efforts of Germans or Austrasians, to dominate them. The invasion of the Normans thus, although commenced by years of rapine, murder, and anarchy, proved in the end a blessing and a regeneration for France. Eginhard, without giving the year of their first appearance, mentions that they infested the Gallic and CHAP. II. II. CHAP. Germanic coasts during the reign of Charlemagne, who equipped a fleet to repress them. Some years after his death, they became formidable. In 843, they ravaged the Loire, and took Nantes, in concert with the Bretons. In 844, they went up the Garonne to Toulouse. In the following year they mounted the Elbe, and were repulsed; whilst from the Seine and Paris they were only averted by seven thousand pounds weight of silver, collected by Charles the Bald. The chronicles of 851 show them to have been at Ghent, Rouen, and Beauvais. In 852, Godfrey, one of their chiefs, marched from the Scheldt to the Seine, and from the Seine to' the Loire. The banks of rivers had become waste, and the Normans went across country in pursuit of plunder: 856 marks the commencement of resistance. The Normans coming to Blois, and threatening Orleans, the bishops of that city and of Chartres prepared means of defence, and deterred the enemy. But in 856, they returned in irresistible numbers and sacked Orleans. To make some head against them in this quarter, Charles the Bald gave the Duchy of Le Mans to Hemispoe, the Breton prince. The different classes and population of central France grew at this time so indignant with Charles's cowardice and incapacity, that they rebelled, and called on Louis of Germany to reign over and protect them. There ensued a civil war, during which the Normans pillaged Paris, and ransomed the monastery of St. Denis. In 859, the common people between Seine and Loire rose of themselves against the Normans. But the nobles instantly interfered, not to head or to second, but to disperse and put them down. The first successful resistance to the Normans was, however, on the Loire. Here their chiefs first grew habituated to alliances with Frank courts or princes, and with the independent dukes of Brittany. Here they began to receive fiefs, and to sink the wandering plunderer in the feudal chieftain. On the Loire, too, both nobles and people, |