HISTORY OF FRANCE
By M. Guizot
Volume 1 (of 6)
EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO THE PUBLISHERS.
Every history, and especially that of France, is one vast, long drama, in
which events are linked together according to defined laws, and in which
the actors play parts not ready made and learned by heart, parts
depending, in fact, not only upon the accidents of their birth, but also
upon their own ideas and their own will. There are, in the history of
peoples, two sets of causes essentially different, and, at the same time,
closely connected; the natural causes which are set over the general
course of events, and the unrestricted causes which are incidental. Men
do not make the whole of history it has laws of higher origin; but, in
history, men are unrestricted agents who produce for it results and
exercise over it an influence for which they are responsible. The fated
causes and the unrestricted causes, the defined laws of events and the
spontaneous actions of man’s free agency–herein is the whole of history.
And in the faithful reproduction of these two elements consist the truth
and the moral of stories from it.
Never was I more struck with this two-fold character of history than in
my tales to my grandchildren. When I commenced with them, they,
beforehand, evinced a lively interest, and they began to listen to me
with serious good will; but when they did not well apprehend the
lengthening chain of events, or when historical personages did not
become, in their eyes, creatures real and free, worthy of sympathy or
reprobation, when the drama was not developed before them with clearness
and animation, I saw their attention grow fitful and flagging; they
required light and life together; they wished to be illumined and
excited, instructed and amused.
At the same time that the difficulty of satisfying this two-fold desire
was painfully felt by me, I discovered therein more means and chances
than I had at first foreseen of succeeding in making my young audience
comprehend the history of France in its complication and its grandeur.
When Corneille observed,–
“In the well-born soul Valor ne’er lingers till due seasons roll,”–
he spoke as truly for intelligence as for valor. When once awakened and
really attentive, young minds are more earnest and more capable of
complete comprehension than any one would suppose. In order to explain
fully to my grandchildren the connection of events and the influence of
historical personages, I was sometimes led into very comprehensive
considerations and into pretty deep studies of character. And in such
cases I was nearly always not only perfectly understood but keenly
appreciated. I put it to the proof in the sketch of Charlemagne’s reign
and character; and the two great objects of that great man, who succeeded
in one and failed in the other, received from my youthful audience the
most riveted attention and the most clear comprehension. Youthful minds
have greater grasp than one is disposed to give them credit for, and,
perhaps, men would do well to be as earnest in their lives as children
are in their studies.
In order to attain the end I had set before me, I always took care to
connect my stories or my reflections with the great events or the great
personages of history. When we wish to examine and describe a district
scientifically, we traverse it in all its divisions and in every
direction; we visit plains as well as mountains, villages as well as
cities, the most obscure corners as well as the most famous spots; this
is the way of proceeding with the geologist, the botanist, the
archeologist, the statistician, the scholar. But when we wish
particularly to get an idea of the chief features of a country, its fixed
outlines, its general conformation, its special aspects, its great roads,
we mount the heights; we place ourselves at points whence we can best
take in the totality and the physiognomy of the landscape. And so we
must proceed in history when we wish neither to reduce it to the skeleton
of an abridgment nor extend it to the huge dimensions of a learned work.
Great events and great men are the fixed points and the peaks of history;
and it is thence that we can observe it in its totality, and follow it
along its highways. In my tales to my grandchildren I sometimes lingered
over some particular anecdote which gave me an opportunity of setting in
a vivid light the dominant spirit of an age or the characteristic manners
of a people; but, with rare exceptions, it is always on the great deeds
and the great personages of history that I have relied for making of them
in my tales what they were in reality–the centre and the focus of the
life of France.
GUIZOT.
VAL-RICHER,
December, 1869.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
I. GAUL 13
II. THE GAULS OUT OF GAUL 27
III. THE ROMANS IN GAUL 48
IV. GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS CIESAR 61
V. GAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. . 83
VI. ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 111
VII. THE GERMANS IN GAUL–THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS 129
VIII. THE MEROVINGIANS 156
IX. THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE.–THE PEPINS AND THE CHANGE OF DYNASTY
180
X. CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS 210
XI. CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS GOVERNMENT. . 234
XII. DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS. 254
XIII. FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET 286
XIV. THE CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES 306
XV. CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS 332
XVI. THE CRUSADES, THEIR ORIGIN AND SUCCESS 372
LIST OF STEEL ENGRAVINGS, VOLUME I.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF GUIZOT--FRONTISPIECE]
[Illustration: MAP OF ANCIENT FRANCE LYONS]
[Illustration: FROM LA CROIX ROUSSE----86]
[Illustration: BATTLE OF TOLBIACUM----144]
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF TOURS----193]
[Illustration: THE SUBMISSION OF WITTIKIND----218]
[Illustration: PARIS BESIEGED BY THE NORMANS----259]
[Illustration: NOTRE DAME----310]
[Illustration: Ideal Landscape of Ancient Gaul----13]
[Illustration: Gyptis presenting the Goblet to Euxenes----17]
[Illustration: A Tribe of Gauls on an Expedition----27]
[Illustration: The Gauls in Rome----39]
[Illustration: The Women defending the Cars----58]
[Illustration: The Roman Army invading Gaul----61]
[Illustration: Divitiacus before the Roman Senate----63]
[Illustration: Mounted Gauls----66]
[Illustration: Vercingetorix surrenders to Caesar----81]
[Illustration: Gaul subjugated by the Romans----83]
[Illustration: Eponina and Sabinus hidden in a Vault----97]
[Illustration: Christianity established in Gaul----111]
[Illustration: Druids offering Human Sacrifices----111]
[Illustration: Germans invading Gaul----129]
[Illustration: The Huns at the Battle of Chalons----135]
[Illustration: "Thus didst thou to the Vase of Soissons."----139]
[Illustration: The Sluggard King Journeying----156]
[Illustration: "Thrust him away, or thou diest in his stead."----160]
[Illustration: The Execution of Brunehaut----175]
[Illustration: "The Arabs had decamped silently in the night."----195]
[Illustration: Charlemagne at the Head of his Army----212]
[Illustration: Charlemagne inflicting Baptism upon the Saxons----215]
[Illustration: A Battle between Franks and Saxons----216]
[Illustration: Death of Roland at Roncesvalles----227]
[Illustration: Charlemagne and the General Assembly----239]
[Illustration: Charlemagne presiding at the School of the Palace----246]
[Illustration: Northmen on an Expedition----254]
[Illustration: "He remained there a long while, and his eyes were filled
with tears."----255]
[Illustration: The Barks of the Northmen before Paris----260]
[Illustration: Count Eudes re-entering Paris right through the Besiegers-
---262]
[Illustration: Ditcar the Monk recognizing the Head of Morvan----273]
[Illustration: Hugh Capet elected King----300]
[Illustration: "Who made thee King?"----302]
[Illustration: Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II----304]
[Illustration: Knights returning from Foray----311]
[Illustration: Knights and Peasants----312]
[Illustration: Robert had a Kindly Feeling for the Weak and Poor----313]
[Illustration: "The Accolade."----324]
[Illustration: Normans landing on English Coast----353]
[Illustration: William the Conqueror reviewing his Army----357]
[Illustration: Edith discovers the Body of Harold----360]
[Illustration: "God willeth it!"----383]
[Illustration: The Four Leaders of the First Crusade----385]
[Illustration: Crusaders on the March----386]
[Illustration: The Assault on St. Jean d'Acre----386]
A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES.
CHAPTER I.—-GAUL.
The Frenchman of to-day inhabits a country, long ago civilized and
Christianized, where, despite of much imperfection and much social
misery, thirty-eight millions of men live in security and peace, under
laws equal for all and efficiently upheld. There is every reason to
nourish great hopes of such a country, and to wish for it more and more
of freedom, glory, and prosperity; but one must be just towards one’s own
times, and estimate at their true value advantages already acquired and
progress already accomplished. If one were suddenly carried twenty or
thirty centuries backward, into the midst of that which was then called
Gaul, one would not recognize France. The same mountains reared their
heads; the same plains stretched far and wide; the same rivers rolled on
their course. There is no alteration in the physical formation of the
country; but its aspect was very different. Instead of the fields all
trim with cultivation, and all covered with various produce, one would
see inaccessible morasses and vast forests, as yet uncleared, given up to
the chances of primitive vegetation, peopled with wolves and bears, and
even the _urns_, or huge wild ox, and with elks, too–a kind of beast
that one finds no longer nowadays, save in the colder regions of
north-eastern Europe, such as Lithuania and Courland. Then wandered
over the champaign great herds of swine, as fierce almost as wolves,
tamed only so far as to know the sound of their keeper’s horn. The
better sort of fruits and of vegetables were quite unknown; they were
imported into Gaul–the greatest part from Asia, a portion from Africa
and the islands of the Mediterranean; and others, at a later period,
from the New World. Cold and rough was the prevailing temperature.
Nearly every winter the rivers froze sufficiently hard for the passage
of cars. And three or four centuries before the Christian era, on that
vast territory comprised between the ocean, the Pyrenees, the
Mediterranean, the Alps, and the Rhine, lived six or seven millions of
men a bestial life, enclosed in dwellings dark and low, the best of them
built of wood and clay, covered with branches or straw, made in a single
round piece, open to daylight by the door alone, and confusedly heaped
together behind a rampart, not inartistically composed of timber, earth,
and stone, which surrounded and protected what they were pleased to call
a town.
[Illustration: Ideal Landscape of Ancient Gaul----13]
Of even such towns there were scarcely any as yet, save in the most
populous and least uncultivated portion of Gaul; that is to say, in the
southern and eastern regions, at the foot of the mountains of Auvergne
and the Cevennes, and along the coasts of the Mediterranean. In the
north and the west were paltry hamlets, as transferable almost as the
people themselves; and on some islet amidst the morasses, or in some
hidden recess of the forest, were huge intrenchments formed of the trees
that were felled, where the population, at the first sound of the
war-cry, ran to shelter themselves with their flocks and all their
movables. And the war-cry was often heard: men living grossly and idly
are very prone to quarrel and fight. Gaul, moreover, was not occupied by
one and the same nation, with the same traditions and the same chiefs.
Tribes very different in origin, habits, and date of settlement, were
continually disputing the territory. In the south were Iberians or
Aquitanians, Phoenicians and Greeks; in the north and north-west,
Kymrians or Belgians; everywhere else, Gauls or Celts, the most numerous
settlers, who had the honor of giving their name to the country. Who
were the first to come, then? and what was the date of the first
settlement? Nobody knows. Of the Greeks alone does history mark with
any precision the arrival in southern Gaul. The Phoenicians preceded
them by several centuries; but it is impossible to fix any exact time.
The information is equally vague about the period when the Kymrians
invaded the north of Gaul. As for the Gauls and the Iberians, there is
not a word about their first entrance into the country, for they are
discovered there already at the first appearance of the country itself in
the domain of history.
The Iberians, whom Roman writers call Aquitanians, dwelt at the foot of
the Pyrenees, in the territory comprised between the mountains, the
Garonne, and the ocean. They belonged to the race which, under the same
appellation, had peopled Spain; but by what route they came into Gaul is
a problem which we cannot solve. It is much the same in tracing the
origin of every nation, for in those barbarous times men lived and died
without leaving any enduring memorial of their deeds and their destinies;
no monuments; no writings; just a few oral traditions, perhaps, which are
speedily lost or altered. It is in proportion as they become enlightened
and civilized, that men feel the desire and discover the means of
extending their memorial far beyond their own lifetime. That is the
beginning of history, the offspring of noble and useful sentiments, which
cause the mind to dwell upon the future, and to yearn for long
continuance; sentiments which testify to the superiority of man over all
other creatures living upon our earth, which foreshadow the immortality
of the soul, and which are warrant for the progress of the human race by
preserving for the generations to come what has been done and learned by
the generations that disappear.
By whatever route and at whatever epoch the Iberians came into the
south-west of Gaul, they abide there still in the department of the Lower
Pyrenees, under the name of Basques; a people distinct from all its
neighbors in features, costume, and especially language, which resembles
none of the present languages of Europe, contains many words which are to
be found in the names of rivers, mountains, and towns of olden Spain, and
which presents a considerable analogy to the idioms, ancient and modern,
of certain peoples of northern Africa. The Phoenicians did not leave, as
the Iberians did, in the south of France distinct and well-authenticated
descendants. They had begun about 1100 B.C. to trade there. They went
thither in search of furs, and gold and silver, which were got either
from the sand of certain rivers, as for instance the Allege (in Latin
Aurigera), or from certain mines of the Alps, the Cevennes, and the
Pyrenees; they brought in exchange stuffs dyed with purple, necklaces and
rings of glass, and, above all, arms and wine; a trade like that which is
nowadays carried on by the civilized peoples of Europe with the savage
tribes of Africa and America. For the purpose of extending and securing
their commercial expeditions, the Phoenicians founded colonies in several
parts of Gaul, and to them is attributed the earliest origin of Nemausus
(Nimes), and of Alesia, near Semur. But, at the end of three or four
centuries, these colonies fell into decay; the trade of the Phoenicians
was withdrawn from Gaul, and the only important sign it preserved of
their residence was a road which, starting from the eastern Pyrenees,
skirted the Gallic portion of the Mediterranean, crossed the Alps by the
pass of Tenda, and so united Spain, Gaul, and Italy. After the
withdrawal of the Phoenicians this road was kept up and repaired, at
first by the Greeks of Marseilles, and subsequently by the Romans.
As merchants and colonists, the Greeks were, in Gaul, the successors of
the Phoenicians, and Marseilles was one of their first and most
considerable colonies. At the time of the Phoenicians’ decay in Gaul, a
Greek people, the Rhodians, had pushed their commercial enterprises to a
great distance, and, in the words of the ancient historians, held the
empire of the sea. Their ancestors had, in former times, succeeded the
Phoenicians in the island of Rhodes, and they likewise succeeded them in
the south of Gaul, and founded, at the mouth of the Rhone, a colony
called Rhodanusia or Rhoda, with the same name as that which they had
already founded on the north-east coast of Spain, and which is nowadays
the town of Rosas, in Catalonia. But the importance of the Rhodians on
the southern coast of Gaul was short-lived. It had already sunk very low
in the year 600 B.C., when Euxenes, a Greek trader, coming from Phocea,
an Ionian town of Asia Minor, to seek his fortune, landed from a bay
eastward of the Rhone. The Segobrigians, a tribe of the Gallic race,
were in occupation of the neighboring country. Nann, their chief, gave
the strangers kindly welcome, and took them home with him to a great
feast which he was giving for his daughter’s marriage, who was called
Gyptis, according to some, and Petta, according to other historians. A
custom which exists still in several cantons of the Basque country, and
even at the centre of France in Morvan, a mountainous district of the
department of the Nievre, would that the maiden should appear only at the
end of the banquet, and holding in her hand a filled wine-cup, and that
the guest to whom she should present it should become the husband of her
choice. By accident, or quite another cause, say the ancient legends,
Gyptis stopped opposite Euxenes, and handed him the cup. Great was the
surprise, and, probably, anger amongst the Gauls who were present. But
Nann, believing he recognized a commandment from his gods, accepted the
Phocean as his son-in-law, and gave him as dowry the bay where he had
landed, with some cantons of the territory around. Euxenes, in
gratitude, gave his wife the Greek name of Aristoxena (that is, “the best
of hostesses”), sent away his ship to Phocea for colonists, and, whilst
waiting for them, laid in the centre of the bay, on a peninsula hollowed
out harbor-wise, towards the south, the foundations of a town, which he
called Massilia–thence Marseilles.
[Illustration: Gyptis presenting the Goblet to Euxenes----17]
Scarcely a year had elapsed when Euxenes’ ship arrived from Phocea, and
with it several galleys, bringing colonists full of hope, and laden with
provisions, utensils, arms, seeds, vine-cuttings, and olive-cuttings,
and, moreover, a statue of Diana, which the colonists had gone to fetch
from the celebrated temple of that goddess at Ephesus, and which her
priestess, Aristarche, accompanied to its new country.
The activity and prosperity of Marseilles, both within and without, were
rapidly developed. She carried her commerce wherever the Phoenicians and
the Rhodians had marked out a road; she repaired their forts; she took to
herself their establishments; and she placed on her medals, to signify
dominion, the rose, the emblem of Rhodes, beside the lion of Marseilles.
But Nann, the Gallic chieftain, who had protected her infancy, died; and
his son, Conran, shared the jealousy felt by the Segobrigians and the
neighboring peoplets towards the new corners. He promised and really
resolved to destroy the new city. It was the time of the flowering of
the vine, a season of great festivity amongst the Ionian Greeks, and
Marseilles thought solely of the preparations for the feast. The houses
and public places were being decorated with branches and flowers. No
guard was set; no work was done. Conran sent into the town a number of
his men, some openly, as if to take part in the festivities, others
hidden at the bottom of the cars which conveyed into Marseilles the
branches and foliage from the outskirts. He himself went and lay in
ambush in a neighboring glen, with seven thousand men, they say, but the
number is probably exaggerated, and waited for his emissaries to open the
gates to him during the night. But once more a woman, a near relation of
the Gallic chieftain, was the guardian angel of the Greeks, and revealed
the plot to a young man of Marseilles, with whom she was in love. The
gates were immediately shut, and so many Segobrigians as happened to be
in the town were massacred. Then, when night came on, the inhabitants,
armed, went forth to surprise Conran in the ambush where he was awaiting
the moment to surprise them. And there he fell with all his men.
Delivered as they were from this danger, the Massilians nevertheless
remained in a difficult and disquieting situation. The peoplets around,
in coalition against them, attacked them often, and threatened them
incessantly. But whilst they were struggling against these
embarrassments, a grand disaster, happening in the very same spot whence
they had emigrated half a century before, was procuring them a great
accession of strength and the surest means of defence. In the year 542
B.C., Phocea succumbed beneath the efforts of Cyrus, King of Persia, and
her inhabitants, leaving to the conqueror empty streets and deserted
houses, took to their ships in a body, to transfer their homes elsewhere.
A portion of this floating population made straight for Marseilles;
others stopped at Corsica, in the harbor of Alalia, another Phocean
colony. But at the end of five years they too, tired of piratical life
and of the incessant wars they had to sustain against the Carthaginians,
quitted Corsica, and went to rejoin their compatriots in Gaul.
Thenceforward Marseilles found herself in a position to face her enemies.
She extended her walls all round the bay, and her enterprises far away.
She founded on the southern coast of Gaul and on the eastern coast of
Spain, permanent settlements, which are to this day towns: eastward of
the Rhone, Hercules’ harbor, Moncecus (Monaco), Niccea (Nice), Antipolis
(Antibes); westward, Heraclea Cacabaria (Saint-Gilles), Agaththae
(Agdevall), Emporia; (Ampurias in Catalonia), &c., &c. In valley of the
Rhone, several towns of the Gauls, Cabellio were (Cavaili like on), Greek
Avenio (Avignon), Arelate (Arles), for instance, colonies, so great there
was the number of travellers or established merchants who spoke Greek.
With this commercial activity Marseilles united intellectual and
scientific activity; her grammarians were among the first to revise and
annotate the poems of Homer; and bold travellers from Marseilles,
Euthymenes and Pytheas by name, cruised, one along the western coast of
Africa beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and the other the southern and
western coasts of Europe, from the mouth of the Tanais (Don), in the
Black Sea, to the latitudes and perhaps into the interior of the Baltic.
They lived, both of them, in the second half of the fourth century B.C.,
and they wrote each a Periplus, or tales of their travels, which have
unfortunately been almost entirely lost.
But whatever may have been her intelligence and activity, a single town
situated at the extremity of Gaul and peopled with foreigners could have
but little influence over so vast a country and its inhabitants. At
first civilization is very hard and very slow; it requires many
centuries, many great events, and many years of toil to overcome the
early habits of a people, and cause them to exchange the pleasures, gross
indeed, but accompanied with the idleness and freedom of barbarian life,
for the toilful advantages of a regulated social condition. By dint of
foresight, perseverance, and courage, the merchants of Marseilles and her
colonies crossed by two or three main lines the forests, morasses, and
heaths through the savage tribes of Gauls, and there effected their
exchanges, but to the right and left they penetrated but a short
distance. Even on their main lines their traces soon disappeared; and at
the commercial settlements which they established here and there they
were often far more occupied in self-defence than in spreading their
example. Beyond a strip of land of uneven breadth, along the
Mediterranean, and save the space peopled towards the south-west by the
Iberians, the country, which received its name from the former of the
two, was occupied by the Gauls and the Kymrians; by the Gauls in the
centre, south-east and east, in the highlands of modern France, between
the Alps, the Vosges, the mountains of Auvergne and the Cevennes; by the
Kymrians in the north, north-west, and west, in the lowlands, from the
western boundary of the Gauls to the ocean.
Whether the Gauls and the Kymrians were originally of the same race, or
at least of races closely connected; whether they were both anciently
comprised under the general name of Celts; and whether the Kymrians, if
they were not of the same race as the Gauls, belonged to that of the
Germans, the final conquerors of the Roman empire, are questions which
the learned have been a long, long while discussing without deciding.
The only facts which seem to be clear and certain are the following.
The ancients for a long while applied without distinction the name of
Celts to the peoples who lived in the west and north of Europe,
regardless of precise limits, language, or origin. It was a geographical
title applicable to a vast but ill-explored territory, rather than a real
historical name of race or nation. And so, in the earliest times, Gauls,
Germans, Bretons, and even Iberians, appear frequently confounded under
the name of Celts, peoples of Celtica.
Little by little this name is observed to become more restricted and more
precise. The Iberians of Spain are the first to be detached; then the
Germans. In the century preceding the Christian era, the Gauls, that is,
the peoples inhabiting Gaul, are alone called Celts. We begin even to
recognize amongst them diversities of race, and to distinguish the
Iberians of Gaul, alias Aquitanians, and the Kymrians or Belgians from
the Gauls, to whom the name of Celts is confined. Sometimes even it is
to a confederation of certain Gallic tribes that the name Specially
applies. However it be, the Gauls appear to have been the first
inhabitants of western Europe. In the most ancient historical memorials
they are found there, and not only in Gaul, but in Great Britain, in
Ireland, and in the neighboring islets. In Gaul, after a long
predominance, they commingled with other races to form the French nation.
But, in this commingling numerous traces of their language, monuments,
manners, and names of persons and places, survived and still exist,
especially to the east and south–cast, in local customs and vernacular
dialects. In Ireland, in the highlands of Scotland, in the Hebrides and
the Isle of Man, Gauls (Gaels) still live under their primitive name.
There we still have the Gaelic race and tongue, free, if not from any
change, at least from absorbent fusion.
From the seventh to the fourth century B.C., a new population spread over
Gaul, not at once, but by a series of invasions, of which the two
principal took place at the two extremes of that epoch. They called
themselves Kymrians or Kimrians, whence the Romans made Cimbrians, which
recalls Cimmerii or Cimmerians, the name of a people whom the Greeks
placed on the western bank of the Black Sea and in the Cimmerian
peninsula, called to this day Crimea. During these irregular and
successively repeated movements of wandering populations, it often
happened that tribes of different races met, made terms, united, and
finished by amalgamation under one name. All the peoples that
successively invaded Europe, Gauls, Kymrians, Germans, belonged at first,
in Asia, whence they came, to a common stern; the diversity of their
languages, traditions, and manners, great as it already was at the time
of their appearance in the West, was the work of time and of the diverse
circumstances in the midst of which they had lived; but there always
remained amongst them traces of a primitive affinity which allowed of
sudden and frequent comings, amidst their tumultuous dispersion.
The Kymrians, who crossed the Rhine and flung themselves into northern
Gaul towards the middle of the fourth century B.C., called themselves
Bolg, or Belg, or Belgians, a name which indeed is given to them by Roman
writers, and which has remained that of the country they first invaded.
They descended southwards, to the banks of the Seine and the Marne.
There they encountered the Kymrians of former invasions, who not only had
spread over the country comprised between the Seine and the Loire, to the
very heart of the peninsula bordered by the latter river, but had crossed
the sea, and occupied a portion of the large island opposite Gaul,
crowding back the Gauls, who had preceded them, upon Ireland and the
highlands of Scotland. It was from one of these tribes and its
chieftain, called Pryd or Prydain, Brit or Britain, that Great Britain
and Brittany in France received the name which they have kept.
Each of these races, far from forming a single people bound to the same
destiny and under the same chieftains, split into peoplets, more or less
independent, who foregathered or separated according to the shifts of
circumstances, and who pursued, each on their own account and at their
own pleasure, their fortunes or their fancies. The Ibero-Aquitanians
numbered twenty tribes; the Gauls twenty-two nations; the original
Kymrians, mingled with the Gauls between the Loire and the Garonne,
seventeen; and the Kymro-Belgians twenty-three. These sixty-two nations
were subdivided into several hundreds of tribes; and these petty
agglomerations were distributed amongst rival confederations or leagues,
which disputed one with another the supremacy over such and such a
portion of territory. Three grand leagues existed amongst the Gauls;
that of the Arvernians, formed of peoplets established in the country
which received from them the name of Auvergne; that of the AEduans, in
Burgundy, whose centre was Bibracte (Autun); and that of the Sequanians,
in Franche-Comte, whose centre was Vesontio (Besancon). Amongst the
Kymrians of the West, the Armoric league bound together the tribes of
Brittany and lower Normandy. From these alliances, intended to group
together scattered forces, sprang fresh passions or interests, which
became so many fresh causes of discord and hostility. And, in these
divers-agglomerations, government was everywhere almost equally irregular
and powerless to maintain order or found an enduring state. Kymrians,
Gauls, or Iberians were nearly equally ignorant, improvident, slaves to
the shiftings of their ideas and the sway of their passions, fond of war
and idleness and rapine and feasting, of gross and savage pleasures. All
gloried in hanging from the breast-gear of their horses, or nailing to
the doors of their houses, the heads of their enemies. All sacrificed
human victims to their gods; all tied their prisoners to trees, and
burned or flogged them to death; all took pleasure in wearing upon their
heads or round their arms, and depicting upon their naked bodies,
fantastic ornaments, which gave them a wild appearance. An unbridled
passion for wine and strong liquors was general amongst them: the traders
of Italy, and especially of Marseilles, brought supplies into every part
of Gaul; from interval to interval there were magazines established,
whither the Gauls flocked to sell for a flask of wine their furs, their
grain, their cattle, their slaves. “It was easy,” says an ancient
historian, “to get the Ganymede for the liquor.” Such are the essential
characteristics of barbaric life, as they have been and as they still are
at several points of our globe, amongst people of the same grade in the
scale of civilization. They existed in nearly an equal degree amongst
the different races of ancient Gaul, whose resemblance was rendered much
stronger thereby than their diversity in other respects by some of their
customs, traditions, or ideas.
In their case, too, there is no sign of those permanent demarcations,
those rooted antipathies, and that impossibility of unity which are
observable amongst peoples whose original moral condition is really very
different. In Asia, Africa, and America, the English, the Dutch, the
Spanish, and the French have been and are still in frequent contact with
the natives of the country–Hindoos, Malays, Negroes, and Indians; and,
in spite of this contact, the races have remained widely separated one
from another. In ancient Gaul not only did Gauls, Kymrians, and Iberians
live frequently in alliance and almost intimacy, but they actually
commingled and cohabited without scruple on the same territory. And so
we find in the midst of the Iberians, towards the mouth of the Garonne, a
Gallic tribe, the Viviscan Biturigians, come from the neighborhood of
Bourges, where the bulk of the nation was settled: they had been driven
thither by one of the first invasions of the Kymrians, and peaceably
taken root there; Burdigaia, afterwards Bordeaux, was the chief
settlement of this tribe, and even then a trading-place between the
Mediterranean and the ocean. A little farther on, towards the south, a
Kymrian tribe, the Bolans, lived isolated from its race, in the
waste-lands of the Iberians, extracting the resin from the pines which
grew in that territory. To the south-west, in the country situated
between the Garonne, the eastern Pyrenees, the Cevennes, and the Rhone,
two great tribes of Kymro-Belgians, the Bolg, Volg, Volk, or Voles,
Arecomican and Tectosagian, came to settle, towards the end of the fourth
century B. C., in the midst of the Iberian and Gallic peoplets; and
there is nothing to show that the new comers lived worse with their
neighbors than the latter had previously lived together.
It is evident that amongst all these peoplets, whatever may have been
their diversity of origin, there was sufficient similitude of social
condition and manners to make agreement a matter neither very difficult
nor very long to accomplish.
On the other hand, and as a natural consequence, it was precarious and
often of short duration: Iberian, Gallic, or Kymrian as they might be,
these peoplets underwent frequent displacements, forced or voluntary, to
escape from the attacks of a more powerful neighbor; to find new
pasturage; in consequence of internal dissension; or, perhaps, for the
mere pleasure of warfare and running risks, and to be delivered from the
tediousness of a monotonous life. From the earliest times to the first
century before the Christian era, Gaul appears a prey to this incessant
and disorderly movement of the population; they change settlement and
neighborhood; disappear from one point and reappear at another; cross one
another; avoid one another; absorb and are absorbed. And the movement
was not confined within Gaul; the Gauls of every race went, sometimes in
very numerous hordes, to seek far away plunder and a settlement. Spain,
Italy, Germany, Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa have been in turn the
theatre of those Gallic expeditions which entailed long wars, grand
displacements of peoples, and sometimes the formation of new nations.
Let us make a slight acquaintance with this outer history of the Gauls;
for it is well worth while to follow them a space upon their distant
wanderings. We will then return to the soil of France, and concern
ourselves only with what has passed within her boundaries.
CHAPTER II. THE GAULS OUT OF GAUL.
About three centuries B.C. numerous hordes of Gauls crossed the Alps and
penetrated to the centre of Etruria, which is nowadays Tuscany. The
Etruscans, being then at war with Rome, proposed to take them, armed and
equipped as they had come, into their own pay. “If you want our hands,”
answered the Gauls, “against your enemies, the Romans, here they are at
your service–but on one condition: give us lands.”
[Illustration: A Tribe of Gauls on an Expedition----27]
A century afterwards other Gallic hordes, descending in like manner upon
Italy, had commenced building houses and tilling fields along the
Adriatic, on the territory where afterwards was Aquileia. The Roman
Senate decreed that their settlement should be opposed, and that they
should be summoned to give up their implements and even their arms. Not
being in a position to resist, the Gauls sent representatives to Rome.
They, being introduced into the Senate, said, “The multitude of people in
Gaul, the want of lands, and necessity forced us to cross the Alps to
seek a home. We saw plains uncultivated and uninhabited. We settled
there without doing any one harm. . . . We ask nothing but lands. We
will live peacefully on them under the laws of the republic.”
Again, a century later, or thereabouts, some Gallic Kymrians, mingled
with Teutons or Germans, said also to the Roman Senate, “Give us a little
land as pay, and do what you please with our hands and weapons.”
Want of room and means of subsistence have, in fact, been the principal
causes which have at all times thrust barbarous people, and especially
the Gauls, out of their fatherland. An immense extent of country is
required for indolent hordes who live chiefly upon the produce of the
chase and of their flocks; and when there is no longer enough of forest
or pasturage for the families that become too numerous, there is a swarm
from the hive, and a search for livelihood elsewhere. The Gauls
emigrated in every direction. To find, as they said, rivers and lands,
they marched from north to south, and from east to west. They crossed at
one time the Rhine, at another the Alps, at another the Pyrenees. More
than fifteen centuries B.C. they had already thrown themselves into
Spain, after many fights, no doubt, with the Iberians established between
the Pyrenees and the Garonne. They penetrated north-westwards to the
northern point of the Peninsula, into the province which received from
them and still bears the name of Galicia; south-eastwards to the southern
point, between the river Anas (nowadays Guadiana) and the ocean, where
they founded a Little Celtica; and centrewards and southwards from
Castile to Andalusia, where the amalgamation of two races brought about
the creation of a new people, that found a place in history as
Celtiberians. And twelve centuries after those events, about 220 B.C.,
we find the Gallic peoplet, which had planted itself in the south of
Portugal, energetically defending its independence against the
neighboring Carthaginian colonies. Indortius, their chief, conquered and
taken prisoner, was beaten with rods and hung upon the cross, in the
sight of his army, after having had his eyes put out by command of
Hamilcar-Barca, the Carthaginian general; but a Gallic slave took care to
avenge him by assassinating, some years after, at a hunting-party,
Hasdrubal, son-in-law of Hamilcar, who had succeeded to the command. The
slave was put to the torture; but, indomitable in his hatred, he died
insulting the Africans.
A little after the Gallic invasion of Spain, and by reason perhaps of
that very movement, in the first half of the fourteenth century B.C.,
another vast horde of Gauls, who called themselves Anahra, Ambra,
Ambrons, that is, “braves,” crossed the Alps, occupied northern Italy,
descended even to the brink of the Tiber, and conferred the name of
Ambria or Umbria on the country where they founded their dominion. If
ancient accounts might be trusted, this dominion was glorious and
flourishing, for Umbria numbered, they say, three hundred and fifty-eight
towns; but falsehood, according to the Eastern proverb, lurks by the
cradle of nations. At a much later epoch, in the second century B.C.,
fifteen towns of Liguria contained altogether, as we learn from Livy, but
twenty thousand souls. It is plain, then, what must really have been–
even admitting their existence–the three hundred and fifty-eight towns
of Umbria. However, at the end of two or three centuries, this Gallic
colony succumbed beneath the superior power of the Etruscans, another set
of invaders from eastern Europe, perhaps from the north of Greece, who
founded in Italy a mighty empire. The Umbrians or Ambrons were driven
out or subjugated. Nevertheless some of their peoplets, preserving their
name and manners, remained in the mountains of upper Italy, where they
were to be subsequently discovered by fresh and more celebrated Gallic
invasions.
Those just spoken of are of such antiquity and obscurity, that we note
their place in history without being able to say how they came to fill
it. It is only with the sixth century before our era that we light upon
the really historical expeditions of the Gauls away from Gaul, those, in
fact, of which we may follow the course and estimate the effects.
Towards the year 587 B.C., almost at the very moment when the Phoceans
had just founded Marseilles, two great Gallic hordes got in motion at the
same time, and crossed, one the Rhine, the other the Alps, making one for
Germany, the other for Italy. The former followed the course of the
Danube and settled in Illyria, on the right bank of the river. It is too
much, perhaps, to say that they settled; the greater part of them
continued wandering and fighting, sometimes amalgamating with the
peoplets they encountered, sometimes chasing them and exterminating them,
whilst themselves were incessantly pushed forward by fresh bands coming
also from Gaul. Thus marching and spreading, leaving here and there on
their route, along the rivers and in the valleys of the Alps, tribes that
remained and founded peoples, the Gauls had arrived, towards the year 340
B.C., at the confines of Macedonia, at the time when Alexander, the son
of Philip, who was already famous, was advancing to the same point to
restrain the ravages of the neighboring tribes, perhaps of the Gauls
themselves. From curiosity, or a desire to make terms with Alexander,
certain Gauls betook themselves to his camp. He treated them well, made
them sit at his table, took pleasure in exhibiting his magnificence
before them, and in the midst of his carouse made his interpreter ask
them what they were most afraid of.
“We fear nought,” they answered, “unless it be the fall of heaven; but we
set above everything the friendship of a man like thee.” “The Celts are
proud,” said Alexander to his Macedonians; and he promised them his
friendship. On the death of Alexander, the Gauls, as mercenaries,
entered, in Europe and Asia, the service of the kings who had been his
generals. Ever greedy, fierce, and passionate, they were almost equally
dangerous as auxiliaries and as neighbors. Antigonus, King of Macedonia,
was to pay the band he had enrolled a gold piece a head. They brought
their wives and children with them, and at the end of the campaign they
claimed pay for their following as well as for themselves: “We were
promised,” said they, “a gold piece a head for each Gaul; and these are
also Gauls.”
Before long they tired of fighting the battles of another; their power
accumulated; fresh hordes, in great numbers, arrived amongst them about
the year 281 B.C. They had before them Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly,
Greece, rich, but distracted and weakened by civil strife. They effected
an entrance at several points, devastating, plundering, loading their
cars with booty, and dividing their prisoners into two parts; one offered
in sacrifice to their gods, the other strung up to trees and abandoned to
the _gais_ and _matars,_ or javelins and pikes of the conquerors.
Like all barbarians, they, both for pleasure and on principle, added
insolence to ferocity. Their Brenn, or most famous chieftain, whom the
Latins and Greeks call Brennus, dragged in his train Macedonian
prisoners, short, mean, and with shaven heads, and exhibiting them beside
Gallic warriors, tall, robust, long-haired, adorned with chains of gold,
said, “This is what we are, that is what our enemies are.”
Ptolemy the Thunderbolt, King of Macedonia, received with haughtiness
their first message requiring of him a ransom for his dominions if he
wished to preserve peace. “Tell those who sent you,” he replied to the
Gallic deputation, “to lay down their arms and give up to me their
chieftains. I will then see what peace I can grant them.” On the return
of the deputation, the Gauls were moved to laughter. “He shall soon
see,” said they, “whether it was in his interest or our own that we
offered him peace.” And, indeed, in the first engagement, neither the
famous Macedonian phalanx, nor the elephant he rode, could save King
Ptolemy; the phalanx was broken, the elephant riddled with javelins, the
king himself taken, killed, and his head marched about the field of
battle on the top of a pike.
Macedonia was in consternation; there was a general flight from the open
country, and the gates of the towns were closed. “The people,” says an
historian, “cursed the folly of King Ptolemy, and invoked the names of
Philip and Alexander, the guardian deities of their land.”
Three years later, another and a more formidable invasion came bursting
upon Thessaly and Greece. It was, according to the unquestionably
exaggerated account of the ancient historians, two hundred thousand
strong, and commanded by that famous, ferocious, and insolent Brennus
mentioned before. His idea was to strike a blow which should
simultaneously enrich the Gauls and stun the Greeks. He meant to plunder
the temple at Delphi, the most venerated place in all Greece, whither
flowed from century to century all kinds of offerings, and where, no
doubt, enormous treasure was deposited. Such was, in the opinion of the
day, the sanctity of the place, that, on the rumor of the projected
profanation, several Greeks essayed to divert the Gallic Brenn himself,
by appealing to his superstitious fears; but his answer was, “The gods
have no need of wealth; it is they who distribute it to men.”
All Greece was moved. The nations of the Peloponnese closed the isthmus
of Corinth by a wall. Outside the isthmus, the Beeotians, Phocidians,
Locrians, Megarians, and AEtolians formed a coalition under the
leadership of the Athenians; and, as their ancestors had done scarcely
two hundred years before against Xerxes and the Persians, they advanced
in all haste to the pass of Thermopylae, to stop there the new
barbarians.
And for several days they did stop them; and instead of three hundred
heroes, as of yore in the case of Leonidas and his Spartans, only forty
Greeks, they say, fell in the first engagement. ‘Amongst them was a
young Athenian, Cydias by name, whose shield was hung in the temple of
Zeus the savior, at Athens, with this inscription:–
THIS SHIELD, DEDICATED TO ZEUS, IS THAT OF A VALIANT MAN,
CYDIAS. IT STILL BEWAILS ITS
YOUNG MASTER. FOR THE FIRST TIME
HE BARE IT ON HIS LEFT ARM
WHEN TERRIBLE ARES CRUSHED
THE GAULS.
But soon, just as in the case of the Persians, traitors guided Brennus
and his Gauls across the mountain-paths; the position of Thermopylae was
turned; the Greek army owed its safety to the Athenian galleys; and by
evening of the same day the barbarians appeared in sight of Delphi.
Brennus would have led them at once to the assault. He showed them, to
excite them, the statues, vases, cars, monuments of every kind, laden
with gold, which adorned the approaches of the town and of the temple:
“‘Tis pure gold–massive gold,” was the news he had spread in every
direction. But the very cupidity he provoked was against his plan; for
the Gauls fell out to plunder. He had to put off the assault until the
morrow. The night was passed in irregularities and orgies.
The Greeks, on the contrary, prepared with ardor for the fight. Their
enthusiasm was intense. Those barbarians, with their half-nakedness,
their grossness, their ferocity, their ignorance, and their impiety, were
revolting. They committed murder and devastation like dolts. They left
their dead on the field, without burial. They engaged in battle without
consulting priest or augur. It was not only their goods, but their
families, their life, the honor of their country, and the sanctuary of
their religion, that the Greeks were defending, and they might rely on
the protection of the gods. The oracle of Apollo had answered, “I and
the white virgins will provide for this matter.” The people surrounded
the temple, and the priests supported and encouraged the people. During
the night small bodies of AEtolians, Amphisseans, and Phocidians arrived
one after another. Four thousand men had joined within Delphi, when the
Gallic bands, in the morning, began to mount the narrow and rough incline
which led up to the town. The Greeks rained down from above a deluge of
stones and other missiles. The Gauls recoiled, but recovered
themselves. The besieged fell back on the nearest streets of the town,
leaving open the approach to the temple, upon which the barbarians threw
themselves. The pillage of the shrines had just commenced when the sky
looked threatening; a storm burst forth, the thunder echoed, the rain
fell, the hail rattled. Readily taking advantage of this incident, the
priests and the augurs sallied from the temple clothed in their sacred
garments, with hair dishevelled and sparkling eyes, proclaiming the
advent of the god: “‘Tis he! we saw him shoot athwart the temple’s vault,
which opened under his feet; and with him were two virgins, who issued
from the temples of Artemis and Athena. We saw them with our eyes. We
heard the twang of their bows, and the clash of their armor.” Hearing
these cries and the roar of the tempest, the Greeks dash on–the Gauls
are panic-stricken, and rush headlong down the bill. The Greeks push on
in pursuit. Rumors of fresh apparitions are spread; three heroes,
Hyperochus, Laodocus, and Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, have issued from
their tombs hard by the temple, and are thrusting at the Gauls with their
lances. The rout was speedy and general; the barbarians rushed to the
cover of their camp; but the camp was attacked next morning by the Greeks
from the town and by re-enforcements from the country places. Brennus
and the picked warriors about him made a gallant resistance, but defeat
was a foregone conclusion. Brennus was wounded, and his comrades bore
him off the field. The barbarian army passed the whole day in flight.
During the ensuing night a new access of terror seized them they again
took to flight, and four days after the passage of Thermopylae some
scattered bands, forming scarcely a third of those who had marched on
Delphi, rejoined the division which had remained behind, some leagues
from the town, in the plains watered by the Cephissus. Brennus summoned
his comrades “Kill all the wounded and me,” said he; “burn your cars;
make Cichor king; and away at full speed.” Then he called for wine,
drank himself drunk, and stabbed himself. Cichor did cut the throats of
the wounded, and traversed, flying and fighting, Thessaly and Macedonia;
and on returning whence they had set out, the Gauls dispersed, some to
settle at the foot of a neighboring mountain under the command of a
chieftain named Bathanat or Baedhannatt, i.e., son of the wild boar;
others to march back towards their own country; the greatest part to
resume the same life of incursion and adventure. But they changed the
scene of operations. Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace were exhausted by
pillage, and made a league to resist. About 278 B.C. the Gauls crossed
the Hellespont and passed into Asia Minor. There, at one time in the pay
of the kings of Bithynia, Pergamos, Cappadocia, and Syria, or of the free
commercial cities which were struggling against the kings, at another
carrying on wars on their own account, they wandered for more than thirty
years, divided into three great hordes, which parcelled out the
territories among themselves, overran and plundered them during the fine
weather, intrenched themselves during winter in their camp of cars, or in
some fortified place, sold their services to the highest bidder, changed
masters according to interest or inclination, and by their bravery became
the terror of these effeminate populations and the arbiters of these
petty states.
At last both princes and people grew weary. Antiochus, King of Syria,
attacked one of the three bands,–that of the Tectosagians,–conquered
it, and cantoned it in a district of Upper Phrygia. Later still, about
241 B.C., Eumenes, sovereign of Pergamos, and Attalus, his successor,
drove and shut up the other two bands, the Tolistoboians and Troemians,
likewise in the same region. The victories of Attalus over the Gauls
excited veritable enthusiasm. He was celebrated as a special envoy from
Zeus. He took the title of King, which his predecessors had not hitherto
borne. He had his battles showily painted; and that he might triumph at
the same time both in Europe and Asia, he sent one of the pictures to
Athens, where it was still to be seen three centuries afterwards, hanging
upon the wall of the citadel. Forced to remain stationary, the Gallic
hordes became a people,–the Galatians,–and the country they occupied
was called Galatia. They lived there some fifty years, aloof from the
indigenous population of Greeks and Phrygians, whom they kept in an
almost servile condition, preserving their warlike and barbarous habits,
resuming sometimes their mercenary service, and becoming once more the
bulwark or the terror of neighboring states. But at the beginning of the
second century before our era, the Romans had entered Asia, in pursuit of
their great enemy, Hannibal. They had just beaten, near Magnesia,
Antiochus, King of Syria. In his army they had encountered men of lofty
stature, with hair light or dyed red, half naked, marching to the fight
with loud cries, and terrible at the first onset. They recognized the
Gauls, and resolved to destroy or subdue them. The consul, Cn. Manlius,
had the duty and the honor. Attacked in their strongholds on Mount
Olympus and Mount Magaba, 189 B.C., the three Gallic bands, after a short
but stout resistance, were conquered and subjugated; and thenceforth
losing all national importance, they amalgamated little by little with
the Asiatic populations around them. From time to time they are still
seen to reappear with their primitive manners and passions. Rome humored
them; Mithridates had them for allies in his long struggle with the
Romans. He kept by him a Galatian guard; and when he sought death, and
poison failed him, it was the captain of the guard, a Gaul named
Bituitus, whom he asked to run him through. That is the last historical
event with which the Gallic name is found associated in Asia.
Nevertheless the amalgamation of the Gauls of Galatia with the natives
always remained very imperfect; for towards the end of the fourth century
of the Christian era they did not speak Greek, as the latter did, but
their national tongue, that of the Kymro-Belgians; and St. Jerome
testifies that it differed very little from that which was spoken in
Belgica itself, in the region of Troves.
The Romans had good ground for keeping a watchful eye, from the time they
met them, upon the Gauls, and for dreading them particularly. At the
time when they determined to pursue them into the mountains of Asia
Minor, they were just at the close of a desperate struggle, maintained
against them for four hundred years, in Italy itself; “a struggle,” says
Sallust, “in which it was a question not of glory, but of existence, for
Rome.” It was but just now remarked that at the beginning of the sixth
century before our era, whilst, under their chieftain Sigovesus, the
Gallic bands whose history has occupied the last few pages were crossing
the Rhine and entering Germany, other bands, under the command of
Bellovesus, were traversing the Alps and swarming into Italy. From 587
to 521 B.C. five Gallic expeditions, formed of Gallic, Kymric, and
Ligurian tribes, followed the same route and invaded successively the two
banks of the Po–the bottomless river, as they called it. The Etruscans,
who had long before, it will be remembered, themselves wrested that
country from a people of Gallic origin, the Umbrians or Ambrons, could
not make head against the new conquerors, aided, may be, by the remains
of the old population. The well-built towns, the cultivation of the
country, the ports and canals that had been dug, nearly all these labors
of Etruscan civilization disappeared beneath the footsteps of these
barbarous hordes that knew only how to destroy, and one of which gave its
chieftain the name of Hurricane (Elitorius, Ele-Dov). Scarcely five
Etruscan towns, Mantua and Ravenna amongst others, escaped disaster. The
Gauls also founded towns, such as Mediolanum (Milan), Brixia (Brescia),
Verona, Bononia (Bologna), Sena-Gallica (Sinigaglia), &c. But for a long
while they were no more than intrenched camps, fortified places, where
the population shut themselves up in case of necessity. “They, as a
general rule, straggled about the country,” says Polybius, the most
correct and clear-sighted of the ancient historians, “sleeping on grass
or straw, living on nothing but meat, busying themselves about nothing
but war and a little husbandry, and counting as riches nothing but flocks
and gold, the only goods that can be carried away at pleasure and on
every occasion.”
During nearly thirty years the Gauls thus scoured not only Upper Italy,
which they had almost to themselves, but all the eastern coast, and up to
the head of the peninsula, encountering along the Adriatic, and in the
rich and effeminate cities of Magna Graecia, Sybaris, Tarentum, Crotona,
and Locri, no enemy capable of resisting them. But in the year 391 B.C.,
finding themselves cooped up in their territory, a strong band of Gauls
crossed the Apennines, and went to demand from the Etruscans of Clusium
the cession of a portion of their lands. The only answer Clusium made
was to close her gates. The Gauls formed up around the walls. Clusium
asked help from Rome, with whom, notwithstanding the rivalry between the
Etruscan and Roman nations, she had lately been on good terms. The
Romans promised first their good offices with the Gauls, afterwards
material support; and thus were brought face to face those two peoples,
fated to continue for four centuries a struggle which was to be ended
only by the complete subjection of Gaul.
The details of that struggle belong specially to Roman history; they have
been transmitted to us only by Roman historians; and the Romans it was
who were left ultimately in possession of the battle-field, that is, of
Italy. It will suffice here to make known the general march of events
and the most characteristic incidents.
Four distinct periods may be recognized in this history; and each marks a
different phase in the course of events, and, so to speak, an act of the
drama. During the first period, which lasted forty-two years, from 391
to 349 B.C., the Gauls carried on a war of aggression and conquest
against Rome. Not that such had been their original design; on the
contrary, they replied, when the Romans offered intervention between them
and Clusium, “We ask only for lands, of which we are in need; and Clusium
has more than she can cultivate. Of the Romans we know very little; but
we believe them to be a brave people, since the Etruscans put themselves
under their protection. Remain spectators of our quarrel; we will settle
it before your eyes, that you may report at home how far above other men
the Gauls are in valor.”
But when they saw their pretensions repudiated and themselves treated
with outrageous disdain, the Gauls left the siege of Clusium on the spot,
and set out for Rome, not stopping for plunder, and proclaiming
everywhere on their march, “We are bound for Rome; we make war on none
but Romans;” and when they encountered the Roman army, on the 16th of
duly, 390 B.C., at the confluence of the Allia and the Tiber, half a
day’s march from Rome, they abruptly struck up their war-chant, and threw
themselves upon their enemies. It is well known how they gained the day;
how they entered Rome, and found none but a few gray-beards, who, being
unable or unwilling to leave their abode, had remained seated in the
vestibule on their chairs of ivory, with truncheons of ivory in their
hands, and decorated with the insignia of the public offices they had
filled. All the people of Rome had fled, and were wandering over the
country, or seeking a refuge amongst neighboring peoples. Only the
senate and a thousand warriors had shut themselves up in the Capitol, a
citadel which commanded the city. The Gauls kept them besieged there for
seven months. The circumstances of this celebrated siege are well known,
though they have been a little embellished by the Roman historians. Not
that they have spoken too highly of the Romans themselves, who, in the
day of their country’s disaster, showed admirable courage, perseverance,
and hopefulness. Pontius Cominius, who traversed the Gallic camp, swam
the Tiber, and scaled by night the heights of the Capitol, to go and
carry news to the senate; M. Manlius, who was the first, and for some
moments the only one, to hold in check, from the citadel’s walls, the
Gauls on the point of effecting an entrance; and M. Furius Camillus, who
had been banished from Rome the preceding year, and had taken refuge in
the town of Ardea, and who instantly took the field for his country,
rallied the Roman fugitives, and incessantly harassed the Gauls–are true
heroes, who have earned their weed of glory. Let no man seek to lower
them in public esteem. Noble actions are so beautiful, and the actors
often receive so little recompense, that we are at least bound to hold
sacred the honor attached to their name.
[Illustration: The Gauls in Rome----39]
The Roman historians have done no more than justice in extolling the
saviors of Rome. But their memory would have suffered no loss had the
whole truth been made known; and the claims of national vanity are not of
the same weight as the duty one owes to truth. Now, it is certain that
Camillus did not gain such decisive advantages over the Gauls as the
Roman accounts would lead one to believe, and that the deliverance of
Rome was much less complete. On the 13th of February, 389 B.C., the
Gauls, it is true, allowed their retreat to be purchased by the Romans;
and they experienced, as they retired, certain checks, whereby they lost
a part of their booty. But twenty-three years afterwards they are found
in Latium scouring in every direction the outlying country of Rome,
without the Romans daring to go out and fight them. It was only at the
end of five years, in the year 361 B.C., that, the very city being
menaced anew, the legions marched out to meet the enemy. “Surprised at
this audacity,” says Polybius, “the Gauls fell back, but merely a few
leagues from Rome, to the environs of Tibur; and thence, for the space of
twelve years, they attacked the Roman territory, renewing the campaign
every year, often reaching the very gates of the city, and being repulsed
indeed, but never farther than Tibur and its slopes.” Rome, however, made
great efforts, every war with the Gauls was previously proclaimed a
tumult, which involved a levy in mass of the citizens, without any
exemption, even for old men and priests. A treasure, specially dedicated
to Gallic wars, was laid by in the Capitol, and religious denunciations
of the most awful kind hung over the head of whoever should dare to touch
it, no matter what the exigency might be. To this epoch belonged those
marvels of daring recorded in Roman tradition, those acts of heroism
tinged with fable, which are met with amongst so many peoples, either in
their earliest age, or in their days of great peril. In the year 361
B.C., Titus Manlius, son of him who had saved the Capitol from the night
attack of the Gauls, and twelve years later M. Valerius, a young military
tribune, were, it will be remembered, the two Roman heroes who vanquished
in single combat the two Gallic giants who insolently defied Rome. The
gratitude towards them was general and of long duration, for two
centuries afterwards (in the year 167 B.C.) the head of the Gaul with his
tongue out still appeared at Rome, above the shop of a money-changer, on
a circular sign-board, called “the Kymrian shield” (scutum Cimbricum).
After seventeen years’ stay in Latium, the Gauls at last withdrew, and
returned to their adopted country in those lovely valleys of the Po which
already bore the name of Cisalpine Gaul. They began to get disgusted
with a wandering life. Their population multiplied; their towns spread;
their fields were better cultivated; their manners became less barbarous.
For fifty years there was scarcely any trace of hostility or even contact
between them and the Romans. But at the beginning of the third century
before our era, the coalition of the Samnites and Etruscans against Rome
was near its climax; they eagerly pressed the Gauls to join, and the
latter assented easily. Then commenced the second period of struggles
between the two peoples. Rome had taken breath, and had grown much more
rapidly than her rivals. Instead of shutting herself up, as heretofore,
within her walls, she forthwith raised three armies, took the offensive
against the coalitionists, and carried the war into their territory. The
Etruscans rushed to the defence of their hearths. The two consuls,
Fabius and Decius, immediately attacked the Samnites and Gauls at the
foot of the Apennines, close to Sentinum (now Sentina). The battle was
just beginning, when a hind, pursued by a wolf from the mountains, passed
in flight between the two armies, and threw herself upon the side of the
Gauls, who slew her; the wolf turned towards the Romans, who let him go.
“Comrades,” cried a soldier, “flight and death are on the side where you
see stretched on the ground the hind of Diana; the wolf belongs to Mars;
he is unwounded, and reminds us of our father and founder; we shall
conquer even as he.” Nevertheless the battle went badly for the Romans;
several legions were in flight, and Decius strove vainly to rally them.
The memory of his father came across his mind. There was a belief
amongst the Romans that if in the midst of an unsuccessful engagement the
general devoted himself to the infernal gods, “panic and flight” passed
forthwith to the enemies’ ranks. “Why daily?” said Decius to the grand
pontiff, whom he had ordered to follow him and keep at his side in the
flight; “’tis given to our race to die to avert public disasters.” He
halted, placed a javelin beneath his feet, and covering his head with a
fold of his robe, and supporting his chin on his right hand, repeated
after the pontiff this sacred form of words:–
“Janus, Jupiter, our father Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, . . . ye
gods in whose power are we, we and our enemies, gods Manes, ye I adore;
ye I pray, ye I adjure to give strength and victory to the Roman people,
the children of Quirinus, and to send confusion, panic, and death amongst
the enemies of the Roman people, the children of Quirinus. And, in these
words for the republic of the children of Quirinus, for the army, for the
legions, and for the allies of the Roman people, I devote to the gods
Manes and to the grave the legions and the allies of the enemy and
myself.”
Then remounting, Decius charged into the middle of the Gauls, where he
soon fell pierced with wounds; but the Romans recovered courage and
gained the day; for heroism and piety have power over the hearts of men,
so that at the moment of admiration they become capable of imitation.
During this second period Rome was more than once in danger. In the year
283 B.C. the Gauls destroyed one of her armies near Aretium (Arezzo),
and advanced to the Roman frontier, saying, “We are bound for Rome; the
Gauls know how to take it.” Seventy-two years afterwards the Cisalpine
Gauls swore they would not put off their baldricks till they had mounted
the Capitol, and they arrived within three days’ march of Rome. At every
appearance of this formidable enemy the alarm at Rome was great. The
senate raised all its forces and summoned its allies. The people
demanded a consultation of the Sibylline books, sacred volumes sold, it
was said, to Tarquinius Priscus by the sibyl Amalthea, and containing the
secret of the destinies of the Republic. They were actually opened in
the year 228 B.C., and it was with terror found that the Gauls would
twice take possession of the soil of Rome. On the advice of the priests,
there was dug within the city, in the middle of the cattle-market, a huge
pit, in which two Gauls, a man and a woman, were entombed alive; for thus
they took possession of the soil of Rome, the oracle was fulfilled, and
the mishap averted. Thirteen years afterwards, on occasion of the
disaster at Cann, the same atrocity was again committed, at the same
place and for the same cause. And by a strange contrast, there was at
the committing of this barbarous act, “which was against Roman usage,”
says Livy, a secret feeling of horror, for, to appease the manes of the
victims, a sacrifice was instituted, which was celebrated every year at
the pit, in the month of November.
In spite of sometimes urgent peril, in spite of popular alarms, Rome,
during the course of this period, from 299 to 258 B.C., maintained an
increasing ascendency over the Gauls. She always cleared them off her
territory, several times ravaged theirs, on the two banks of the Po,–
called respectively Transpadan and Cispadan Gaul, and gained the majority
of the great battles she had to fight. Finally in the year 283 B.C., the
proprietor Drusus, after having ravaged the country of the Senonic Gauls,
carried off the very ingots and jewels, it was said, which had been given
to their ancestors as the price of their retreat. Solemn proclamation
was made that the ransom of the Capitol had returned within its walls;
and, sixty years afterwards, the Consul M. Cl. Marcellus, having defeated
at Clastidium a numerous army of Gauls, and with his own hand slain their
general, Virdumar, had the honor of dedicating to the temple of Jupiter
the third “grand spoils” taken since the foundation of Rome, and of
ascending the Capitol, himself conveying the armor of Virdumar, for he
had got hewn an oaken trunk, round which he had arranged the helmet,
tunic, and breastplate of the barbarian king.
Nor was war Rome’s only weapon against her enemies. Besides the ability
of her generals and the discipline of her legions, she had the sagacity
of her Senate. The Gauls were not wanting in intelligence or dexterity,
but being too free to go quietly under a master’s hand, and too barbarous
for self-government, carried away, as they were, by the interest or
passion of the moment, they could not long act either in concert or with
sameness of purpose. Far-sightedness and the spirit of persistence were,
on the contrary, the familiar virtues of the Roman Senate. So soon as
they had penetrated Cisalpine Gaul, they labored to gain there a
permanent footing, either by sowing dissension amongst the Gallic
peoplets that lived there, or by founding Roman colonies. In the year
283 B.C., several Roman families arrived, with colors flying and under
the guidance of three triumvirs or commissioners, on a territory to the
north-east, on the borders of the Adriatic. The triumvirs had a round
hole dug, and there deposited some fruits and a handful of earth brought
from Roman soil; then yoking to a plough, having a copper share, a white
bull and a white heifer, they marked out by a furrow a large enclosure.
The rest followed, flinging within the line the ridges thrown up by the
plough. When the line was finished, the bull and the heifer were
sacrificed with due pomp. It was a Roman colony come to settle at Sena,
on the very site of the chief town of those Senonic Gauls who had been
conquered and driven out. Fifteen years afterwards another Roman colony
was founded at Ariminum (Rimini), on the frontier of the Bolan Gauls.
Fifty years later still two others, on the two banks of the Po, Cremona
and Placentia (Plaisance). Rome had then, in the midst of her enemies,
garrisons, magazines of arms and provisions, and means of supervision and
communication. Thence proceeded at one time troops, at another
intrigues, to carry dismay or disunion amongst the Gauls.
Towards the close of the third century before our era, the triumph of
Rome in Cisalpine Gaul seemed nigh to accomplishment, when news arrived
that the Romans’ most formidable enemy, Hannibal, meditating a passage
from Africa into Italy by Spain and Gaul, was already at work, by his
emissaries, to insure for his enterprise the concurrence of the
Transalpine and Cisalpine Gauls. The Senate ordered the envoys they had
just then at Carthage to traverse Gaul on returning, and seek out allies
there against Hannibal. The envoys halted amongst the Gallo-Iberian
peoplets who lived at the foot of the eastern Pyrenees. There, in the
midst of the warriors assembled in arms, they charged them in the name of
the great and powerful Roman people, not to suffer the Carthaginians to
pass through their territory. Tumultuous laughter arose at a request
that appeared so strange. “You wish us,” was the answer, “to draw down
war upon ourselves to avert it from Italy, and to give our own fields
over to devastation to save yours. We have no cause to complain of the
Carthaginians or to be pleased with the Romans, or to take up arms for
the Romans and against the Carthaginians. We, on the contrary, hear that
the Roman people drive out from their lands, in Italy, men of our nation,
impose tribute upon them, and make them undergo other indignities.” So
the envoys of Rome quitted Gaul without allies.
Hannibal, on the other hand, did not meet with all the favor and all the
enthusiasm he had anticipated. Between the Pyrenees and the Alps several
peoplets united with him; and several showed coldness, or even hostility.
In his passage of the Alps the mountain tribes harassed him incessantly.
Indeed, in Cisalpine Gaul itself there was great division and hesitation;
for Rome had succeeded in inspiring her partisans with confidence and her
enemies with fear. Hannibal was often obliged to resort to force even
against the Gauls whose alliance he courted, and to ravage their lands in
order to drive them to take up arms. Nay, at the conclusion of an
alliance, and in the very camp of the Carthaginians, the Gauls sometimes
hesitated still, and sometimes rose against Hannibal, accused him of
ravaging their country, and refused to obey his orders. However, the
delights of victory and of pillage at last brought into full play the
Cisalpine Gauls’ natural hatred of Rome. After Ticinus and Trebia,
Hannibal had no more zealous and devoted troops. At the battle of Lake
Trasimene he lost fifteen hundred men, nearly all Gauls; at that of
Canine he had thirty thousand of them, forming two thirds of his army;
and at the moment of action they cast away their tunics and checkered
cloaks (similar to the plaids of the Gals or Scottish Highlanders), and
fought naked from the belt upwards, according to their custom when they
meant to conquer or die. Of five thousand five hundred men that the
victory of Cannae cost Hannibal, four thousand were Gauls. All Cisalpine
Gaul was moved; enthusiasm was at its height; new bands hurried off to
recruit the army of the Carthaginian who, by dint of patience and genius,
brought Rome within an ace of destruction, with the assistance almost
entirely of the barbarians he had come to seek at her gates, and whom he
had at first found so cowed and so vacillating.
When the day of reverses came, and Rome had recovered her ascendency,
the Gauls were faithful to Hannibal; and when at length he was forced to
return to Africa, the Gallic bands, whether from despair or attachment,
followed him thither. In the year 200 B.C., at the famous battle of
Zama, which decided matters between Rome and Carthage, they again formed
a third of the Carthaginian army, and showed that they were, in the words
of Livy, “inflamed by that innate hatred towards the Romans which is
peculiar to their race.”
This was the third period of the struggle between the Gauls and the
Romans in Italy. Rome, well advised by this terrible war of the danger
with which she was ever menaced by the Cisalpine Gauls, formed the
resolution of no longer restraining them, but of subduing them and
conquering their territory. She spent thirty years (from 200 to 170
B.C.) in the execution of this design, proceeding by means of war, of
founding Roman colonies, and of sowing dissension amongst the Gallic
peoplets. In vain did the two principal, the Boians and the Insubrians,
endeavor to rouse and rally all the rest: some hesitated; some absolutely
refused, and remained neutral. The resistance was obstinate. The Gauls,
driven from their fields and their towns, established themselves, as
their ancestors had done, in the forests, whence they emerged only to
fall furiously upon the Romans. And then, if the engagement were
indecisive, if any legions wavered, the Roman centurions hurled their
colors into the midst of the enemy, and the legionaries dashed on at all
risks to recover them. At Parma and Bologna, in the towns taken from the
Gauls, Roman colonies came at once and planted them-selves. Day by day
did Rome advance. At length, in the year 190 B.C., the wrecks of the one
hundred and twelve tribes which had formed the nation of the Boians,
unable any longer to resist, and unwilling to submit, rose as one man,
and departed from Italy.
The Senate, with its usual wisdom, multiplied the number of Roman
colonies in the conquered territory, treated with moderation the tribes
that submitted, and gave to Cisalpine Gaul the name of the Cisalpine or
Hither Gallic Province, which was afterwards changed for that of Gallia
Togata or Roman Gaul. Then, declaring that nature herself had placed the
Alps between Gaul and Italy as an insurmountable barrier, the Senate
pronounced “a curse on whosoever should attempt to cross it.”
CHAPTER III.—-THE ROMANS IN GAUL.
It was Rome herself that soon crossed that barrier of the Alps which she
had pronounced fixed by nature and insurmountable. Scarcely was she
mistress of Cisalpine Gaul when she entered upon a quarrel with the
tribes which occupied the mountain-passes. With an unsettled frontier,
and between neighbors of whom one is ambitious and the other barbarian,
pretexts and even causes are never wanting. It is likely that the Gallic
mountaineers were not careful to abstain, they and their flocks, from
descending upon the territory that had become Roman. The Romans, in
turn, penetrated into the hamlets, carried off flocks and people, and
sold them in the public markets at Cremona, at Placentia, and in all
their colonies.
The Gauls of the Alps demanded succor of the Transalpine Gauls, applying
to a powerful chieftain, named Cincibil, whose influence extended
throughout the mountains. But the terror of the Roman name had reached
across. Cincibil sent to Rome a deputation, with his brother at their
head, to set forth the grievances of the mountaineers, and especially to
complain of the consul Cassius, who had carried off and sold several
thousands of Gauls. Without making any concession, the Senate was
gracious. Cassius was away; he must be waited for. Meanwhile the Gauls
were well treated; Cincibil and his brother received as presents two
golden collars, five silver vases, two horses fully caparisoned, and
Roman dresses for all their suite. Still nothing was done.
Another, a greater and more decisive opportunity offered itself.
Marseilles was an ally of the Romans. As the rival of Carthage, and with
the Gauls forever at her gates, she had need of Rome by sea and land.
She pretended, also, to the most eminent and intimate friendship with
Rome. Her founder, the Phocean Euxenes, had gone to Rome, it was said,
and concluded a treaty with Tarquinius Priscus. She had gone into
mourning when Rome was burned by the Gauls; she had ordered a public levy
to aid towards the ransom of the Capitol. Rome did not dispute these
claims to remembrance. The friendship of Marseilles was of great use to
her. In the whole course of her struggle with Carthage, and but lately,
at the passage of Hannibal through Gaul, Rome had met with the best of
treatment there. She granted the Massilians a place amongst her senators
at the festivals of the Republic, and exemption from all duty in her
ports. Towards the middle of the second century B.C. Marseilles was at
war with certain Gallic tribes, her neighbors, whose territory she
coveted. Two of her colonies, Nice and Antibes, were threatened. She
called on Rome for help. A Roman deputation went to decide the quarrel;
but the Gauls refused to obey its summons, and treated it with insolence.
The deputation returned with an army, succeeded in beating the refractory
tribes, and gave their land to the Massilians. The same thing occurred
repeatedly with the same result. Within the space of thirty years nearly
all the tribes between the Rhone and the Var, in the country which was
afterwards Provence, were subdued and driven back amongst the mountains,
with notice not to approach within a mile of the coast in general, and a
mile and a half of the places of disembarkation. But the Romans did not
stop there. They did not mean to conquer for Marseilles alone. In the
year 123 B.C., at some leagues to the north of the Greek city, near a
little river, then called the Coenus and nowadays the Arc, the consul
C. Sextius Calvinus had noticed, during his campaign, an abundance of
thermal springs, agreeably situated amidst wood-covered hills. There he
constructed an enclosure, aqueducts, baths, houses, a town in fact, which
he called after himself, Aquae Sextice, the modern Aix, the first Roman
establishment in Transalpine Gaul. As in the case of Cisalpine Gaul,
with Roman colonies came Roman intrigue and dissensions got up and
fomented amongst the Gauls. And herein Marseilles was a powerful
seconder; for she kept up communications with all the neighboring tribes,
and fanned the spirit of faction. After his victories, the consul
C. Sextius, seated at his tribunal, was selling his prisoners by auction,
when one of them came up to him and said, “I have always liked and served
the Romans; and for that reason I have often incurred outrage and danger
at the hands of my countrymen.” The consul had him set free,–him and
his family,–and even gave him leave to point out amongst the captives
any for whom he would like to procure the same kindness. At his request
nine hundred were released. The man’s name was Crato, a Greek name,
which points to a connection with Marseilles or one of her colonies. The
Gauls, moreover, ran of themselves into the Roman trap. Two of their
confederations, the AEduans, of whom mention has already been made, and
the Allobrogians, who were settled between the Alps, the Isere, and the
Rhone, were at war. A third confederation, the most powerful in Gaul at
this time, the Arvernians, who were rivals of the AEduans, gave their
countenance to the Allobrogians. The AEduans, with whom the Massilians
had commercial dealings, solicited through these latter the assistance of
Rome. A treaty was easily concluded. The AEduans obtained from the
Romans the title of friends and allies; and the Romans received from the
AEduans that of brothers, which amongst the Gauls implied a sacred tie.
The consul Domitius forthwith commanded the Allobrogians to respect the
territory of the allies of Rome. The Allobrogians rose up in arms and
claimed the aid of the Arvernians. But even amongst them, in the very
heart of Gaul, Rome was much dreaded; she was not to be encountered
without hesitation. So Bituitus, King of the Arvernians, was for trying
accommodation. He was a powerful and wealthy chieftain. His father
Luern used to give amongst the mountains magnificent entertainments; he
had a space of twelve square furlongs enclosed, and dispensed wine, mead,
and beer from cisterns made within the enclosure; and all the Arvernians
crowded to his feasts. Bituitus displayed before the Romans his barbaric
splendor. A numerous escort, superbly clad, surrounded his ambassador;
in attendance were packs of enormous hounds; and in front; went a bard,
or poet, who sang, with rotte or harp in hand, the glory of Bituitus and
of the Arvernian people. Disdainfully the consul received and sent back
the embassy. War broke out; the Allobrogians, with the usual confidence
and hastiness of all barbarians, attacked alone, without waiting for the
Arvernians, and were beaten at the confluence of the Rhone and the
Sorgue, a little above Avignon. The next year, 121 B.C., the Arvernians
in their turn descended from the mountains, and crossed the Rhone with
all their tribes, diversely armed and clad, and ranged each about its own
chieftain. In his barbaric vanity, Bituitus marched to war with the same
pomp that he had in vain displayed to obtain peace. He sat upon a car
glittering with silver; he wore a plaid of striking colors; and he
brought in his train a pack of war-hounds. At the sight of the Roman
legions, few in number, iron-clad, in serried ranks that took up little
space, he contemptuously cried, “There is not a meal for my hounds.”
The Arvernians were beaten, as the Allobrogians had been. The hounds of
Bituitus were of little use to him against the elephants which the Romans
had borrowed from Asiatic usage, and which spread consternation amongst
the Gauls. The Roman historians say that the Arvernian army was two
hundred thousand strong, and that one hundred and twenty thousand were
slain; but the figures are absurd, like most of those found in ancient
chronicles. We know nowadays, thanks to modern civilization, which shows
everything in broad daylight, and measures everything with proper
caution, that only the most populous and powerful nations, and that at
great expenditure of trouble and time, can succeed in moving armies of
two hundred thousand men, and that no battle, however murderous it may
be, ever costs one hundred and twenty thousand lives.
Rome treated the Arvernians with consideration; but the Allobrogians lost
their existence as a nation. The Senate declared them subject to the
Roman people; and all the country comprised between the Alps, the Rhone
from its entry into the Lake of Geneva to its mouth, and the
Mediterranean, was made a Roman consular province, which means that every
year a consul must march thither with his army. In the three following
years, indeed, the consuls extended the boundaries of the new province,
on the right bank of the Rhone, to the frontier of the Pyrenees
southward. In the year 115 B.C. a colony of Roman citizens was conducted
to Narbonne, a town even then of importance, in spite of the objections
made by certain senators who were unwilling, say the historians, so to
expose Roman citizens “to the waves of barbarism.” This was the second
colony which went and established itself out of Italy; the first had been
founded on the ruins of Carthage.
Having thus completed their conquest, the Senate, to render possession
safe and sure, decreed the occupation of the passes of the Alps which
opened Gaul to Italy. There was up to that time no communication with
Gaul save along the Mediterranean, by a narrow and difficult path, which
has become in our time the beautiful route called the Corniche. The
mountain tribes defended their independence with desperation; when that
of the Stumians, who occupied the pass of the maritime Alps, saw their
inability to hold their own, they cut the throats of their wives and
children, set fire to their houses, and threw themselves into the flames.
But the Senate pursued its course imperturbably. All the chief defiles
of the Alps fell into its hands. The old Phoenician road, restored by
the consul Domitius, bore thenceforth his name (Via Donaitia), and less
than sixty years after Cisalpine Gaul had been reduced to a Roman
province, Rome possessed, in Transalpine Gaul, a second province, whither
she sent her armies, and where she established her citizens without
obstruction. But Providence seldom allows men, even in the midst of
their successes, to forget for long how precarious they are; and when He
is pleased to remind them, it is not by words, as the Persians reminded
their king, but by fearful events that He gives His warnings. At the
very moment when Rome believed herself set free from Gallic invasions,
and on the point of avenging herself by a course of conquest, a new
invasion, more extensive and more barbarous, came bursting upon Rome and
upon Gaul at the same time, and plunged them together in the same
troubles and the same perils.
In the year 113 B.C. there appeared to the north of the Adriatic, on the
right bank of the Danube, an immense multitude of barbarians, ravaging
Noricum and threatening Italy. Two nations predominated; the Kymrians or
Cimbrians, and the Teutons, the national name of the Germans. They came
from afar, northward, from the Cimbrian peninsula, nowadays Jutland, and
from the countries bordering on the Baltic which nowadays form the
duchies of Holstein and Schleswig. A violent shock of earthquake, a
terrible inundation, had driven them, they said, from their homes; and
those countries do indeed show traces of such events. And Cimbrians and
Teutons had been for some time roaming over Germany.
The consul Papirius Carbo, despatched in all haste to defend the
frontier, bade them, in the name of the Roman people, to withdraw. The
barbarians modestly replied that they had no intention of settling in
Noricum, and if the Romans had rights over the country, they would carry
their arms elsewhere. The consul, who had found haughtiness succeed,
thought he might also employ perfidy against the barbarians. He offered
guides to conduct them out of Noricum; and the guides misled them. The
consul attacked them unexpectedly during the night, and was beaten.
However, the barbarians, still fearful, did not venture into Italy.
They roamed for three years along the Danube, as far as the mountains of
Macedonia and Thrace. Then retracing their steps, and marching eastward,
they inundated the valleys of the Helvetic Alps, now Switzerland, having
their numbers swelled by other tribes, Gallic or German, who preferred
joining in pillage to undergoing it. The Ambrons, among others, a Gallic
peoplet that had taken refuge in Helvetia after the expulsion of the
Umbrians by the Etruscans from Italy, joined the Cimbrians and Teutons;
and in the year 110 B.C. all together entered Gaul, at first by way of
Belgica, and then, continuing their wanderings and ravages in central
Gaul, they at last reached the Rhone, on the frontiers of the Roman
province.
There the name of Rome again arrested their progress; they applied to her
anew for lands, with the offer of their services. “Rome,” answered
M. Silanus, who commanded in the province, “has neither lands to give you
nor services to accept from you.” He attacked them in their camp, and
was beaten.
Three consuls, L. Cassius, C. Servilius Omepio, and Cu. Manlius,
successively experienced the same fate. With the barbarians victory bred
presumption. Their chieftains met and deliberated whether they should
not forthwith cross into Italy, to exterminate or enslave the Romans,
and make Kymrian spoken at Rome. Scaurus, a prisoner, was in the tent,
loaded with fetters, during the deliberation. He was questioned about
the resources of his country. “Cross not the Alps,” said he; “go not
into Italy: the Romans are invincible.” In a transport of fury the
chieftain of the Kymrians, Boiorix by name, fell upon the Roman, and ran
him through. Howbeit the advice of Scaurus was followed. The barbarians
did not as yet dare to decide upon invading Italy; but they freely
scoured the Roman province, meeting here with repulse, and there with
re-enforcement from the peoplets who formed the inhabitants. The
Tectosagian Voles, Hymrian in origin and maltreated by Rome, joined them.
Then, on a sudden, whilst the Teutons and Ambrons remained in Gaul, the
Kymrians passed over to Spain without apparent motive, and probably as an
overswollen torrent divides, and disperses its waters in all directions.
The commotion at Rome was extreme; never had so many or such wild
barbarians threatened the Republic; never had so many or such large Roman
armies been beaten in succession. There was but one man, it was said,
who could avert the danger, and give Rome the ascendency. It was Marius,
low-born, but already illustrious; esteemed by the Senate for his genius
as a commander and for his victories; swaying at his will the people, who
saw in him one of themselves, and admired without envying him; beloved
and feared by the army for his bravery, his rigorous discipline, and his
readiness to share their toils and dangers; stern and rugged; without
education, eloquence, or riches; ill-suited for shining in public
assemblies, but resolute and dexterous in action; verily made to dominate
the vigorous but unrefined multitude, whether in camp or city, partly by
participating their feelings, partly by giving them in his own person a
specimen of the deserts and sometimes of the virtues which they esteem
but do not possess.
He was consul in Africa, where he was putting an end to the war with
Jugurtha. He was elected a second time consul, without interval and in
his absence, contrary to all the laws of the Republic. Scarcely had he
returned, when, on descending from the Capitol, where he had just
received a triumph for having conquered and captured Jugurtha, he set out
for Gaul. On his arrival, instead of proceeding, as his predecessors,
to attack the barbarians at once, he confined himself to organizing and
inuring his troops, subjecting them to frequent marches, all kinds of
military exercises, and long and hard labor. To insure supplies he made
them dig, towards the mouths of the Rhone, a large canal which formed a
junction with the river a little above Arles, and which, at its entrance
into the sea, offered good harborage for vessels. This canal, which
existed for a long while under the name of Rossae Mariance (the dikes of
Marius), is filled up nowadays; but at its southern extremity the village
of Foz still preserves a remembrance of it. Trained in this severe
school, the soldiers acquired such a reputation for sobriety and
laborious assiduity, that they were proverbially called Marius’s mules.
He was as careful for their moral state as for their physical fitness,
and labored to exalt their imaginations as well as to harden their
bodies. In that camp, and amidst those toils in which he kept them
strictly engaged, frequent sacrifices, and scrupulous care in consulting
the oracles, kept superstition at a white heat. A Syrian prophetess,
named Martha, who had been sent to Marius by his wife Julia, the aunt of
Julius Caesar, was ever with him, and accompanied him at the sacred
ceremonies and on the march, being treated with the greatest respect, and
having vast influence over the minds of the soldiers.
Two years rolled on in this fashion; and yet Marius would not move. The
increasing devastation of the country, fire, and famine, the despair and
complaints of the inhabitants, did not shake his resolution. Nor was the
confidence he inspired both in the camp and at Rome a whit shaken: he was
twice re-elected consul, once while he was still absent, and once during
a visit he paid to Rome to give directions to his party in person.
It was at Rome, in the year 102 B.C., that he learned how the Kymrians,
weary of Spain, had recrossed the Pyrenees, rejoined their old comrades,
and had at last resolved, in concert, to invade Italy; the Kymrians from
the north, by way of Helvetia and Noricum, the Teutons and Ambrons from
the south, by way of the maritime Alps. They were to form a junction on
the banks of the Po, and thence march together on Rome. At this news
Marius returned forthwith to Gaul, and, without troubling himself about
the Kymrians, who had really put themselves in motion towards the
north-east, he placed his camp so as to cover at one and the same time
the two Roman roads which crossed at Arles, and by one of which the
Ambro-Teutons must necessarily pass to enter Italy on the south.
They soon appeared “in immense numbers,” say the historians, “with their
hideous looks and their wild cries,” drawing up their chariots and
planting their tents in front of the Roman camp. They showered upon
Marius and his soldiers continual insult and defiance. The Romans, in
their irritation, would fain have rushed out of their camp, but Marius
restrained them. “It is no question,” said he, with his simple and
convincing common sense, “of gaining triumphs and trophies; it is a
question of averting this storm of war and of saving Italy.” A Teutonic
chieftain came one day up to the very gates of the camp, and challenged
him to fight. Marius had him informed that if he were tired of life he
could go and hang himself. As the barbarian still persisted, Marius sent
him a gladiator.
However, he made his soldiers, in regular succession, mount the ramparts,
to get them familiarized with the cries, looks, arms, and movements of
the barbarians. The most distinguished of his officers, young Sertorius,
who understood and spoke Gallic well, penetrated, in the disguise of a
Gaul, into the camp of the Ambrons, and informed Marius of what was going
on there.
At last the barbarians, in their impatience, having vainly attempted to
storm the Roman camp, struck their own, and put themselves in motion
towards the Alps. For six whole days, it is said, their bands were
defiling beneath the ramparts of the Romans, and crying, “Have you any
message for your wives? We shall soon be with them.”
Marius, too, struck his camp, and followed them. They halted, both of
them, near Aix, on the borders of the Coenus, the barbarians in the
valley, Marius on a hill which commanded it. The ardor of the Romans was
at its height; it was warm weather; there was a want of water on the
hill, and the soldiers murmured. “You are men,” said Marius, pointing to
the river below, “and there is water to be bought with blood.” “Why
don’t you lead us against them at once, then,” said a soldier, “whilst we
still have blood in our veins?” “We must first fortify our camp,”
answered Marius quietly.
The soldiers obeyed: but the hour of battle had come, and well did Marius
know it. It commenced on the brink of the Coenus, between some Ambrons
who were bathing and some Roman slaves gone down to draw water. When the
whole horde of the Ambrons advanced to the battle, shouting their war-cry
of Ambra! Ambra! a body of Gallic auxiliaries in the Roman army, and in
the first rank, heard them with great amazement; for it was their own
name and their own cry; there were tribes of Ambrons in the Alps
subjected to Rome as well as in the Helvetic Alps; and Ambra! Ambra!
resounded on both sides.
The battle lasted two days, the first against the Ambrons, the second
against the Teutons. Both were beaten, in spite of their savage bravery,
and the equal bravery of their women, who defended, with indomitable
obstinacy, the cars with which they had remained almost alone, in charge
of the children and the booty. After the women, it was necessary to
exterminate the hounds who defended their masters’ bodies. Here again
the figures of the historians are absurd, although they differ; the most
extravagant raise the number of barbarians slain to two hundred thousand,
and that of the prisoners to eighty thousand; the most moderate stop at
one hundred thousand. In any case, the carnage was great, for the
battle-field, where all these corpses rested without burial, rotting in
the sun and rain, got the name of Campi Putridi, or Fields of
Putrefaction, a name traceable even nowadays in that of Pourrires, a
neighboring village.
[Illustration: The Women defending the Cars----58]
As to the booty, the Roman army with one voice made a free gift of it to
Marius; but he, remembering, perhaps, what had been lately done by the
barbarians after the defeat of the consuls Manlius and Czepio, determined
to have it all burned in honor of the gods. He had a great sacrifice
prepared. The soldiers, crowned with laurel, were ranged about the pyre;
their general, holding on high a blazing torch, was about to apply the
light with his own hand, when suddenly, on the very spot, whether by
design or accident, came from Rome the news that Marius had just been for
the fifth time elected consul. In the midst of acclamations from his
army, and with a fresh chaplet bound upon his brow, he applied the torch
in person, and completed the sacrifice.
Were we travelling in Provence, in the neighborhood of Aix, we should
encounter, peradventure, some peasant who, whilst pointing out to us the
summit of a lull whereon, in all probability, Marius offered, nineteen
hundred and forty years ago, that glorious sacrifice, would say to us in
his native dialect, “Aqui es lou deloubre do la Vittoria:” “There is the
temple of victory.” There, indeed, was built, not far from a pyramid
erected in honor of Marius, a little temple dedicated to Victory.
Thither, every year, in the month of May, the population used to come and
celebrate a festival and light a bonfire, answered by other bonfires on
the neighboring heights. When Gaul became Christian, neither monument
nor festival perished; a saint took the place of the goddess, and the
temple of Victory became the church of St. Victoire. There are still
ruins of it to this day; the religious procession which succeeded the
pagan festival ceased only at the first outburst of the Revolution; and
the vague memory of a great national event still mingles in popular
tradition with the legends of the saint.
The Ambrons and Teutons beaten, there remained the Kymrians, who,
according to agreement, had repassed the Helvetic Alps and entered Italy
on the north-east, by way of the Adige. Marius marched against them in
July of the following year, 101 B.C. Ignorant of what had occurred in
Gaul, and possessed, as ever, with the desire of a settlement, they again
sent to him a deputation, saying, “Give us lands and towns for us and our
brethren.” “What brethren?” asked Marius. “The Teutons.” The Romans
who were about Marius began to laugh. “Let your brethren be,” said
Marius; “they have land, and will always have it; they received it from
us.” The Kymrians, perceiving the irony of his tone, burst out into
threats, telling Marius that he should suffer for it at their hands
first, and afterwards at those of the Teutons when they arrived. “They
are here,” rejoined Marius; “you must not depart without saluting your
brethren;” and he had Teutobod, King of the Teutons, brought out with
other captive chieftains. The envoys reported the sad news in their own
camp, and three days afterwards, July 30, a great battle took place
between the Kymrians and the Romans in the Raudine Plains, a large tract
near Verceil.
It were unnecessary to dwell on the details of the battle, which
resembled that of Aix; besides, fought as it was in Italy and by none but
Romans, it has but little to do with a history of Gaul. It has been
mentioned only to make known the issue of that famous invasion, of which
Gaul was the principal theatre. For a moment it threatened the very
existence of the Roman Republic. The victories of Marius arrested the
torrent, but did not dry up its source. The great movement which drove
from Asia to Europe, and from eastern to western Europe, masses of roving
populations, followed its course, bringing incessantly upon the Roman
frontiers new comers and new perils. A greater man than Marius, Julius
Caesar in fact, saw that to effectually resist these clouds of barbaric
assailants, the country into which they poured must be conquered and made
Roman. The conquest of Gaul was the accomplishment of that idea, and the
decisive step towards the transformation of the Roman republic into a
Roman empire.
CHAPTER IV.—-GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS CAESAR.
Historians, ancient and modern, have attributed to the Roman Senate,
from the time of the establishment of the Roman province in Gaul, a
long-premeditated design of conquering Gaul altogether. Others have said
that when Julius Caesar, in the year of Rome 696, (58 B C.) got himself
appointed proconsul in Gaul, his single aim was to form for himself there
an army devoted to his person, of which he might avail himself to satisfy
his ambition and make himself master of Rome. We should not be too ready
to believe in these far-reaching and precise plans, conceived and settled
so long beforehand, whether by a senate or a single man. Prevision and
exact calculation do not count for so much in the lives of governments
and of peoples. It is unexpected events, inevitable situations, the
imperious necessities of successive epochs, which most often decide the
conduct of the greatest powers and the most able politicians. It is
after the fair, when the course of facts and their consequences has
received full development, that, amidst their tranquil meditations,
annalists and historians, in their learned way, attribute everything to
systematic plans and personal calculations on the part of the chief
actors. There is much less of combination than of momentary inspiration,
derived from circumstances, in the resolutions and conduct of political
chiefs, kings, senators, or great men. From the time that discord and
corruption had turned the Roman Republic into a bloody and tyrannical
anarchy, the Roman Senate no longer meditated grand designs, and its
members were preoccupied only with the question of escaping or avenging
proscriptions. When Caesar procured for himself the government for five
years of the Gauls, the fact was, that, not desiring to be a sanguinary
dictator like Scylla, or a gala chieftain like Pompey, he went and sought
abroad, for his own glory and fortune’s sake, in a war of general Roman
interest, the means and chances of success which were not furnished to
him in Rome itself by the dogged and monotonous struggle of the factions.
[Illustration: The Roman Army invading Gaul----61]
In spite of the victories of Marius, and the destruction or dispersion of
the Teutons and Cimbrians, the whole of Gaul remained seriously disturbed
and threatened. At the north-east, in Belgica, some bands of other
Teutons, who had begun to be called Germans (men of war), had passed over
the left bank of the Rhine, and were settling or wandering there without
definite purpose. In eastern and central Gaul, in the valleys of the
Jura and Auvergne, on the banks of the Saone, the Allier, and the Doubs,
the two great Gallic confederations, that of the AEduans and that of the
Arvernians, were disputing the preponderance, and making war one upon
another, seeking the aid, respectively, of the Romans and of the Germans.
At the foot of the Alps, the little nation of Allobrogians, having fallen
a prey to civil dissension, had given up its independence to Rome. Even
in southern and western Gaul the populations of Agnitania were rising,
vexing the Roman province, and rendering necessary, on both sides of the
Pyrenees, the intervention of Roman legions. Everywhere floods of
barbaric populations were pressing upon Gaul, were carrying disgnietude
even where they had not themselves yet penetrated, and causing
presentiments of a general commotion. The danger burst before long upon
particular places and in connection with particular names which have
remained historical. In the war with the confederation of the AEduans,
that of the Arvernians called to their aid the German Ariovistus,
chieftain of a confederation of tribes which, under the name of Suevians,
were roving over the right bank of the Rhine, ready at any time to cross
the river. Ariovistus, with fifteen thousand warriors at his back, was
not slow in responding to the appeal. The AEdaans were beaten; and
Ariovistus settled amongst the Gauls who had been thoughtless enough to
appeal to him. Numerous bands of Suevians came and rejoined him; and in
two or three years after his victory he had about him, it was said, one
hundred and twenty thousand warriors. He had appropriated to them a
third of the territory of his Gallic allies, and he imperiously demanded
another third to satisfy other twenty-five thousand of his old German
comrades, who asked to share his booty and his new country. One of the
foremost AEduans, Divitiacus by name, went and invoked the succor of the
Roman people, the patrons of his confederation. He was admitted to the
presence of the Senate, and invited to be seated; but he modestly
declined, and standing, leaning upon his shield, he set forth the
sufferings and the claims of his country. He received kindly promises,
which at first remained without fruit. He, however, remained at Rome,
persistent in his solicitations, and carrying on intercourse with several
Romans of consideration, notably with Cicero, who says of him, “I knew
Divitiacus, the AEduan, who claimed proficiency in that natural science
which the Greeks call physiology, and he predicted the future, either by
augury or his own conjecture.” The Roman Senate, with the indecision and
indolence of all declining powers, hesitated to engage, for the AEduans’
sake, in a war against the invaders of a corner of Gallic territory. At
the same time that they gave a cordial welcome to Divitiacus, they
entered into negotiations with Ariovistus himself; they gave him
beautiful presents, the title of King, and even of friend; the only
demand they made was, that he should live peaceably in his new
settlement, and not lend his support to the fresh invasions of which
there were symptoms in Gaul, and which were becoming too serious for
resolutions not to be taken to repel them.
[Illustration: Divitiacus before the Roman Senate----63]
A people of Gallic race, the Helvetians, who inhabited present
Switzerland, where the old name still abides beside the modern, found
themselves incessantly threatened, ravaged, and invaded by the German
tribes which pressed upon their frontiers. After some years of
perplexity and internal discord, the whole Helvetic nation decided upon
abandoning its territory, and going to seek in Gaul, westward, it is
said, on the borders of the ocean, a more tranquil settlement. Being
informed of this design, the Roman Senate and Caesar, at that time
consul, resolved to protect the Roman province and their Gallic allies,
the AEduans, against this inundation of roving neighbors. The Helvetians
none the less persisted in their plan; and in the spring of the year of
Rome 696 (58 B C.) they committed to the flames, in the country they were
about to leave, twelve towns, four hundred villages, and all their
houses; loaded their cars with provisions for three months, and agreed to
meet at the southern point of the Lake of Geneva. They found on their
reunion, says Caesar, a total of three hundred and sixty-eight thousand
emigrants, including ninety-two thousand men-at-arms. The Switzerland
which they abandoned numbers now two million five hundred thousand
inhabitants. But when the Helvetians would have entered Gaul, they found
there Caesar, who, after having got himself appointed proconsul for five
years, had arrived suddenly at Geneva, prepared to forbid their passage.
They sent to him a deputation, to ask leave, they said, merely to
traverse the Roman province without causing the least damage. Caesar
knew as well how to gain time as not to lose any: he was not ready; so he
put off the Helvetians to a second conference. In the interval he
employed his legionaries, who could work as well as fight, in erecting
upon the left bank of the Rhone a wall sixteen feet high and ten miles
long, which rendered the passage of the river very difficult, and, on the
return of the Helvetian envoys, he formally forbade them to pass by the
road they had proposed to follow. They attempted to take another, and to
cross not the Rhone but the Saone, and march thence towards western Gaul.
But whilst they were arranging for the execution of this movement,
Caesar, who had up to that time only four legions at his disposal,
returned to Italy, brought away five fresh legions, and arrived on the
left bank of the Saone at the moment when the rear-guard of the
Helvetians was embarking to rejoin the main body which had already
pitched its camp on the right bank. Caesar cut to pieces this rear-guard,
crossed the river, in his turn, with his legions, pursued the emigrants
without relaxation, came in contact with them on several occasions, at
one time attacking them or repelling their attacks, at another receiving
and giving audience to their envoys without ever consenting to treat with
them, and before the end of the year he had so completely beaten,
decimated, dispersed and driven them back, that of three hundred and
sixty-eight thousand Helvetians who had entered Gaul, but one hundred and
ten thousand escaped from the Romans, and were enabled, by flight, to
regain their country.
[Illustration: Mounted Gauls----66]
AEduans, Sequanians, or Arvernians, all the Gauls interested in the
struggle thus terminated, were eager to congratulate Caesar upon his
victory; but if they were delivered from the invasion of the Helvetians,
another scourge fell heavily upon them; Ariovistus and the Germans, who
were settled upon their territory, oppressed them cruelly, and day by day
fresh bands were continually coming to aggravate the evil and the danger.
They adjured Caesar to protect them from these swarms of barbarians. “In
a few years,” said they, “all the Germans will have crossed the Rhine,
and all the Gauls will be driven from Gaul, for the soil of Germany
cannot compare with that of Gaul, any more than the mode of life. If
Caesar and the Roman people refuse to aid us, there is nothing left for
us but to abandon our lands, as the Helvetians would have done in their
case, and go seek, afar from the Germans, another dwelling-place.”
Caesar, touched by so prompt an appeal to the power of his name and fame
gave ear to the prayer of the Gauls. But he was for trying negotiation
before war. He proposed to Ariovistus an interview “at which they aright
treat in common of affairs of importance for both.” Ariovistus replied
that “if he wanted anything of Caesar, he would go in search of him; if
Caesar had business with him, it was for Caesar to come.” Caesar
thereupon conveyed to him by messenger his express injunctions, “not to
summon any more from the borders of the Rhine fresh multitudes of men,
and to cease from vexing the AEduans and making war on them, them and
their allies. Otherwise, Caesar would not fail to avenge their wrongs.”
Ariovistus replied that “he had conquered the AEduans. The Roman people
were in the habit of treating the vanquished after their own pleasure,
and not the advice of another; he too, himself, had the same right.
Caesar said he would avenge the wrongs of the AEduans; but no one had
ever attacked him with impunity. If Caesar would like to try it, let him
come; he would learn what could be done by the bravery of the Germans,
who were as yet unbeaten, who were trained to arms, who for fourteen
years had not slept beneath a roof.” At the moment he received this
answer, Caesar had just heard that fresh bands of Suevians were encamped
on the right bank of the Rhine, ready to cross, and that Ariovistus with
all his forces was making towards Vesontio (Besancon), the chief town of
the Sequanians. Caesar forthwith put himself in motion, occupied
Vesontio, established there a strong garrison, and made his arrangements
for issuing from it with his legions to go and anticipate the attack of
Ariovistus. Then came to him word that no little disquietude was showing
itself among the Roman troops; that many soldiers and even officers
appeared anxious about the struggle with the Germans, their ferocity, the
vast forests that must be traversed to reach them, the difficult roads,
and the transport of provisions; there was an apprehension of broken
courage, and perchance of numerous desertions. Caesar summoned a great
council of war, to which he called the chief officers of his legions; he
complained bitterly of their alarm, recalled to their memory their recent
success against the Helvetians, and scoffed at the rumors spread about
the Germans, and at the doubts with which there was an attempt to inspire
him about the fidelity and obedience of his troops. “An army,” said he,
“disobeys only the commander who leads them badly and has no good
fortune, or is found guilty of cupidity and malversation. My whole life
shows my integrity, and the war against the Helvetians my good fortune.
I shall order forthwith the departure I had intended to put off. I shall
strike the camp the very next night, at the fourth watch; I wish to see
as soon as possible whether honor and duty or fear prevail in your ranks.
If there be any refusal to follow me, I shall march with only the tenth
legion, of which I have no doubt; that shall be my praetorian cohort.”
The cheers of the troops, officers and men, were the answer given to the
reproaches and hopes of their general: all hesitation passed away; and
Caesar set out with his army. He fetched a considerable compass, to
spare them the passage of thick forests, and, after a seven days’ march,
arrived at a short distance from the camp of Ariovistus. On learning
that Caesar was already so near, the German sent to him a messenger with
proposals for the interview which was but lately demanded, and to which
there was no longer any obstacle, since Caesar had himself arrived upon
the spot. And the interview really took place, with mutual precautions
for safety and warlike dignity. Caesar repeated all the demands he had
made upon Ariovistus, who, in his turn, maintained his refusal, asking,
“What was wanted? Why had foot been set upon his lands? That part of
Gaul was his province, just as the other was the Roman province. If
Caesar did not retire, and withdraw his troops, he should consider him no
more a friend, but an enemy. He knew that if he were to slay Caesar, he
would recommend himself to many nobles and chiefs amongst the Roman
people; he had learned as much from their own envoys. But if Caesar
retired and left him, Ariovistus, in free possession of Gaul, he would
pay liberally in return, and would wage on Caesar’s behalf, without
trouble or danger to him, any wars he might desire.” During this
interview it is probable that Caesar smiled more than once at the
boldness and shrewdness of the barbarian. Ultimately some horsemen in
the escort of Ariovistus began to caracole towards the Romans, and to
hurl at them stones and darts. Caesar ordered his men to make no
reprisals, and broke off the conference. The next day but one Ariovistus
proposed a renewal; but Caesar refused, having decided to bring the
quarrel to an issue. Several days in succession he led out his legions
from their camp, and offered battle; but Ariovistus remained within his
lines. Caesar then took the resolution of assailing the German camp. At
his approach, the Germans at length moved out from their intrenchments,
arrayed by peoplets, and defiling in front of cars filled with their
women, who implored them with tears not to deliver them in slavery to the
Romans. The struggle was obstinate, and not without moments of anxiety
and partial check for the Romans; but the genius of Caesar and strict
discipline of the legions carried the day. The rout of the Germans was
complete; they fled towards the Rhine, which was only a few leagues from
the field of battle. Ariovistus himself was amongst the fugitives; he
found a boat by the river side, and recrossed into Germany, where he died
shortly afterwards, “to the great grief of the Germans,” says Caesar.
The Suevian bands, who were awaiting on the right bank the result of the
struggle, plunged back again within their own territory. And so the
invasion of the Germans was stopped as the emigration of the Helvetians
had been; and Caesar had only to conquer Gaul.
It is uncertain whether he had from the very first determined the whole
plan; but so soon as he set seriously to work, he felt all the
difficulties. The expulsion of the Helvetian emigrants and of the German
invaders left the Romans and Gauls alone face to face; and from that
moment the Romans were, in the eyes of the Gauls, foreigners, conquerors,
oppressors. Their deeds aggravated day by day the feelings excited by
the situation; they did not ravage the country, as the Germans had done;
they did not appropriate such and such a piece of land; but everywhere
they assumed the mastery: they laid heavy burdens upon the population;
they removed the rightful chieftains who were opposed to them, and
forcibly placed or maintained in power those only who were subservient to
them. Independently of the Roman empire, Caesar established everywhere
his own personal influence; by turns gentle or severe, caressing or
threatening, he sought and created for himself partisans amongst the
Gauls, as he had amongst his army, showing favor to those only whose
devotion was assured to him. To national antipathy towards foreigners
must be added the intrigues and personal rivalry of the conquered in
their relations with the conqueror. Conspiracies were hatched,
insurrections soon broke out in nearly every part of Gaul, in the heart
even of the peoplets most subject to Roman dominion. Every movement of
the kind was for Caesar a provocation, a temptation, almost an obligation
to conquest. He accepted them and profited by them, with that
promptitude in resolution, boldness and address in execution, and cool
indifference as to the means employed, which were characteristic of his
genius. During nine years, from A. U. C. 696 to 705, and in eight
successive campaigns, he carried his troops, his lieutenants, himself,
and, ere long, war or negotiation, corruption, discord, or destruction in
his path, amongst the different nations and confederations of Gaul,
Celtic, Kymric, Germanic, Iberian or Hybrid, northward and eastward,
in Belgica, between the Seine and the Rhine; westward, in Armorica, on
the borders of the ocean; south-westward, in Aquitania; centre-ward,
amongst the peoplets established between the Seine, the Loire, and the
Saone. He was nearly always victorious, and then at one time he pushed
his victory to the bitter end, at another stopped at the right moment,
that it might not be compromised. When he experienced reverses, he bore
them without repining, and repaired them with inexhaustible ability and
courage. More than once, to revive the sinking spirits of his men, he
was rashly lavish of his person; and on one of those occasions, at the
raising of the siege of Gergovia, he was all but taken by some Arvernian
horsemen, and left his sword in their hands. It was found a while
afterwards, when the war was over, in a temple in which the Gauls had
hung it. Caesar’s soldiers would have torn it down and returned it to
him; but “let it be,” said he; “’tis sanctified.” In good or evil
fortune, the hero of a triumph at Rome or a prisoner in the hands of
Mediterranean pirates, he was unrivalled in striking the imaginations of
men and growing great in their eyes. He did not confine himself to
conquering and subjecting the Gauls in Gaul; his ideas were ever
outstripping his deeds, and he knew how to make his power felt even where
he had made no attempt to establish it. Twice he crossed the Rhine to
hurl back the Germans beyond their river, and to strike to the very
hearts of their forests the terror of the Roman name (A. U. C. 699,
700). He equipped two fleets, made two descents on Great Britain
(A. U. C. 699, 700), several times defeated the Britons and their
principal chieftain Caswallon (Cassivellaunus), and set up across the
channel, the first landmarks of Roman conquest. He thus became more and
more famous and terrible, both in Gaul, whence he sometimes departed for
a moment to go and look after his political prospects in Italy, and in
more distant lands, where he was but an apparition.
But the greatest minds are far from foreseeing all the consequences of
their deeds, and all the perils proceeding from their successes. Caesar
was by nature neither violent nor cruel; but he did not trouble himself
about justice or humanity, and the success of his enterprises, no matter
by what means or at what price, was his sole law of conduct. He could
show, on occasion, moderation and mercy; but when he had to put down an
obstinate resistance, or when a long and arduous effort had irritated
him, he had no hesitation in employing atrocious severity and perfidious
promises. During his first campaign in Belgica, (A. U. C. 697 and 57
B.C.), two peoplets, the Nervians and the Aduaticans, had gallantly
struggled, with brief moments of success, against the Roman legions. The
Nervians were conquered and almost annihilated. Their last remnants,
huddled for refuge in the midst of their morasses, sent a deputation to
Caesar, to make submission, saying, “Of six hundred senators three only
are left, and of sixty thousand men that bore arms scarce five hundred
have escaped.” Caesar received them kindly, returned to them their
lands, and warned their neighbors to do them no harm. The Aduaticans, on
the contrary, defended them selves to the last extremity. Caesar, having
slain four thousand, had all that remained sold by auction; and fifty-six
thousand human beings, according to his own statement, passed as slaves
into the hands of their purchasers. Some years later another Belgian
peoplet, the Eburons, settled between the Meuse and the Rhine, rose and
inflicted great losses upon the Roman legions. Caesar put them beyond
the pale of military and human law, and had all the neighboring peoplets
and all the roving bands invited to come and pillage and destroy “that
accursed race,” promising to whoever would join in the work the
friendship of the Roman people. A little later still, some insurgents in
the centre of Gaul had concentrated in a place to the south-west, called
Urellocdunum (nowadays, it is said, Puy d’Issola, in the department of
the Lot, between Vayrac and Martel). After a long resistance they were
obliged to surrender, and Caesar had all the combatants’ hands cut off,
and sent them, thus mutilated, to live and rove throughout Gaul, as a
spectacle to all the country that was, or was to be, brought to
submission. Nor were the rigors of administration less than those of
warfare. Caesar wanted a great deal of money, not only to maintain
satisfactorily his troops in Gaul, but to defray the enormous expenses he
was at in Italy, for the purpose of enriching his partisans, or securing
the favor of the Roman people. It was with the produce of imposts and
plunder in Gaul that he undertook the reconstruction at Rome of the
basilica of the Forum, the site whereof, extending to the temple of
Liberty, was valued, it is said, at more than twenty million five
hundred thousand francs. Cicero, who took the direction of the works,
wrote to his friend Atticus, “We shall make it the most glorious thing
in the world.” Cato was less satisfied; three years previously
despatches from Caesar had announced to the Senate his victories over
the Belgian and German insurgents. The senators had voted a general
thanksgiving, but, “Thanksgiving!” cried Cato, “rather expiation! Pray
the gods not to visit upon our armies the sin of a guilty general. Give
up Caesar to the Germans, and let the foreigner know that Rome does not
enjoin perjury, and rejects with horror the fruit thereof!”
Caesar had all the gifts, all the means of success and empire, that can
be possessed by man. He was great in politics and in war; as active and
as full of resource amidst the intrigues of the Forum as amidst the
combinations and surprises of the battle-field, equally able to please
and to terrify. He had a double pride, which gave him double confidence
in himself, the pride of a great noble and the pride of a great man. He
was fond of saying, “My aunt Julia is, maternally, the daughter of kings;
paternally, she is descended from the immortal gods; my family unites, to
the sacred character of kings who are the most powerful amongst men, the
awful majesty of the gods who have even kings in their keeping.” Thus,
by birth as well as nature, Caesar felt called to dominion; and at the
same time he was perfectly aware of the decadence of the Roman
patriciate, and of the necessity for being popular in order to become
master. With this double instinct he undertook the conquest of the Gauls
as the surest means of achieving conquest at Rome. But owing either to
his own vices or to the difficulties of the situation, he displayed in
his conduct and his work in Gaul so much violence and oppression, so much
iniquity and cruel indifference, that, even at that time, in the midst of
Roman harshness, pagan corruption, and Gallic or German barbarism, so
great an infliction of moral and material harm could not but be followed
by a formidable reaction. Where there are strength and ability, the want
of foresight, the fears, the weaknesses, the dissensions of men, whether
individuals or peoples, may be for a long while calculated upon; but it
may be carried too far. After six years’ struggling Caesar was victor;
he had successively dealt with all the different populations of Gaul; he
had passed through and subjected them all, either by his own strong arm,
or thanks to their rivalries. In the year of Rome 702 he was suddenly
informed in Italy, whither he had gone on his Roman business, that most
of the Gallic nations, united under a chieftain hitherto unknown, were
rising with one common impulse, and recommencing war.
The same perils and the same reverses, the same sufferings and the same
resentments, had stirred up amongst the Gauls, without distinction of
race and name, a sentiment to which they had hitherto been almost
strangers, the sentiment of Gallic nationality and the passion for
independence, not local any longer, but national. This sentiment was
first manifested amongst the populace and under obscure chieftains; a
band of Carnutian peasants (people of Chartrain) rushed upon the town of
Genabum (Gies), roused the inhabitants, and massacred the Italian traders
and a Roman knight, C. Fusius Cita, whom Caesar had commissioned to buy
corn there. In less than twenty-four hours the signal of insurrection
against Rome was borne across the country as far as the Arvernians,
amongst whom conspiracy had long ago been waiting and paving the way for
insurrection. Amongst them lived a young Gaul whose real name has
remained unknown, and whom history has called Vercingetorix, that is,
chief over a hundred heads, chief-in-general. He came of an ancient and
powerful family of Arvernians, and his father had been put to death in
his own city for attempting to make himself king. Caesar knew him, and
had taken some pains to attach him to himself. It does not appear that
the Arvernian aristocrat had absolutely declined the overtures; but when
the hope of national independence was aroused, Vercingetorix was its
representative and chief. He descended with his followers from the
mountain, and seized Gergovia, the capital of his nation. Thence his
messengers spread over the centre, north-west, and west of Gaul; the
greater part of the peoplets and cities of those regions pronounced from
the first moment for insurrection; the same sentiment was working amongst
others more compromised with Rome, who waited only for a breath of
success to break out. Vercingetorix was immediately invested with the
chief command, and he made use of it with all the passion engendered by
patriotism and the possession of power; he regulated the movement,
demanded hostages, fixed the contingents of troops, imposed taxes,
inflicted summary punishment on the traitors, the dastards, and the
indifferent, and subjected those who turned a deaf ear to the appeal of
their common country to the same pains and the same mutilations that
Caesar inflicted on those who obstinately resisted the Roman yoke.
At the news of this great movement Caesar immediately left Italy, and
returned to Gaul. He had one quality, rare even amongst the greatest
men: he remained cool amidst the very hottest alarms; necessity never
hurried him into precipitation, and he prepared for the struggle as if he
were always sure of arriving on the spot in time to sustain it. He was
always quick, but never hasty; and his activity and patience were equally
admirable and efficacious. Starting from Italy at the beginning of 702
A. U. C., he passed two months in traversing within Gaul the Roman
province and its neighborhood, in visiting the points threatened by the
insurrection, and the openings by which he might get at it, in assembling
his troops, in confirming his wavering allies; and it was not before the
early part of March that he moved with his whole army to Agendicum
(Sens), the very centre of revolt, and started thence to push on the war
with vigor. In less than three months he had spread devastation
throughout the insurgent country; he had attacked and taken its principal
cities, Vellaunodunum (Trigueres), Genabum (Gien), Noviodunum (Sancerre),
and Avaricum (Bourges), delivering up everywhere country and city, lands
and inhabitants, to the rage of the Roman soldiery, maddened at having
again to conquer enemies so often conquered. To strike a decisive blow,
he penetrated at last to the heart of the country of the Arvernians, and
laid siege to Gergovia, their capital and the birthplace of
Vercingetorix.
The firmness and the ability of the Gallic chieftain were not inferior to
such a struggle. He understood from the outset that he could not cope in
the open field with Caesar and the Roman legions; he therefore exerted
himself in getting together a body of cavalry numerous enough to harass
the Romans during their movements, to attack their scattered detachments,
to bear his orders swiftly to all quarters, and to keep up the excitement
amongst the different peoplets with some hope of success. His plan of
campaign, his repeated instructions, his passionate entreaties to the
confederates were to avoid any general action, to anticipate by their own
ravages those of the Romans, to destroy everywhere, at the approach of
the enemy, stores, springs, bridges, trees, and habitations: he wanted
Caesar to find in his front nothing but ruins and clouds of warriors
relentless in pursuing him without getting within reach. Frequently he
succeeded in obtaining from the people those painful sacrifices in the
interest of the common safety; as when the Biturigians (inhabitants of
the district of Bourges) burned in one day twenty of their towns or
villages. Vercingetorix adjured them also to burn Avaricum (Bourges),
their capital; but they refused, and the capture of Avaricum, though
gallantly defended, justified the urgency of Vercingetorix, seeing that
it was an important success for Caesar and a serious blow for the Gauls.
Out of forty thousand combatants within the walls, it is said, scarcely
eight hundred escaped the slaughter and succeeded in joining
Vercingetorix, who had hovered continually in the neighborhood without
being able to offer the besieged any effectual assistance. Nor was it
only against the Romans that he had to struggle; he had to fight amongst
his own people, against rivalry, mistrust, impatience, and
discouragement; he was accused of desiring, beyond everything, the
mastery; he was even suspected of keeping up, with the view of assuring
his own future, secret relations with Caesar; he was called upon to
attack the enemy in front, and so bring the war to a decisive issue. It
is all very fine to be summoned by the popular voice to accomplish a
great and arduous work; but you cannot be, with impunity, the most
far-sighted, the most able, and the most in danger, because the most
devoted. Vercingetorix was bearing the burden of his superiority and
influence, until he should suffer the penalty and pay with his life for
his patriotism and his glory. He was approaching the happiest moment of
his enterprise and his destiny. In spite of reverses, in spite of
Caesar’s presence and activity, the insurrection was gaining ground and
strength; in the north, west, south-west, on the banks of the Rhine, the
Seine, and the Loire, the idea of Gallic nationality and the hope of
independence were spreading amongst people far removed from the centre of
the movement, and were bringing to Vercingetorix declarations of sympathy
or material re-enforcements. An event of more importance took place in
the centre itself. The AEduans, the most ancient allies and clients the
Romans had in Gaul, being divided amongst themselves, and feeling,
besides, the national instinct, ended, after much hesitation, by taking
part in the uprising. Caesar, for all his care, could neither prevent
nor stifle this defection, which threatened to become contagious, and
detach from Rome the neighboring peoplets that were still faithful.
Caesar, engaged upon the siege of Gergovia, encountered an obstinate
resistance; whilst Vercingetorix, encamped on the heights which
surrounded his birthplace, everywhere embarrassed, sometimes attacked,
and incessantly threatened the Romans. The eighth legion, drawn on one
day to make an imprudent assault, was repulsed, and lost forty-six of its
bravest centurions. Caesar determined to raise the siege, and to
transfer the struggle to places where the population could be more safely
depended upon. It was the first decisive check he had experienced in
Gaul, the first Gallic town he had been unable to take, the first
retrograde movement he had executed in the face of the Gallic insurgents
and their chieftain. Vercingetorix could not and would not restrain his
joy; it seemed to him that the day had dawned and an excellent chance
arrived for attempting a decisive blow. He had under his orders, it is
said, eighty thousand men, mostly his own Arvernians, and a numerous
cavalry furnished by the different peoplets his allies. He followed all
Caesar’s movements in retreat towards the Saone, and, on arriving at
Longeau not far from Langres, near a little river called the Vingeanne,
he halted, pitched his camp about nine miles from the Romans, and
assembling the chiefs of his cavalry, said, “Now is the hour of victory;
the Romans are flying to their province and leaving Gaul; that is enough
for our liberty to-day, but too little for the peace and repose of the
future; for they will return with greater armies, and the war will be
without end. Attack we them amid the difficulties of their march; if
their foot support the cavalry, they will not be able to pursue their
route; if, as I fully trust, they leave their baggage, to provide for
their safety, they will lose both their honor and the supplies whereof
they have need. None of the enemy’s horse will dare to come forth from
their lines. To give ye courage and aid, I will order forth from the
camp and place in battle array all our troops, and they will strike the
enemy with terror.” The Gallic horsemen cried out that they must all
bind themselves by the most sacred of oaths, and swear that none of them
would come again under roof, or see again wife, or children, or parent,
unless he had twice pierced through the ranks of the enemy. And all did
take this oath, and so prepared for the attack. Vercingetorix knew not
that Caesar, with his usual foresight, had summoned and joined to his
legions a great number of horsemen from the German tribes roving over the
banks of the Rhine, with which he had taken care to keep up friendly
relations. Not only had he promised them pay, plunder, and lands, but,
finding their horses ill-trained, he had taken those of his officers,
even those of the Roman knights and veterans, and distributed them
amongst his barbaric auxiliaries. The action began between the cavalry
on both sides; a portion of the Gallic had taken up position on the road
followed by the Roman army, to bar its passage; but whilst the fighting
at this point was getting more and more obstinate, the German horse in
Caesar’s service gained a neighboring height, drove off the Gallic horse
that were in occupation, and pursued them as far as the river, near which
was Vercingetorix with his infantry. Disorder took place amongst this
infantry so unexpectedly attacked. Caesar launched his legions at them,
and there was a general panic and rout among the Gauls. Vercingetorix
had great trouble in rallying them, and he rallied them only to order a
general retreat, for which they clamored. Hurriedly striking his camp,
he made for Alesia (Semur in Auxois), a neighboring town and the capital
of the Mandubians, a peoplet in clientship to the AEduans. Caesar
immediately went in pursuit of the Gauls; killed, he says, three
thousand, made important prisoners, and encamped with his legions before
Alesia the day but one after Vercingetorix, with his fugitive army, had
occupied the place as well as the neighboring hills, and was hard at work
intrenching himself, probably without any clear idea as yet of what he
should do to continue the struggle.
Caesar at once took a resolution as unexpected as it was discreetly bold.
Here was the whole Gallic insurrection, chieftain and soldiery, united
together within or beneath the walls of a town of moderate extent. He
undertook to keep it there and destroy it on the spot, instead of having
to pursue it everywhere without ever being sure of getting at it. He had
at his disposal eleven legions, about fifty thousand strong, and five or
six thousand cavalry, of which two thousand were Germans. He placed them
round about Alesia and the Gallic camp, caused to be dug a circuit of
deep ditches, some filled with water, others bristling with palisades and
snares, and added, from interval to interval, twenty-three little forts,
occupied or guarded night and day by detachments. The result was a line
of investment about ten miles in extent. To the rear of the Roman camp,
and for defence against attacks from without, Caesar caused to be dug
similar intrenchments, which formed a line of circumvallation of about
thirteen miles. The troops had provisions and forage for thirty days.
Vercingetorix made frequent sallies to stop or destroy these works; but
they were repulsed, and only resulted in getting his army more closely
cooped up within the place. Eighty thousand Gallic insurgents were, as
it were, in prison, guarded by fifty thousand Roman soldiers.
Vercingetorix was one of those who persevere and act in the days of
distress just as in the spring-tide of their hopes. Before the works of
the Romans were finished, he assembled his horsemen, and ordered them to
sally briskly from Alesia, return each to his own land, and summon the
whole population to arms. He was obeyed; the Gallic horsemen made their
way, during the night, through the intervals left by the Romans’ still
imperfect lines of investment, and dispersed themselves amongst their
various peoplets. Nearly everywhere irritation and zeal were at their
height. An assemblage of delegates met at Bibracte (Autun), and fixed
the amount of the contingent to be furnished by each nation, and a point
was assigned at which all those contingents should unite for the purpose
of marching together towards Alesia, and attacking the besiegers. The
total of the contingents thus levied on forty-three Gallic peoplets
amounted, according to Caesar, to two hundred and eighty-three thousand
men; and two hundred and forty thousand men, it is said, did actually
hurry up to the appointed place. Mistrust of such enormous numbers has
already been expressed by one who has lived through the greatest European
wars, and has heard the ablest generals reduce to their real strength the
largest armies. We find in M. Thiers’ _History of the Consulate_ and
Empire, that at Austerlitz, on the 2d of December, 1805, Napoleon had but
from sixty-five to seventy thousand men, and the combined Austrians and
Russians but ninety thousand. At Leipzig, the biggest of modern battles,
when all the French forces on the one side, and the Austrian, Prussian,
Russian, and Swedish on the other, were face to face on the 18th of
October, 1813, they made all together about five hundred thousand men.
How can we believe, then, that nineteen centuries ago, Gaul, so weakly
populated and so slightly organized, suddenly sent two hundred and forty
thousand men to the assistance of eighty thousand Gauls besieged in the
little town of Alesia by fifty or sixty thousand Romans? But whatever
may be the case with the figures, it is certain that at the very first
moment the national impulse answered the appeal of Vercingetorix, and
that the besiegers of Alesia, Caesar and his legions, found that they
were themselves all at once besieged in their intrenchments by a cloud of
Gauls hurrying up to the defence of their compatriots. The struggle was
fierce, but short. Every time that the fresh Gallic army attacked the
besiegers, Vercingetorix and the Gauls of Alesia sallied forth, and
joined in the attack. Caesar and his legions, on their side, at one time
repulsed these double attacks, at another themselves took the initiative,
and assailed at one and the same time the besieged and the auxiliaries
Gaul had sent them. The feeling was passionate on both sides: Roman
pride was pitted against Gallic patriotism. But in four or five days the
strong organization, the disciplined valor of the Roman legions, and the
genius of Caesar carried the day. The Gallic re-enforcements, beaten and
slaughtered without mercy, dispersed; and Vercingetorix and the besieged
were crowded back within their walls without hope of escape. We have two
accounts of the last moments of this great Gallic insurrection and its
chief; one, written by Caesar himself, plain, cold, and harsh as its
author; the other, by two later historians, who were neither statesmen
nor warriors, Plutarch and Dion Cassius, has more detail and more
ornament, following either popular tradition or the imagination of the
writers. It may be well to give both. “The day after the defeat,” says
Caesar, “Vercingetorix convokes the assembly, and shows that he did not
undertake the war for his own personal advantage, but for the general
freedom. Since submission must be made to fortune, he offers to satisfy
the Romans either by instant death or by being delivered to them alive.
A deputation there anent is sent to Caesar, who orders the arms to be
given up and the chiefs brought to him. He seats himself on his
tribunal, in the front of his camp. The chiefs are brought,
Vercingetorix is delivered over; the arms are cast at Caesar’s feet.
Except the AEduans and Arvernians, whom Caesar kept for the purpose of
trying to regain their people, he had the prisoners distributed, head by
head, to his army as booty of war.”
[Illustration: Vercingetorix surrenders to Caesar----81]
The account of Dion Cassius is more varied and dramatic. “After the
defeat,” says he, “Vercingetorix, who was neither captured nor wounded,
might have fled; but, hoping that the friendship that had once bound him
to Caesar might gain him grace, he repaired to the Roman without previous
demand of peace by the voice of a herald, and appeared suddenly in his
presence, just as Caesar was seating himself upon his tribunal. The
apparition of the Gallic chieftain inspired no little terror, for he was
of lofty stature, and had an imposing appearance in arms. There was a
deep silence. Vercingetorix fell at Caesar’s feet, and made supplication
by touch of hand without speaking a word. The scene moved those present
with pity, remembering the ancient fortunes of Vercingetorix and
comparing them with his present disaster. Caesar, on the contrary, found
proof of criminality in the very memories relied upon for salvation,
contrasted the late struggle with the friendship appealed to by
Vercingetorix, and so put in a more hideous light the odiousness of his
conduct. And thus, far from being moved by his misfortunes at the
moment, he threw him in chains forthwith, and subsequently had him put to
death, after keeping him to adorn his triumph.”
Another historian, contemporary with Plutarch, Florus, attributes to
Vercingetorix, as he fell down and cast his arms at Caesar’s feet, these
words: “Bravest of men, thou hast conquered a brave man.” It is not
necessary to have faith in the rhetorical compliment, or to likewise
reject the mixture of pride and weakness attributed to Vercingetorix in
the account of Dion Cassius. It would not be the only example of a hero
seeking yet some chance of safety in the extremity of defeat, and abasing
himself for the sake of preserving at any price a life on which fortune
might still smile. However it be, Vercingetorix vanquished, dragged out,
after ten years’ imprisonment, to grace Caesar’s triumph, and put to
death immediately afterwards, lives as a glorious patriot in the pages of
that history in which Caesar appears, on this occasion, as a peevish
conqueror who took pleasure in crushing, with cruel disdain, the enemy he
had been at so much pains to conquer.
Alesia taken, and Vercingetorix a prisoner, Gaul was subdued. Caesar,
however, had in the following year (A. U. C. 703) a campaign to make to
subjugate some peoplets who tried to maintain their local independence.
A year afterwards, again, attempts at insurrection took place in Belgica,
and towards the mouth of the Loire; but they were easily repressed; they
had no national or formidable characteristics; Caesar and his lieutenants
willingly contented themselves with an apparent submission, and in the
year 705 A. U. C. the Roman legions, after nine years’ occupation in the
conquest of Gaul, were able to depart therefrom to Italy and the East for
a plunge into civil war.
CHAPTER V.—-GAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
From the conquest of Gaul by Caesar, to the establishment there of the
Franks under Clovis, she remained for more than five centuries under
Roman dominion; first under the pagan, afterwards under the Christian
empire. In her primitive state of independence she had struggled for ten
years against the best armies and the greatest man of Rome; after five
centuries of Roman dominion she opposed no resistance to the invasion of
the barbarians, Germans, Goths, Alans, Burgundians, and Franks, who
destroyed bit by bit the Roman empire. In this humiliation and, one
might say, annihilation of a population so independent, so active, and so
valiant at its first appearance in history, is to be seen the
characteristic of this long epoch. It is worth while to learn and to
understand how it was.
[Illustration: Gaul subjugated by the Romans----83]
Gaul lived, during those five centuries, under very different rules and
rulers. They may be summed up under five names, which correspond with
governments very unequal in merit and defect, in good and evil wrought
for their epoch:
1st, the Caesars from Julius to Nero (from 49 B.C. to A.D. 68);
2d, the Flavians, from Vespasian to Domitian (from A.D. 69 to 95);
3d, the Antonines, from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius (from A.D. 96 to 180);
4th, the imperial anarchy, or the thirty-nine emperors and the thirty-one
tyrants, from Commodus to Carinus and Numerian (from A.D. 180 to 284);
5th, Diocletian (from A.D. 284 to 305).
Through all these governments, and in spite of their different results
for their contemporary subjects, the fact already pointed out as the
general and definitive characteristic of that long epoch, to wit, the
moral and social decadence of Gaul as well as of the Roman empire, never
ceased to continue and spread.
On quitting conquered Gaul to become master at Rome, Caesar neglected
nothing to assure his conquest and make it conducive to the establishment
of his empire. He formed, of all the Gallic districts that he had
subjugated, a special province which received the name of Gallia Comata
(Gaul of the long-hair), whilst the old province was called Gallia Toyata
(Gaul of the toga). Caesar caused to be enrolled amongst his troops a
multitude of Gauls, Belgians, Arvernians, and Aquitanians, of whose
bravery he had made proof. He even formed, almost entirely of Gauls, a
special legion called Alauda (lark), because it bore on the helmets a
lark with outspread wings, the symbol of wakefulness. At the same time
he gave in Gallia Comata, to the towns and families that declared for
him, all kinds of favors, the rights of Roman citizenship, the title of
allies, clients, and friends, even to the extent of the Julian name, a
sign of the most powerful Roman patronage. He had, however, in the old
Roman province, formidable enemies, especially the town of Marseilles,
which declared against him and for Pompey. Caesar had the place besieged
by one of his lieutenants, got possession of it, caused to be delivered
over to him its vessels and treasure, and left in it a garrison of two
legions. He established at Narbonne, Arles, Biterrce (Beziers) three
colonies of veteran legionaries devoted to his cause, and near Antipolis
(Antibes) a maritime colony called Forum Julii, nowadays Frejus, of which
he proposed to make a rival to Marseilles. Much money was necessary to
meet the expenses of such patronage and to satisfy the troops, old and
new, of the conqueror of Gaul and Rome. Now there was at Rome an ancient
treasure, founded more than four centuries previously by the Dictator
Camillus, when he had delivered Rome from the Gauls–a treasure reserved
for the expenses of Gallic wars, and guarded with religious respect as
sacred money. In the midst of all discords and disorders at Rome, none
had touched it. After his return from Gaul, Caesar one day ascended the
Capitol with his soldiers, and finding, in the temple of Saturn, the door
closed of the place where the treasure was deposited, ordered it to be
forced. L. Metellus, tribune of the people, made strong opposition,
conjuring Caesar not to bring on the Republic the penalty of such
sacrilege: but “the Republic has nothing to fear,” said Caesar; “I have
released it from its oaths by subjugating Gaul. There are no more
Gauls.” He caused the door to be forced, and the treasure was abstracted
and distributed to the troops, Gallic and Roman. Whatever Caesar may
have said, there were still Gauls, for at the same time that he was
distributing to such of them as he had turned into his own soldiers the
money reserved for the expense of fighting them, he was imposing upon
Gallia Comata, under the name of stipendium (soldier’s pay), a levy of
forty millions of sesterces–a considerable amount for a devastated
country which, according to Plutarch, did not contain at that time more
than three millions of inhabitants, and almost equal to that of the
levies paid by the rest of the Roman provinces.
After Caesar, Augustus, left sole master of the Roman world, assumed in
Gaul, as elsewhere, the part of pacificator, repairer, conservator, and
organizer, whilst taking care, with all his moderation, to remain always
the master. He divided the provinces into imperial and senatorial,
reserving to himself the entire government of the former, and leaving the
latter under the authority of the senate. Gaul “of the long hair,” all
that Caesar had conquered, was imperial province. Augustus divided it
into three provinces, Lugdunensian (Lyonese), Belgian, and Aquitanian.
He recognized therein sixty nations or distinct cityships which continued
to have themselves the government of their own affairs, according to their
traditions and manners, whilst conforming to the general laws of the
empire, and abiding under the supervision of imperial governors, charged
with maintaining everywhere, in the words of Pliny the Younger, “the
majesty of Roman peace.” Luydunum (Lyons), which had been up to that
time of small importance and obscure, became the great town, the favorite
cityship and ordinary abiding-place of the emperors when they visited
Gaul. After having held at Narbonne (27 B.C.) a meeting of
representatives from the different Gallic nations, Augustus went several
times to Lyons, and even lived there, as it appears, a pretty long while,
to superintend, no doubt, from thence, and to get into working order the
new government of Gaul. After the departure of Augustus, his adopted son
Drusus, who had just fulfilled, in Belgica and on the Rhine, a mission at
the same time military and administrative, called together at Lyons
delegates from the sixty Gallic cityships, to take part (B.C.12 or 10) in
the inauguration of a magnificent monument raised, at the confluence of
the Rhone and Saone, in honor of Rome and Augustus as the tutelary
deities of Gaul. In the middle of a vast enclosure was placed a huge
altar of white marble, on which were engraved the names of the sixty
cityships “of the long hair.” A colossal statue of the Gauls and sixty
statues of the Gallic cityships occupied the enclosure. Two columns of
granite, twenty-five feet high, stood close by the altar, and were
surmounted by two colossal Victories, in white marble, ten feet high.
Solemn festivals, gymnastic games, and oratorical and literary
exercitations accompanied the inauguration; and during the ceremony it
was announced, amidst popular acclamation, that a son had just been born
to Drusus at Lyons itself, in the palace of the emperor, where the
child’s mother, Antonia, daughter of Marc Antony and Octavia (sister of
Augustus), had been staying for some months. This child was one day to
be the emperor Claudius.
[Illustration: FROM LA CROIX ROUSSE----86]
The administrative energy of Augustus was not confined to the erection of
monuments and to festivals; he applied himself to the development in Gaul
of the material elements of civilization and social order. His most
intimate and able adviser, Agrippa, being settled at Lyons as governor of
the Gauls, caused to be opened four great roads, starting from a
milestone placed in the middle of the Lyonnese forum, and going, one
centrewards to Saintes and the ocean, another southwards to Narbonne and
the Pyrenees, the third north-westwards and towards the Channel by Amiens
and Boulogne, and the fourth north-westwards and towards the Rhine.
Agrippa founded several colonies, amongst others Cologne, which bore his
name; and he admitted to Gallic territory bands of Germans who asked for
an establishment there. Thanks to public security, Romans became
proprietors in the Gallic provinces and introduced to them Italian
cultivation. The Gallic chieftains, on their side, began to cultivate
lands which had become their personal property. Towns were built or grew
apace and became encircled by ramparts, under protection of which the
populations came and placed themselves. The most learned and attentive
observer of nature and Roman society, Pliny the Elder, attests that under
Augustus Gallic agriculture and industry made vast progress.
But side by side with this work in the cause of civilization and
organization, Augustus and his Roman agents were pursuing a work of quite
a contrary tendency. They labored to extirpate from Gaul the spirit of
nationality, independence, and freedom; they took every pains to efface
everywhere Gallic memories and sentiments. Gallic towns were losing
their old and receiving Roman names: Augustonemetum, Augusta, and
Augustodunum took the place of Gergovia, Noviodunum, and Bibracte. The
national Gallic religion, which was Druidism, was attacked as well as the
Gallic fatherland, with the same design and by the same means; at one
time Augustus prohibited this worship amongst the Gauls converted into
Roman citizens, as being contrary to Roman belief; at another Roman
Paganism and Gallic Druidism were fused together in the same temples and
at the same altars, as if to fuse them in the same common indifference;
Roman and Gallic names became applied to the same religious
personification of such and such a fact or such and such an idea; Mars
and Camul were equally the god of war; Belen and Apollo the god of light
and healing; Diana and Arduinna the goddess of the chase. Everywhere,
whether it was a question of the terrestrial fatherland or of religious
faith, the old moral machinery of the Gauls was broken up or condemned to
rust, and no new moral machinery was allowed to replace it; it was
everywhere Roman and imperial authority that was substituted for the
free, national action of the Gauls.
It is incredible that this hostility on the part of the powers that be
towards moral sentiments, and this absence of freedom, should not have
gravely compromised the material interest of the Gallic population.
Public administration, however extensive its organization and energy, if
it be not under the superintendence and restraint of public freedom and
morality, soon falls into monstrous abuses, which itself is either
ignorant of or wittingly suffers. Examples of this evil, inherent in
despotism, abound even under the intelligent and watchful sway of
Augustus. Here is a case in point. He had appointed as procurator, that
is, financial commissioner, in “long-haired” Gaul, a native who, having
been originally a slave and afterwards set free by Julius Caesar, had
taken the Roman name of Licinius. This man gave himself up, during his
administration, to a course of the most shameless extortion. The taxes
were collected monthly; and so, taking advantage of the change of name
which flattery had caused in the two months of July and August, sacred to
Julius Caesar and Augustus respectively, he made his year consist of
fourteen months, so that he might squeeze out fourteen contributions
instead of twelve. “December,” said he, “is surely, as its name
indicates, the tenth month of the year,” and he added thereto, in honor
of the emperor, two others which he called the eleventh and twelfth.
During one of the trips which Augustus made into Gaul, strong complaints
were made against Licinius, and his robberies were denounced to the
emperor. Augustus dared not support him, and seemed upon the point of
deciding to bring him to justice, when Licinius conducted him to the
place where was deposited all the treasure he had extorted, and, “See, my
lord,” said he, “what I have laid up for thee and for the Roman people,
for fear lest the Gauls possessing so much gold should employ it against
you both; for thee I have kept it, and to thee I deliver it.” (Thierry,
_Histoire des Gaulois,_ t. iii. p. 295; Clerjon, _Histoire de Lyon,_
t. i. p. 178-180.) Augustus accepted the treasure, and Licinius remained
unpunished. In the case of financial abuses or other acts, absolute
power seldom resists such temptations.
We may hear it said, and we may read in the writings of certain modern
philosophers and scholars, that the victorious despotism of the Roman
empire was a necessary and salutary step in advance, and that it brought
about the unity and enfranchisement of the human race. Believe it not.
There is mingled good and evil in all the events and governments of this
world, and good often arises side by side with or in the wake of evil,
but it is never from the evil that the good comes; injustice and tyranny
have never produced good fruits. Be assured that whenever they have the
dominion, whenever the moral rights and personal liberties of men are
trodden under foot by material force, be it barbaric or be it scientific,
there can result only prolonged evils and deplorable obstacles to the
return of moral right and moral force, which, God be thanked, can never
he obliterated from the nature and the history of man. The despotic
imperial administration upheld for a long while the Roman empire, and not
without renown; but it corrupted, enervated, and impoverished the Roman
populations, and left them, after five centuries, as incapable of
defending themselves as they were of governing.
Tiberius pursued in Gaul, but with less energy and less care for the
provincial administration, the pacific and moderate policy of Augustus.
He had to extinguish in Belgica, and even in the Lyonnese province, two
insurrections kindled by the sparks that remained of national and Druidic
spirit. He repressed them effectually, and without any violent display
of vengeance. He made a trip to Gaul, took measures, quite insufficient,
however, for defending the Rhine frontier from the incessantly repeated
incursions of the Germans, and hastened back to Italy to resume the
course of suspicion, perfidy, and cruelty which he pursued against the
republican pride and moral dignity remaining amongst a few remnants of
the Roman senate. He was succeeded by Germanicus’ unworthy son,
Caligula. After a few days of hypocrisy on the part of the emperor, and
credulous hope on that of the people, they found a madman let loose to
take the place of an unfathomable and gloomy tyrant. Caligula was much
taken up with Gaul, plundering it and giving free rein in it to his
frenzies, by turns disgusting or ridiculous. In a short and fruitless
campaign on the banks of the Rhine, he had made too few prisoners for the
pomp of a triumph; he therefore took some Gauls, the tallest he could
find, of triumphal size, as he said, put them in German clothes, made
them learn some Teutonic words, and sent them away to Rome to await in
prison his return and his ovation. Lyons, where he staid some time, was
the scene of his extortions and strangest freaks. He was playing at dice
one day with some of his courtiers, and lost; he rose, sent for the
tax-list of the province, marked down for death and confiscation some of
those who were most highly rated, and said to the company, “You people,
you play for a few drachmas; but as for me, I have just won by a single
throw one hundred and fifty millions.” At the rumor of a plot hatched
against him in Italy, by some Roman nobles, he sent for and sold,
publicly, their furniture, jewels, and slaves. As the sale was a
success, he extended it to the old furniture of his own palaces in Italy:
“I wish to fit out the Gauls,” said he; “it is a mark of friendship I owe
to the brave performed the part Roman people.” He himself, at these
sales, performed the part of salesman and auctioneer, telling the history
of each article to enhance the price. “This belonged to my father,
Germanicus; that comes to me from Agrippa; this vase is Egyptian, it was
Antony’s, Augustus took it at the battle of Actium.” The imperial sales
were succeeded by literary games, at which the losers had to pay the
expenses of the prizes, and celebrate, in verse or prose, the praises of
the winners; and if their compositions were pronounced bad, they were
bound to wipe them out with a sponge or even with their tongues, unless
they preferred to be beaten with a rod or soused in the Rhone. One day,
when Caligula, in the character of Jupiter, was seated at his tribunal
and delivering oracles in the middle of the public thoroughfare, a man of
the people remained motionless in front of him, with eyes of astonishment
fixed upon him. “What seem I to thee?” asked the emperor, flattered, no
doubt, by this attention of the mob. “A great monstrosity,” answered the
Gaul. And that, at the end of about four years, was the universal cry:
and against a mad emperor the only resource of the Roman world was at
that time assassination. The captain of Caligula’s guards rid Rome and
the provinces of him.
He did just one sensible and useful thing during the whole of his stay in
Gaul: he had a light-house constructed to illumine the passage between
Gaul and Great Britain. Some traces of it, they say, have been
discovered.
His successor, Claudius, brother of the great Germanicus, and married to
his own niece, the second Agrippina, was, as has been already stated,
born at Lyons, at the very moment when his father, Drusus, was
celebrating there the erection of an altar to Augustus. During his whole
reign he showed to the city of his birth the most lively good-will, and
the constant aim as well as principal result of this good-will was to
render the city of Lyons more and more Roman by effacing all Gallic
characteristics and memories. She was endowed with Roman rights,
monuments, and names, the most important or the most ostentatious; she
became the colony supereminently, the great municipal town of the Gauls,
the Claudian town; but she lost what had remained of her old municipal
government, that is of her administrative and commercial independence.
Nor was she the only one in Gaul to experience the good-will of Claudius.
This emperor, the mark of scorn from his infancy, whom his mother,
Antonia, called “a shadow of a man, an unfinished sketch of nature’s
drawing,” and of whom his grand-uncle, Augustus, used to say, “We shall
be forever in doubt, without any certainty of knowing whether he be or be
not equal to public duties,” Claudius, the most feeble indeed of the
Caesars, in body, mind, and character, was nevertheless he who had
intermittent glimpses of the most elevated ideas and the most righteous
sentiments, and who strove the most sincerely to make them take the form
of deeds. He undertook to assure to all free men of “long-haired” Gaul
the same Roman privileges that were enjoyed by the inhabitants of Lyons;
and amongst others, that of entering the senate of Rome and holding the
great public offices. He made a formal proposal to that effect to the
senate, and succeeded, not without difficulty, in getting it adopted.
The speech that he delivered on this occasion has been to a great extent
preserved to us, not only in the summary given by Tacitus, but also in an
inscription on a bronze tablet, which split into many fragments at the
time of the destruction of the building in which it was placed. The two
principal fragments were discovered at Lyons, in 1528, and they are now
deposited in the Museum of that city. They fully confirm the most
equitable, and, it may be readily allowed, the most liberal act of policy
that emanated from the earlier Roman emperors. “Claudius had taken it
into his head,” says Seneca, “to see all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, and
Britons clad in the toga.” But at the same time he took great care to
spread everywhere the Latin tongue, and to make it take the place of the
different national idioms. A Roman citizen, originally of Asia Minor,
and sent on a deputation to Rome by his compatriots, could not answer in
Latin the emperor’s questions. Claudius took away his privileges,
saying, “He is no Roman citizen who is ignorant of the language of Rome.”
Claudius, however, was neither liberal nor humane towards a notable
portion of the Gallic populations, to wit, the Druids. During his stay
in Gaul he proscribed them and persecuted them without intermission;
forbidding, under pain of death, their form of worship and every exterior
sign of their ceremonies. He drove them away and pursued them even into
Great Britain, whither he conducted, A.D. 43, a military expedition,
almost the only one of his reign, save the continued struggle of his
lieutenants on the Rhine against the Germans. It was evidently amongst
the corporation of Druids and under the influence of religious creeds and
traditions, that there was still pursued and harbored some of the old
Gallic spirit, some passion for national independence, and some hatred of
the Roman yoke. In proportion as Claudius had been popular in Gaul did
his adopted son and successor, Nero, quickly become hated. There is
nothing to show that he even went thither, either on the business of
government or to obtain the momentary access of favor always excited in
the mob by the presence and prestige of power. It was towards Greece and
the East that a tendency was shown in the tastes and trips of Nero,
imperial poet, musician, and actor. L. Verus, one of the military
commandants in Belgica, had conceived a project of a canal to unite the
Moselle to the Saone, and so the Mediterranean to the ocean; but
intrigues in the province and the palace prevented its execution, and in
the place of public works useful to Gaul, Nero caused a new census to be
made of the population whom he required to squeeze to pay for his
extravagance. It was in his reign, as is well known, that a fierce fire
consumed a great part of Rome and her monuments. The majority of
historians accuse Nero of having himself been the cause of it; but at any
rate he looked on with cynical indifference, as if amused at so grand a
spectacle, and taking pleasure in comparing it to the burning of Troy.
He did more: he profited by it so far as to have built for himself, free
of expense, that magnificent palace called “The Palace of Gold,” of which
he said, when he saw it completed, “At last I am going to be housed as a
man should be.” Five years before the burning of Rome, Lyons had been a
prey to a similar scourge, and Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius,
“Lugdunum, which was one of the show-places of Gaul, is sought for in
vain to-day; a single night sufficed for the disappearance of a vast
city; it perished in less time than I take to tell the tale.” Nero gave
upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars towards the
reconstruction of Lyons, a gift that gained him the city’s gratitude,
which was manifested, it is said, when his fall became imminent. It was,
however, J. Vindex, a Gaul of Vienne, governor of the Lyonnese province,
who was the instigator of the insurrection which was fatal to Nero, and
which put Galba in his place.
When Nero was dead there was no other Caesar, no naturally indicated
successor to the empire. The influence of the name of Caesar had spent
itself in the crimes, madnesses, and incapacity of his descendants. Then
began a general search for emperors; and the ambition to be created
spread abroad amongst the men of note in the Roman world. During the
eighteen months that followed the death of Nero, three pretenders–Galba,
Otho, and Vitellius–ran this formidable risk. Galba was a worthy old
Roman senator, who frankly said, “If the vast body of the empire could be
kept standing in equilibrium without a head, I were worthy of the chief
place in the state.” Otho and Vitellius were two epicures, both indolent
and debauched, the former after an elegant, and the latter after a
beastly fashion. Galba was raised to the purple by the Lyonnese and
Narbonnese provinces, Vitellius by the legions cantoned in the Belgic
province: to such an extent did Gaul already influence the destinies of
Rome. All three met disgrace and death within the space of eighteen
months; and the search for an emperor took a turn towards the East, where
the command was held by Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus, of Rieti in
the duchy of Spoleto), a general sprung from a humble Italian family, who
had won great military distinction, and who, having been proclaimed first
at Alexandria, in Judea, and at Antioch, did not arrive until many
months afterwards at Rome, where he commenced the twenty-six years’ reign
of the Flavian family.
Neither Vespasian nor his sons, Titus and Domitian, visited Gaul, as
their predecessors had. Domitian alone put in a short appearance. The
eastern provinces of the empire and the wars on the frontier of the
Danube, towards which the invasions of the Germans were at that time
beginning to be directed, absorbed the attention of the new emperors.
Gaul was far, however, from remaining docile and peaceful at this epoch.
At the vacancy that occurred after Nero and amid the claims of various
pretenders, the authority of the Roman name and the pressure of the
imperial power diminished rapidly; and the memory and desire of
independence were reawakened. In Belgica the German peoplets, who had
been allowed to settle on the left bank of the Rhine, were very
imperfectly subdued, and kept up close communication with the independent
peoplets of the right bank. The eight Roman legions cantoned in that
province were themselves much changed; many barbarians had been enlisted
amongst them, and did gallant service; but they were indifferent, and
always ready for a new master and a new country. There were not wanting
symptoms, soon followed by opportunities for action, of this change in
sentiment and fact. In the very centre of Gaul, between the Loire and
the Allier, a peasant, who has kept in history his Gallic name of Marie
or Maricus, formed a band, and scoured the country, proclaiming national
independence. He was arrested by the local authorities and handed over
to Vitellius, who had him thrown to the beasts. But in the northern part
of Belgica, towards the mouths of the Rhine, where a Batavian peoplet
lived, a man of note amongst his compatriots and in the service of the
Romans, amongst whom he had received the name of Claudius Civilis,
embraced first secretly, and afterwards openly, the cause of
insurrection. He had vengeance to take for Nero’s treatment, who had
caused his brother, Julius Paulus, to be beheaded, and himself to be put
in prison, whence he had been liberated by Galba. He made a vow to let
his hair grow until he was revenged. He had but one eye, and gloried in
the fact, saying that it had been so with Hannibal and with Sertorius,
and that his highest aspiration was to be like them. He pronounced first
for Vitellius against Otho, then for Vespasian against Vitellius, and
then for the complete independence of his nation against Vespasian. He
soon had, amongst the Germans on the two banks of the Rhine and amongst
the Gauls themselves, secret or declared allies. He was joined by a
young Gaul from the district of Langres, Julius Sabinus, who boasted
that, during the great war with the Gauls, his great-grandmother had
taken the fancy of Julius Caesar, and that he owed his name to him. News
had just reached Gaul of the burning down, for the second time, of the
Capitol during the disturbances at Rome on the death of Nero. The Druids
came forth from the retreats where they had hidden since Claudius’
proscription, and reappeared in the towns and country-places, proclaiming
that “the Roman empire was at an end, that the Gallic empire was
beginning, and that the day had come when the possession of all the world
should pass into the hands of the Transalpine nations.” The insurgents
rose in the name of the Gallic empire, and Julius Sabinus assumed the
title of Caesar. War commenced. Confusion, hesitation, and actual
desertion reached the colonies and extended positively to the Roman
legions. Several towns, even Troves and Cologne, submitted or fell into
the hands of the insurgents. Several legions, yielding to bribery,
persuasion, or intimidation, went over to them, some with a bad grace,
others with the blood of their officers on their hands. The gravity of
the situation was not misunderstood at Rome. Petilius Cerealis, a
commander of renown for his campaigns on the Rhine, was sent off to
Belgica with seven fresh legions. He was as skilful in negotiation and
persuasion as he was in battle. The struggle that ensued was fierce, but
brief; and nearly all the towns and legions that had been guilty of
defection returned to their Roman allegiance. Civilis, though not more
than half vanquished, himself asked leave to surrender. The Batavian
might, as was said at the time, have inundated the country, and drowned
the Roman armies. Vespasian, therefore, not being inclined to drive men
or matters to extremity, gave Civilis leave to go into retirement and
live in peace amongst the marshes of his own land. The Gallic chieftains
alone, the projectors of a Gallic empire, were rigorously pursued and
chastised. There was especially one, Julius Sabinus, the pretended
descendant of Julius Caesar, whose capture was heartily desired. After
the ruin of his hopes he took refuge in some vaults connected with one of
his country houses. The way in was known only to two devoted freedmen of
his, who set fire to the buildings, and spread a report that Sabinus had
poisoned himself, and that his dead body had been devoured by the flames.
He had a wife, a young Gaul named Eponina, who was in frantic despair at
the rumor; but he had her informed, by the mouth of one of his freedmen,
of his place of concealment, begging her at the same time to keep up a
show of widowhood and mourning, in order to confirm the report already in
circulation. “Well did she play her part,” to use Plutarch’s expression,
“in her tragedy of woe.” She went at night to visit her husband in his
retreat, and departed at break of day; and at last would not depart at
all. At the end of seven months, hearing great talk of Vespasian’s
clemency, she set out for Rome, taking with her her husband, disguised as
a slave, with shaven head and a dress that made him unrecognizable. But
the friends who were in their confidence advised them not to risk as yet
the chance of imperial clemency, and to return to their secret asylum.
There they lived for nine years, during which “as a lioness in her den,
neither more nor less,” says Plutarch, “Eponina gave birth to two young
whelps, and suckled them herself at her teat.” At last they were
discovered and brought before Vespasian at Rome: “Caesar,” said Eponina,
showing him her children, “I conceived them and suckled them in a tomb,
that there might be more of us to ask thy mercy.”
[Illustration: Eponina and Sabinus hidden in a Vault----97]
But Vespasian was merciful only from prudence, and not by nature or from
magnanimity; and he sent Sabinus to execution. Eponina asked that she
might die with her husband, saying, “Caesar, do me this grace; for I have
lived more happily beneath the earth and in the darkness than thou in the
splendor of thy empire.” Vespasian fulfilled her desire by sending her
also to execution; and Plutarch, their contemporary, undoubtedly
expressed the general feeling, when he ended his tale with the words,
“In all the long reign of this emperor there was no deed so cruel or so
piteous to see; and he was afterwards punished for it, for in a short
time all his posterity was extinct.”
In fact the Caesars and the Flavians met the same fate; the two lines
began and ended alike; the former with Augustus and Nero, the latter with
Vespasian and Domitian; first a despot, able, cold, and as capable of
cruelty as of moderation, then a tyrant, atrocious and detested. And
both were extinguished without a descendant. Then a rare piece of good
fortune befell the Roman world. Domitian, two years before he was
assassinated by some of his servants whom he was about to put to death,
grew suspicious of an aged and honorable senator, Cocceius Nerva, who had
been twice consul, and whom he had sent into exile, first to Tarenturn,
and then in Gaul, preparatory, probably, to a worse fate. To this victim
of proscription application was made by the conspirators who had just got
rid of Domitian, and had to get another emperor. Nerva accepted, but not
without hesitation, for he was sixty-four years old; he had witnessed the
violent death of six emperors, and his grandfather, a celebrated jurist,
and for a long while a friend of Tiberius, had killed himself, it is
said, for grief at the iniquitous and cruel government of his friend.
The short reign of Nerva was a wise, a just, and a humane, but a sad one,
not for the people, but for himself. He maintained peace and order,
recalled exiles, suppressed informers, re-established respect for laws
and morals, turned a deaf ear to self-interested suggestions of
vengeance, spoliation, and injustice, proceeding at one time from those
who had made him emperor, at another from the Praetorian soldiers and the
Roman mob, who regretted Domitian just as they had Nero. But Nerva did
not succeed in putting a stop to mob-violence or murders prompted by
cupidity or hatred. Finding his authority insulted and his life
threatened, he formed a resolution which has been described and explained
by a learned and temperate historian of the last century, Lenain de
Tillemont (_Histoire des Empereurs,_ &c., t. ii. p. 59), with so much
justice and precision that it is a pleasure to quote his own words.
“Seeing,” says he, “that his age was despised, and that the empire
required some one who combined strength of mind and body, Nerva, being
free from that blindness which prevents one from discussing and measuring
one’s own powers, and from that thirst for dominion which often prevails
over even those who are nearest to the grave, resolved to take a partner
in the sovereign power, and showed his wisdom by making choice of
Trajan.” By this choice, indeed, Nerva commenced and inaugurated the
finest period of the Roman empire, the period that contemporaries
entitled the golden age, and that history has named the age of the
Antonines. It is desirable to become acquainted with the real character
of this period, for to it belong the two greatest historical events–the
dissolution of ancient pagan, and the birth of modern Christian society.
Five notable sovereigns, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and
Marcus Aurelius swayed the Roman empire during this period (A.D. 96-150).
What Nerva was has just been described; and he made no mistake in
adopting Trajan as his successor. Trajan, unconnected by origin, as
Nerva also had been, with old Rome, was born in Spain, near Seville, and
by military service in the East had made his first steps towards fortune
and renown. He was essentially a soldier–a moral and a modest soldier;
a friend to justice and the public weal; grand in what he undertook for
the empire he governed; simple and modest on his own score; respectful
towards the civil authority and the laws; untiring and equitable in the
work of provincial administration; without any philosophical system or
pretensions; full of energy and boldness, honesty and good sense. He
stoutly defended the empire against the Germans on the banks of the
Danube, won for it the province of Dacia, and, being more taken up with
the East than the West, made many Asiatic conquests, of which his
successor, Hadrian, lost no time in abandoning, wisely no doubt,
a portion. Hadrian, adopted by Trajan, and a Spaniard too, was
intellectually superior and morally very inferior to him. He was full
of ambition, vanity, invention, and restlessness; he was sceptical in
thought and cynical in manners; and he was overflowing with political,
philosophical, and literary views and pretensions. He passed the
twenty-one years of his reign chiefly in travelling about the empire,
in Asia, Africa, Greece, Spain, Gaul, and Great Britain, opening roads,
raising ramparts and monuments, founding schools of learning and museums,
and encouraging among the provinces, as well as at Rome, the march of
administration, legislation, and intellect, more for his own pleasure and
his own glorification than in the interest of his country and of society.
At the close of this active career, when he was ill and felt that he was
dying, he did the best deed of his life. He had proved, in the discharge
of high offices, the calm and clear-sighted wisdom of Titus Antoninus, a
Gaul, whose family came originally from Nimes; he had seen him one day
coming to the senate and respectfully supporting the tottering steps of
his aged father (or father-in-law, according to Aurelius Victor); and he
adopted him as his successor. Antoninus Pius, as a civilian, was just
what Trajan had been as a warrior–moral and modest; just and frugal;
attentive to the public weal; gentle towards individuals; full of respect
for laws and rights; scrupulous in justifying his deeds before the senate
and making them known to the populations by carefully posted edicts; and
more anxious to do no wrong or harm to anybody than to gain lustre from
brilliant or popular deeds. “He surpasses all men in goodness,” said his
contemporaries, and he conferred on the empire the best of gifts, for he
gave it Marcus Aurelius for its ruler.
It has been said that Marcus Aurelius was philosophy enthroned. Without
any desire to contest or detract from that compliment, let it be added
that he was conscientiousness enthroned. It is his grand and original
characteristic that he governed the Roman empire and himself with a
constant moral solicitude, ever anxious to realize that ideal of personal
virtue and general justice which he had conceived, and to which he
aspired. His conception, indeed, of virtue and justice was incomplete,
and even false in certain cases; and in more than one instance, such as
the persecution of the Christians, he committed acts quite contrary to
the moral law which he intended to put in practice towards all men; but
his respect for the moral law was profound, and his intention to shape
his acts according to it, serious and sincere. Let us cull a few phrases
from that collection of his private thoughts, which he entitled _For
Self,_ and which is really the most faithful picture man ever left of
himself and the pains he took with himself. “There is,” says he,
“relationship between all beings endowed with reason. The world is like
a superior city within which the other cities are but families. . . .
I have conceived the idea of a government founded on laws of general and
equal application. Beware lest thou Caesarze thyself, for it is what
happens only too often. Keep thyself simple, good, unaltered, worthy,
grave, a friend to justice, pious, kindly disposed, courageous enough for
any duty. . . . Reverence the gods, preserve mankind. Life is short;
the only possible good fruit of our earthly existence is holiness of
intention and deeds that tend to the common weal. . . . My soul, be
thou covered with shame! Thy life is well nigh gone, and thou hast not
yet learned how to live.” Amongst men who have ruled great states, it is
not easy to mention more than two, Marcus Aurelius and Saint Louis, who
have been thus passionately concerned about the moral condition of their
souls and the moral conduct of their lives. The mind of Marcus Aurelius
was superior to that of Saint Louis; but Saint Louis was a Christian, and
his moral ideal was more pure, more complete, more satisfying, and more
strengthening for the soul than the philosophical ideal of Marcus
Aurelius. And so Saint Louis was serene and confident as to his fate and
that of the human race, whilst Marcus Aurelius was disquieted and sad–
sad for himself and also for humanity, for his country and for his times:
“O, my sole,” was his cry, “wherefore art thou troubled, and why am I so
vexed?”
We are here brought closer to the fact which has already been
foreshadowed, and which characterizes the moral and social condition of
the Roman world at this period. It would be a great error to take the
five emperors just spoken of–Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and
Marcus Aurelius–as representatives of the society amidst which they
lived, and as giving in a certain degree the measure of its
enlightenment, its morality, its prosperity, its disposition, and
condition in general. Those five princes were not only picked men,
superior in mind and character to the majority of their contemporaries,
but they were men almost isolated in their generation; in them there was
a resumption of all that had been acquired by Greek and Roman antiquity
of enlightenment and virtue, practical wisdom and philosophical morality:
they were the heirs and the survivors of the great minds and the great
politicians of Athens and Rome, of the Areopagus and the Senate. They
were not in intellectual and moral harmony with the society they
governed, and their action upon it served hardly to preserve it partially
and temporarily from the evils to which it was committed by its own vices
and to break its fall. When they were thoughtful and modest as Marcus
Aurelius was, they were gloomy and disposed to discouragement, for they
had a secret foreboding of the uselessness of their efforts.
Nor was their gloom groundless: in spite of their honest plans and
of brilliant appearances, the degradation, material as well as moral,
of Roman society went on increasing. The wars, the luxury, the
dilapidations, and the disturbances of the empire always raised its
expenses much above its receipts. The rough miserliness of Vespasian and
the wise economy of Antoninus Pius were far from sufficient to restore
the balance; the aggravation of imposts was incessant; and the
population, especially the agricultural population, dwindled away more
and more, in Italy itself, the centre of the state. This evil disquieted
the emperors, when they were neither idiots nor madmen; Claudius,
Vespasian, Nerva, and Trajan labored to supply a remedy, and Augustus
himself had set them the example. They established in Italy colonies of
veterans to whom they assigned lands; they made gifts thereof to indigent
Roman citizens; they attracted by the title of senator rich citizens from
the provinces, and when they had once installed them as landholders in
Italy, they did not permit them to depart without authorization. Trajan
decreed that every candidate for the Roman magistracies should be bound
to have a third of his fortune invested in Italian land, “in order,” says
Pliny the Younger, “that those who sought the public dignities should
regard Rome and Italy not as an inn to put up at in travelling, but as
their home.” And Pliny the Elder, going as a philosophical observer to
the very root of the evil, says, in his pompous manner, “In former times
our generals tilled their fields with their own hands; the earth, we may
suppose, opened graciously beneath a plough crowned with laurels and held
by triumphal hands, maybe because those great men gave to tillage the
same care that they gave to war, and that they sowed seed with the same
attention with which they pitched a camp; or maybe, also, because
everything fructifies best in honorable hands, because everything is done
with the most scrupulous exactitude. . . . Nowadays these same fields
are given over to slaves in chains, to malefactors who are condemned to
penal servitude, and on whose brow there is a brand. Earth is not deaf
to our prayers; we give her the name of mother; culture is what we call
the pains we bestow on her . . . but can we be surprised if she render
not to slaves the recompense she paid to generals?”
What must have been the decay of population and of agriculture in the
provinces, when even in Italy there was need of such strong protective
efforts, which were nevertheless so slightly successful?
Pliny had seen what was the fatal canker of the Roman empire in the
country as well as in the towns: slavery or semi-slavery.
Landed property was overwhelmed with taxes, was subject to conditions
which branded it with a sort of servitude, and was cultivated by a
servile population, in whose hands it became almost barren. The large
holders were thus disgusted, and the small ruined or reduced to a
condition more and more degraded. Add to this state of things in the
civil department a complete absence of freedom and vitality in the
political; no elections, no discussion, no public responsibility;
characters weakened by indolence and silence, or destroyed by despotic
power, or corrupted by the intrigues of court or army. Take a step
farther; cast a glance over the moral department; no religious creeds and
nothing left of even Paganism but its festivals and frivolous or shameful
superstitions. The philosophy of Greece and the old Roman manner of life
had raised up, it is true, in the higher ranks of society Stoics and
jurists, the former the last champions of morality and the dignity of
human nature, the latter the last enlightened servants of the civil
community. But neither the doctrines of the Stoics nor the science and
able reasoning of the jurists were lights and guides within the reach and
for the use of the populace, who remained a prey to the vices and
miseries of servitude or public disorders, oscillating between the
wearisomeness of barren ignorance and the corruptiveness of a life of
adventure. All the causes of decay were at this time spreading
throughout Roman society; not a single preservative or regenerative
principle of national life was in any force or any esteem.
After the death of Marcus Aurelius the decay manifested and developed
itself, almost without interruption, for the space of a century, the
outward and visible sign of it being the disorganization and repeated
falls of the government itself. The series of emperors given to the
Roman world by heirship or adoption, from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius,
was succeeded by what may be termed an imperial anarchy; in the course of
one hundred and thirty-two years the sceptre passed into the hands of
thirty-nine sovereigns with the title of _emperor (Augustus)_, and was
clutched at by thirty-one pretenders, whom history has dubbed tyrants,
without other claim than their fiery ambition and their trials of
strength, supported at one time in such and such a province of the empire
by certain legions or some local uprising, at another, and most
frequently in Italy itself, by the Praetorian guards, who had at their
disposal the name of Rome and the shadow of a senate. There were
Italians, Africans, Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, Illyrians, and Asiatics;
and amongst the number were to be met with some cases of eminence in war
and politics, and some even of rare virtue and patriotism, such as
Pertinax, Septimius Severus, Alexander Severus, Deeius, Claudius
Gothicus, Aurelian, Tacitus, and Probus. They made great efforts, some
to protect the empire against the barbarians, growing day by day more
aggressive, others to re-establish within it some sort of order, and to
restore to the laws some sort of force. All failed, and nearly all died
a violent death, after a short-lived guardianship of a fabric that was
crumbling to pieces in every part, but still under the grand name of
Roman Empire. Gaul had her share in this series of ephemeral emperors
and tyrants; one of the most wicked and most insane, though issue of one
of the most valorous and able, Caracalla, son of Septimius Severus, was
born at Lyons, four years after the death of Marcus Aurelius. A hundred
years later Narbonne gave in two years to the Roman world three emperors,
Carus and his two sons, Carinus and Numerian. Amongst the thirty-one
tyrants who did not attain to the title of Augustus, six were Gauls; and
the last two, Amandus and AElianus, were, A.D. 285, the chiefs of that
great insurrection of peasants, slaves or half-slaves, who, under the
name of Bagaudians (signifying, according to Ducange, a wandering troop
of insurgents from field and forest), spread themselves over the north of
Gaul, between the Rhine and the Loire, pillaging and ravaging in all
directions, after having themselves endured the pillaging and ravages of
the fiscal agents and soldiers of the empire. A contemporary witness,
Lactantius, describes the causes of this popular outbreak in the
following words: “So enormous had the imposts become, that the tillers’
strength was exhausted; fields became deserts and farms were changed into
forests. The fiscal agents measured the land by the clod; trees,
vinestalks, were all counted. The cattle were marked; the people
registered. Old age or sickness was no excuse; the sick and the infirm
were brought up; every one’s age was put down; a few years were added on
to the children’s, and taken off from the old men’s. Meanwhile the
cattle decreased, the people died, and there was no deduction made for
the dead.”
It is said that to excite the confidence and zeal of their bands, the two
chiefs of the Bagaudians had medals struck, and that one exhibited the
head of Amandus, “Emperor, Caesar, Augustus, pious and prosperous,” with
the word “Hope” on the other side.
When public evils have reached such a pitch, and nevertheless the day has
not yet arrived for the entire disappearance of the system that causes
them, there arises nearly always a new power which, in the name of
necessity, applies some remedy to an intolerable condition. A legion
cantoned amongst the Tungrians (Tongres), in Belgica, had on its
muster-roll a Dalmatian named Diocletian, not yet very high in rank,
but already much looked up to by his comrades on account of his
intelligence and his bravery. He lodged at a woman’s, who was, they
said, a Druidess, and had the prophetic faculty. One day when he was
settling his account with her, she complained of his extreme parsimony:
“Thou’rt too stingy, Diocletian,” said she; and he answered laughing,
“I’ll be prodigal when I’m emperor.” “Laugh not,” rejoined she: “thou’lt
be emperor when thou hast slain a wild boar” (aper). The conversation
got about amongst Diocletian’s comrades. He made his way in the army,
showing continual ability and valor, and several times during his changes
of quarters and frequent hunting expeditions he found occasion to kill
wild boars; but he did not immediately become emperor, and several of his
contemporaries, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, Carus, and Numerian, reached
the goal before him. “I kill the wild boars,” said he to one of his
friends, “and another eats them.” The last mentioned of these ephemeral
emperors, Numerian, had for his father-in-law and inseparable comrade a
Praetorian prefect named Arrius Aper. During a campaign in Mesopotamia
Numerian was assassinated, and the voice of the army pronounced Aper
guilty. The legions assembled to deliberate about Numerian’s death and
to choose his successor. Aper was brought before the assembly under a
guard of soldiers. Through the exertions of zealous friends the
candidature of Diocletian found great favor. At the first words
pronounced by him from a raised platform in the presence of the troops,
cries of “Diocletian Augustus “were raised in every quarter. Other
voices called on him to express his feelings about Numerian’s murderers.
Drawing his sword, Diocletian declared on oath that he was innocent of
the emperor’s death, but that he knew who was guilty and would find means
to punish him. Descending suddenly from the platform, he made straight
for the Praetorian prefect, and saying, “Aper, be comforted; thou shalt
not die by vulgar hands; by the right hand of great AEneas thou fallest,”
he gave him his death-wound. “I have killed the prophetic wild boar,”
said he in the evening to his confidants; and soon afterwards, in spite
of the efforts of certain rivals, he was emperor.
“Nothing is more difficult than to govern,” was a remark his comrades had
often heard made by him amidst so many imperial catastrophes. Emperor in
his turn, Diocletian treasured up this profound idea of the difficulty of
government, and he set to work, ably, if not successfully, to master it.
Convinced that the empire was too vast, and that a single man did not
suffice to make head against the two evils that were destroying it,–war
against barbarians on the frontiers, and anarchy within,–he divided the
Roman world into two portions, gave the West to Maximian, one of his
comrades, a coarse but valiant soldier, and kept the East himself. To
the anarchy that reigned within he opposed a general despotic
administrative organization, a vast hierarchy of civil and military
agents, everywhere present, everywhere masters, and dependent upon the
emperor alone. By his incontestable and admitted superiority, Diocletian
remained the soul of these two bodies. At the end of eight years he saw
that the two empires were still too vast; and to each Augustus he added a
Caesar,–Galerius and Constantius Chlorus,–who, save a nominal, rather
than real, subordination to the two emperors, had, each in his own state,
the imperial power with the same administrative system. In this
partition of the Roman world, Gaul had the best of it: she had for
master, Constantius Chlorus, a tried warrior, but just, gentle, and
disposed to temper the exercise of absolute power with moderation and
equity. He had a son, Constantine, at this time eighteen years of age,
whom he was educating carefully for government as well as for war. This
system of the Roman empire, thus divided between four masters, lasted
thirteen years; still fruitful in wars and in troubles at home, but
without victories, and with somewhat less of anarchy. In spite of this
appearance of success and durability, absolute power failed to perform
its task; and, weary of his burden and disgusted with the imperfection of
his work, Diocletian abdicated A.D. 303. No event, no solicitations of
his old comrades in arms and empire, could draw him from his retreat on
his native soil of Salona, in Dalmatia. “If you could see the vegetables
planted by these hands,” said he to Maximian and Galerius, “you would not
make the attempt.” He had persuaded or rather dragged his first
colleague, Maximian, into abdication after him; and so Galerius in the
East, and Constantius Chlorus in the West, remained sole emperors. After
the retirement of Diocletian, ambitions, rivalries, and intrigues were
not slow to make head; Maximian reappeared on the scene of empire, but
only to speedily disappear (A.D. 310), leaving in his place his son
Maxentius. Constantius Chlorus had died A.D. 306, and his son,
Constantine, had immediately been proclaimed by his army Caesar and
Augustus. Galerius died A.D. 311 and Constantine remained to dispute the
mastery with Maxentius in the West, and in the East with Maximinus and
Licinius, the last colleagues taken by Diocletian and Galerius. On the
29th of October, A.D. 312, after having gained several battles against
Maxentius in Italy, at Milan, Brescia, and Verona, Constantine pursued
and defeated him before Rome, on the borders of the Tiber, at the foot of
the Milvian bridge; and the son of Maximian, drowned in the Tiber, left
to the son of Constantins Chlorus the Empire of the West, to which that
of the East was destined to be in a few years added, by the defeat and
death of Licinius. Constantine, more clear-sighted and more fortunate
than any of his predecessors, had understood his era, and opened his eyes
to the new light which was rising upon the world. Far from persecuting
the Christians, as Diocletian and Galerius had done, he had given them
protection, countenance, and audience; and towards him turned all their
hopes. He had even, it is said, in his last battle against Maxentius,
displayed the Christian banner, the cross, with this inscription: Hoc
signo vinces (“with this device thou shalt conquer “). There is no
knowing what was at that time the state of his soul, and to what extent
it was penetrated by the first rays of Christian faith; but it is certain
that he was the first amongst the masters of the Roman world to perceive
and accept its influence. With him Paganism fell, and Christianity
mounted the throne. With him the decay of Roman society stops, and the
era of modern society commences.
[Illustration: Knights returning from Foray----311]
CHAPTER VI.—-ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL.
When Christianity began to penetrate into Gaul, it encountered there two
religions very different one from the other, and infinitely more
different from the Christian religion; these were Druidism and Paganism–
hostile one to the other, but with a hostility political only, and
unconnected with those really religious questions that Christianity was
coming to raise.
[Illustration: Christianity established in Gaul----111]
Druidism, considered as a religion, was a mass of confusion, wherein the
instinctive notions of the human race concerning the origin and destiny
of the world and of mankind were mingled with the Oriental dreams of
metempsychosis–that pretended transmigration, at successive periods, of
immortal souls into divers creatures. This confusion was worse
confounded by traditions borrowed from the mythologies of the East and
the North, by shadowy remnants of a symbolical worship paid to the
material forces of nature, and by barbaric practices, such as human
sacrifices, in honor of the gods or of the dead. People who are without
the scientific development of language and the art of writing do not
attain to systematic and productive religious creeds. There is nothing
to show that, from the first appearance of the Gauls in history to their
struggle with victorious Rome, the religious influence of Druidism had
caused any notable progress to be made in Gallic manners and
civilization. A general and strong, but vague and incoherent, belief in
the immortality of the soul was its noblest characteristic. But with the
religious elements, at the same time coarse and mystical, were united two
facts of importance: the Druids formed a veritable ecclesiastical
corporation, which had, throughout Gallic society, fixed attributes,
special manners and customs, an existence at the same time distinct and
national; and in the wars with Rome this corporation became the most
faithful representatives and the most persistent defenders of Gallic
independence and nationality. The Druids were far more a clergy than
Druidism was a religion; but it was an organized and a patriotic clergy.
It was especially on this account that they exercised in Gaul an
influence which was still existent, particularly in north-western Gaul,
at the time when Christianity reached the Gallic provinces of the south
and centre.
[Illustration: Druids offering Human Sacrifices----111]
The Greco-Roman Paganism was, at this time, far more powerful than
Druidism in Gaul, and yet more lukewarm and destitute of all religious
vitality. It was the religion of the conquerors and of the state, and
was invested, in that quality, with real power; but, beyond that, it had
but the power derived from popular customs and superstitions. As a
religious creed, the Latin Paganism was at bottom empty, indifferent, and
inclined to tolerate all religions in the state, provided only that they,
in their turn, were indifferent at any rate towards itself, and that they
did not come troubling the state, either by disobeying her rulers or by
attacking her old deities, dead and buried beneath their own still
standing altars.
Such were the two religions with which, in Gaul, nascent Christianity had
to contend. Compared with them it was, to all appearance, very small and
very weak; but it was provided with the most efficient weapons for
fighting and beating them, for it had exactly the moral forces which they
lacked. Christianity, instead of being, like Druidism, a religion
exclusively national and hostile to all that was foreign, proclaimed a
universal religion, free from all local and national partiality,
addressing itself to all men in the name of the same God, and offering to
all the same salvation. It is one of the strangest and most significant
facts in history, that the religion most universally human, most
dissociated from every consideration but that of the rights and
well-being of the human race in its entirety–that such a religion, be
it repeated, should have come forth from the womb of the most exclusive,
most rigorously and obstinately national religion that ever appeared in
the world, that is, Judaism. Such, nevertheless, was the birth of
Christianity; and this wonderful contrast between the essence and the
earthly origin of Christianity was without doubt one of its most
powerful attractions and most efficacious means of success.
Against Paganism Christianity was armed with moral forces not a whit less
great. Confronting mythological traditions and poetical or philosophical
allegories, appeared a religion truly religious, concerned solely with
the relations of mankind to God and with their eternal future. To the
pagan indifference of the Roman world the Christians opposed the profound
conviction of their faith, and not only their firmness in defending it
against all powers and all dangers, but also their ardent passion for
propagating it without any motive but the yearning to make their fellows
share in its benefits and its hopes. They confronted, nay, they welcomed
martyrdom, at one time to maintain their own Christianity, at another to
make others Christians around them; propagandism was for them a duty
almost as imperative as fidelity. And it was not in memory of old and
obsolete mythologies, but in the name of recent deeds and persons, in
obedience to laws proceeding from God, One and Universal, in fulfilment
and continuation of a contemporary and superhuman history,–that of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man,–that the Christians of the first
two centuries labored to convert to their faith the whole Roman world.
Marcus Aurelius was contemptuously astonished at what he called the
obstinacy of the Christians; he knew not from what source these nameless
heroes drew a strength superior to his own, though he was at the same
time emperor and sage. It is impossible to assign with exactness the
date of the first footprints and first labors of Christianity in Gaul.
It was not, however, from Italy, nor in the Latin tongue and through
Latin writers, but from the East and through the Greeks, that it first
came and began to spread. Marseilles–and the different Greek colonies,
originally from Asia Minor and settled upon the shores of the
Mediterranean or along the Rhone, mark the route and were the places
whither the first Christian missionaries carried their teaching: on this
point the letters of the Apostles and the writings of the first two
generations of their disciples are clear and abiding proof. In the west
of the empire, especially in Italy, the Christians at their first
appearance were confounded with the Jews, and comprehended under the same
name: “The Emperor Claudius,” says Suetonius, “drove from Rome (A.D. 52)
the Jews who, at the instigation of Christus, were in continual
commotion.” After the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus (A.D. 71), the
Jews, Christian or not, dispersed throughout the Empire; but the
Christians were not slow to signalize themselves by their religious
fervor, and to come forward everywhere under their own true name. Lyons
became the chief centre of Christian preaching and association in Gaul.
As early as the first half of the second century there existed there a
Christian congregation, regularly organized as a church, and already
sufficiently important to be in intimate and frequent communication with
the Christian Churches of the East and West. There is a tradition,
generally admitted, that St. Pothinus, the first Bishop of Lyons, was
sent thither from the East by the Bishop of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, himself
a disciple of St. John. One thing is certain, that the Christian Church
of Lyons produced Gaul’s first martyrs, amongst whom was the Bishop, St.
Pothinus.
It was under Marcus Aurelius, the most philosophical and most
conscientious of the emperors, that there was enacted for the first
time in Gaul, against nascent Christianity, that scene of tyranny and
barbarity which was to be renewed so often and during so many centuries
in the midst of Christendom itself. In the eastern provinces of the
Empire and in Italy the Christians had already been several times
persecuted, now with cold-blooded cruelty, now with some slight
hesitation and irresolution. Nero had caused them to be burned in the
streets of Rome, accusing them of the conflagration himself had kindled,
and, a few months before his fall, St. Peter and St. Paul had undergone
martyrdom at Rome. Domitian had persecuted and put to death Christians
even in his own family, and though invested with the honors of the
consulate. Righteous Trajan, when consulted by Pliny the Younger on the
conduct he should adopt in Bithynia towards the Christians, had answered,
“It is impossible, in this sort of matter, to establish any certain
general rule; there must be no quest set on foot against them, and no
unsigned indictment must be accepted; but if they be accused and
convicted, they must be punished.” To be punished, it sufficed that they
were convicted of being Christians; and it was Trajan himself who
condemned St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, to be brought to Rome and
thrown to the beasts, for the simple reason that he was highly Christian.
Marcus Aurelius, not only by virtue of his philosophical
conscientiousness, but by reason of an incident in his history, seemed
bound to be farther than any other from persecuting the Christians.
During one of his campaigns on the Danube, A.D. 174, his army was
suffering cruelly from fatigue and thirst; and at the very moment when
they were on the point of engaging in a great battle against the
barbarians, the rain fell in abundance, refreshed the Roman soldiers, and
conduced to their victory. There was in the Roman army a legion, the
twelfth, called the _Melitine_ or the _Thundering,_ which bore on its
roll many Christian soldiers. They gave thanks for the rain and the
victory to the one omnipotent God who had heard their prayers, whilst the
pagans rendered like honor to Jupiter, the rain-giver and the thunderer.
The report about these Christians got spread abroad and gained credit in
the Empire, so much so that there was attributed to Marcus Aurelius a
letter, in which, by reason, no doubt, of this incident, he forbade
persecution of the Christians. Tertullian, a contemporary witness,
speaks of this letter in perfect confidence; and the Christian writers
of the following century did not hesitate to regard it as authentic.
Nowadays a strict examination of its existing text does not allow such a
character to be attributed to it. At any rate the persecutions of the
Christians were not forbidden, for in the year 177, that is, only three
years after the victory of Marcus Aurelius over the Germans, there took
place, undoubtedly by his orders, the persecution which caused at Lyons
the first Gallic martyrdom. This was the fourth, or, according to
others, the fifth great imperial persecution of the Christians.
Most tales of the martyrs were written long after the event, and came to
be nothing more than legends laden with details often utterly puerile or
devoid of proof. The martyrs of Lyons in the second century wrote, so to
speak, their own history; for it was their comrades, eye-witnesses of
their sufferings and their virtue, who gave an account of them in a long
letter addressed to their friends in Asia Minor, and written with
passionate sympathy and pious prolixity, but bearing all the,
characteristics of truth. It seems desirable to submit for perusal that
document, which has been preserved almost entire in the Ecclesiastical
History of Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in the third century, and which
will exhibit, better than any modern representations, the state of facts
and of souls in the midst of the imperial persecutions, and the mighty
faith, devotion, and courage with which the early Christians faced the
most cruel trials.
“The servants of Christ, dwelling at Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, to the
brethren settled in Asia and Phrygia, who have the same faith and hope of
redemption that we have, peace, grace, and glory from God the Father and
Jesus Christ our Lord!
“None can tell to you in speech or fully set forth to you in writing the
weight of our misery, the madness and rage of the Gentiles against the
saints, and all that hath been suffered by the blessed martyrs. Our
enemy doth rush upon us with all the fury of his powers, and already
giveth us a foretaste and the first-fruits of all the license with which
he doth intend to set upon us. He hath omitted nothing for the training
of his agents against us, and he doth exercise them in a sort of
preparatory work against the servants of the Lord. Not only are we
driven from the public buildings, from the baths, and from the forum, but
it is forbidden to all our people to appear publicly in any place
whatsoever.
“The grace of God hath striven for us against the devil: at the same time
that it hath sustained the weak, it hath opposed to the Evil One, as it
were, pillars of strength–men strong and valiant, ready to draw on
themselves all his attacks. They have had to bear all manner of insult;
they have deemed but a small matter that which others find hard and
terrible; and they have thought only of going to Christ, proving by their
example that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be put in the
balance with the glory which is to be manifested in us. They have
endured, in the first place, all the outrages that could be heaped upon
them by the multitude, outcries, blows, thefts, spoliation, stoning,
imprisonment, all that the fury of the people could devise against hated
enemies. Then, dragged to the forum by the military tribune and the
magistrates of the city, they have been questioned before the people and
cast into prison until the coming of the governor. He, from the moment
our people appeared before him, committed all manner of violence against
them. Then stood forth one of our brethren, Vettius Epagathus, full of
love towards God and his neighbor, living a life so pure and strict that,
young as he was, men held him to be the equal of the aged Zacharias.–
He could not bear that judgment so unjust should go forth against us,
and, moved with indignation, he asked leave to defend his brethren, and
to prove that there was in them no kind of irreligion or impiety. Those
present at the tribunal, amongst whom he was known and celebrated, cried
out against him, and the governor himself, enraged at so just a demand,
asked him no more than this question, ‘Art thou a Christian?’
Straightway with a loud voice, he declared himself a Christian, and was
placed amongst the number of the martyrs. . . .
“Afterwards the rest began to be examined and classed. The first, firm
and well prepared, made hearty and solemn confession of their faith.
Others, ill prepared and with little firmness, showed that they lacked
strength for such a fight. About ten of them fell away, which caused us
incredible pain and mourning. Their example broke down the courage of
others, who, not being yet in bonds, though they had already had much to
suffer, kept close to the martyrs, and withdrew not out of their sight.
Then were we all stricken with dread for the issue of the trial: not that
we had great fear of the torments inflicted, but because, prophesying the
result according to the degree of courage of the accused, we feared much
falling away. They took, day by day, those of our brethren who were
worthy to replace the weak; so that all the best of the two churches,
those whose care and zeal had founded them, were taken and confined.
They took, likewise, some of our slaves, for the governor had ordered
that they should be all summoned to attend in public; and they, fearing
the torments they saw the saints undergo, and instigated by the soldiers,
accused us falsely of odious deeds, such as the banquet of Thyestes, the
incest of OEdipus, and other crimes which must not be named or even
thought of, and which we cannot bring ourselves to believe that men were
ever guilty of. These reports having once spread amongst the people,
even those persons who had hitherto, by reason, perhaps, of relationship,
shown moderation towards us, burst forth into bitter indignation against
our people. Thus was fulfilled that which had been prophesied by the
Lord: ‘The time cometh when whosoever shall kill you shall think that he
doeth God service.’ Since that day the holy martyrs have suffered
tortures that no words can express.
“The fury of the multitude, of the governor, and of the soldiers, fell
chiefly upon Sanctus, a deacon of Vienne; upon Maturus, a neophyte still,
but already a valiant champion of Christ; upon Attalus also, born at
Pergamus, but who hath ever been one of the pillars of our Church; upon
Blandina, lastly, in whom Christ hath made it appear that persons who
seem vile and despised of men are just those whom God holds in the
highest honor by reason of the excellent love they bear Him, which is
manifested in their firm virtue, and not in vain show. All of us, and
even Blandina’s mistress here below, who fought valiantly with the other
martyrs, feared that this poor slave, so weak of body, would not be in a
condition to freely confess her faith; but she was sustained by such
vigor of soul that the executioners, who from morn till eve put her to
all manner of torture, failed in their efforts, and declared themselves
beaten, not knowing what further punishment to inflict, and marvelling
that she still lived, with her body pierced through and through, and torn
piecemeal by so many tortures, of which a single one should have sufficed
to kill her. But that blessed saint, like a valiant athlete, took fresh
courage and strength from the confession of her faith; all feeling of
pain vanished, and ease returned to her at the mere utterance of the
words, ‘I am a Christian, and no evil is wrought amongst us.’
“As for Sanctus, the executioners hoped that in the midst of the tortures
inflicted upon him–the most atrocious which man could devise–they would
hear him say something unseemly or unlawful; but so firmly did he resist
them, that, without even saying his name, or that of his nation or city,
or whether he was bond or free, he only replied in the Roman tongue, to
all questions, ‘I am a Christian.’ Therein was, for him, his name, his
country, his condition, his whole being; and never could the Gentiles
wrest from him another word. The fury of the governor and the
executioners was redoubled against him; and, not knowing how to torment
him further, they applied to his most tender members bars of red-hot
iron. His members burned; but he, upright and immovable, persisted in
his profession of faith, as if living waters from the bosom of Christ
flowed over him and refreshed him. . . . Some days after, these
infidels began again to torture him, believing that if they inflicted
upon his blistering wounds the same agonies, they would triumph over him,
who seemed unable to bear the mere touch of their hands; and they hoped,
also, that the sight of this torturing alive would terrify his comrades.
But, contrary to general expectation, the body of Sanctus, rising
suddenly up, stood erect and firm amidst these repeated torments, and
recovered its old appearance and the use of its members, as if, by Divine
grace, this second laceration of his flesh had caused healing rather than
suffering. . . .
“When the tyrants had thus expended and exhausted their tortures against
the firmness of the martyrs sustained by Christ, the devil devised other
contrivances. They were cast into the darkest and most unendurable place
in their prison; their feet were dragged out and compressed to the utmost
tension of the muscles; the jailers, as if instigated by a demon, tried
every sort of torture, insomuch that several of them, for whom God willed
such an end, died of suffocation in prison. Others, who had been
tortured in such a manner that it was thought impossible they should long
survive, deprived as they were of every remedy and aid from men, but
supported nevertheless by the grace of God, remained sound and strong in
body as in soul, and comforted and reanimated their brethren. . . .
“The blessed Pothinus, who held at that time the bishopric of Lyons,
being upwards of ninety, and so weak in body that he could hardly
breathe, was himself brought before the tribunal, so worn with old age
and sickness that he seemed nigh to extinction; but he still possessed
his soul, wherewith to subserve the triumph of Christ. Being brought by
the soldiers before the tribunal, whither he was accompanied by all the
magistrates of the city and the whole populace, that pursued him with
hootings, he offered, as if he had been the very Christ, the most
glorious testimony. At a question from the governor, who asked what the
God of the Christians was, he answered, ‘If thou be worthy, thou shalt
know.’ He was immediately raised up, without any respect or humanity,
and blows were showered upon him; those who happened to be nearest to him
assaulted him grievously with foot and fist, without the slightest regard
for his age; those who were farther off cast at him whatever was to their
hand; they would all have thought themselves guilty of the greatest
default if they had not done their best, each on his own score, to insult
him brutally. They believed they were avenging the wrongs of their gods.
Pothinus, still breathing, was cast again into prison, and two days after
yielded up his spirit.
“Then were manifested a singular dispensation of God and the immeasurable
compassion of Jesus Christ; an example rare amongst brethren, but in
accord with the intentions and the justice of the Lord. All those who,
at their first arrest, had denied their faith, were themselves cast into
prison and given over to the same sufferings as the other martyrs, for
their denial did not serve them at all. Those who had made profession of
being what they really were–that is, Christians–were imprisoned without
being accused of other crimes. The former, on the contrary, were
confined as homicides and wretches, thus suffering a double punishment.
The one sort found repose in the honorable joys of martyrdom, in the hope
of promised blessedness, in the love of Christ, and in the spirit of God
the Father; the other were a prey to the reproaches of conscience. It
was easy to distinguish the one from the other by their looks. The one
walked joyously, bearing on their faces a majesty mingled with sweetness,
and their very bonds seemed unto them an ornament, even as the broidery
that decks a bride . . . the other, with downcast eyes and humble and
dejected air, were an object of contempt to the Gentiles themselves, who
regarded them as cowards who had forfeited the glorious and saving name
of Christians. And so they who were present at this double spectacle
were thereby signally strengthened, and whoever amongst them chanced to
be arrested confessed the faith without doubt or hesitation. . . .
“Things having come to this pass, different kinds of death were inflicted
on the martyrs, and they offered to God a crown of divers flowers. It
was but right that the most valiant champions, those who had sustained a
double assault and gained a signal victory, should receive a splendid
crown of immortality. The neophyte Maturus and the deacon Sanctus, with
Blandina and Attalus, then, were led into the amphitheatre, and thrown to
the beasts, as a sight to please the inhumanity of the Gentiles. . . .
Maturus and Sanctus there underwent all kinds of tortures, as if they had
hitherto suffered nothing; or, rather, like athletes who had already been
several times victorious, and were contending for the crown of crowns,
they braved the stripes with which they were beaten, the bites of the
beasts that dragged them to and fro, and all that was demanded by the
outcries of an insensate mob, so much the more furious, because it could
by no means overcome the firmness of the martyrs or extort from Sanctus
any other speech than that which, on the first day, he had uttered: ‘I am
a Christian.’
“After this fearful contest, as life was not extinct, their throats were
at last cut, when they alone had thus been offered as a spectacle to the
public instead of the variety displayed in the combat of gladiators.
Blandina, in her turn, tied to a stake, was given to the beasts: she was
seen hanging, as it were, on a sort of cross, calling upon God with
trustful fervor, and the brethren present were reminded, in the person of
a sister, of Him who had been crucified for their salvation. . . . As
none of the beasts would touch the body of Blandina, she was released
from the stake, taken back to prison, and reserved for another occasion.
. . . Attalus, whose execution, seeing that he was a man of mark, was
furiously demanded by the people, came forward ready to brave everything,
as a man deriving confidence from the memory of his life, for he had
courageously trained himself to discipline, and had always amongst us
borne witness for the truth. He was led all round the amphitheatre,
preceded by a board bearing this inscription in Latin: ‘This is Attalus
the Christian.’ The people pursued him with the most furious hootings;
but the governor, having learnt that he was a Roman citizen, had him
taken back to prison with the rest. Having subsequently written to
Caesar, he waited for his decision as to those who were thus detained.
“This delay was neither useless nor unprofitable, for then shone forth
the boundless compassion of Christ. Those of the brethren who had been
but dead members of the Church, were recalled to life by the pains and
help of the living; the martyrs obtained grace for those who had fallen
away; and great was the joy in the Church, at the same time virgin and
mother, for she once more found living those whom she had given up for
dead. Thus revived and strengthened by the goodness of God, who willeth
not the death of the sinner, but rather inviteth him to repentance, they
presented themselves before the tribunal, to be questioned afresh by the
governor. Caesar had replied that they who confessed themselves to be
Christians should be put to the sword, and they who denied sent away safe
and sound. When the time for the great market had fully come, there
assembled a numerous multitude from every nation and every province. The
governor had the blessed martyrs brought up before his judgment-seat,
showing them before the people with all the pomp of a theatre. He
questioned them afresh; and those who were discovered to be Roman
citizens were beheaded, the rest were thrown to the beasts.
“Great glory was gained for Christ by means of those who had at first
denied their faith, and who now confessed it contrary to the expectation
of the Gentiles. Those who, having been privately questioned, declared
themselves Christians were added to the number of the martyrs. Those in
whom appeared no vestige of faith, and no fear of God, remained without
the pale of the Church. When they were dealing with those who had been
reunited to it, one Alexander, a Phrygian by nation, a physician by
profession, who had for many years been dwelling in Gaul, a man well
known to all for his love of God and open preaching of the faith, took
his place in the hall of judgment, exhorting by signs all who filled it
to confess their faith, even as if he had been called in to deliver them
of it. The multitude, enraged to see that those who had at first denied,
turned round and proclaimed their faith, cried out against Alexander,
whom they accused of the conversion. The governor forthwith asked him
what he was, and at the answer, ‘I am a Christian,’ condemned him to the
beasts. On the morrow Alexander was again brought up, together with
Attalus, whom the governor, to please the people, had once more condemned
to the beasts. After they had both suffered in the amphitheatre all the
torments that could be devised, they were put to the sword. Alexander
uttered not a complaint, not a word; he had the air of one who was
talking inwardly with God. Attalus, seated on an iron seat, and waiting
for the fire to consume his body, said, in Latin, to the people, ‘See
what ye are doing; it is in truth devouring men; as for us, we devour not
men, and we do no evil at all.’ He was asked what was the name of God:
‘God,’ said he, ‘is not like us mortals; He hath no name.’
“After all these martyrs, on the last day of the shows, Blandina was
again brought up, together with a young lad, named Ponticus, about
fifteen years old. They had been brought up every day before that they
might see the tortures of their brethren. When they were called upon to
swear by the altars of the Gentiles, they remained firm in their faith,
making no account of those pretended gods, and so great was the fury of
the multitude against them, that no pity was shown for the age of the
child or the sex of the woman. Tortures were heaped upon them; they were
made to pass through every kind of torment, but the desired end was not
gained. Supported by the exhortations of his sister, who was seen and
heard by the Gentiles, Ponticus, after having endured all magnanimously,
gave up the ghost. Blandina, last of all,–like a noble mother that hath
roused the courage of her sons for the fight, and sent them forth to
conquer for their king,–passed once more through all the tortures they
had suffered, anxious to go and rejoin them, and rejoicing at each step
towards death. At length, after she had undergone fire, the talons of
beasts, and agonizing aspersion, she was wrapped in a network and thrown
to a bull that tossed her in the air; she was already unconscious of all
that befell her, and seemed altogether taken up with watching for the
blessings that Christ had in store for her. Even the Gentiles allowed
that never a woman had suffered so much or so long.
“Still their fury and their cruelty towards the saints were not appeased.
They devised another way of raging against them; they cast to the dogs
the bodies of those who had died of suffocation in prison, and watched
night and day that none of our brethren might come and bury them. As for
what remained of the martyrs’ half-mangled or devoured corpses, they left
them exposed under a guard of soldiers, coming to look on them with
insulting eyes, and saying, ‘Where is now their God? Of what use to them
was this religion for which they laid down their lives?’ We were
overcome with grief that we were not able to bury these poor corpses; nor
the darkness of night, nor gold, nor prayers could help us to succeed
therein. After being thus exposed for six days in the open air, given
over to all manner of outrage, the corpses of the martyrs were at last
burned, reduced to ashes, and cast hither and thither by the infidels
upon the waters of the Rhone, that there might be left no trace of them
on earth. They acted as if they had been more mighty than God, and could
rob our brethren of their resurrection: ”Tis in that hope,’ said they,
‘that these folk bring amongst us a new and strange religion, that they
set at nought the most painful torments, and that they go joyfully to
face death: let us see if they will rise again, if their God will come to
their aid and will be able to tear them from our hands.’”
It is not without a painful effort that, even after so many centuries,
we can resign ourselves to be witnesses, in imagination only, of such a
spectacle. We can scarce believe that amongst men of the same period and
the same city so much ferocity could be displayed in opposition to so
much courage, the passion for barbarity against the passion for virtue.
Nevertheless, such is history; and it should be represented as it really
was: first of all, for truth’s sake; then for the due appreciation of
virtue and all it costs of effort and sacrifice; and, lastly, for the
purpose of showing what obstacles have to be surmounted, what struggles
endured, and what sufferings borne, when the question is the
accomplishment of great moral and social reforms. Marcus Aurelius was,
without any doubt, a virtuous ruler, and one who had it in his heart to
be just and humane; but he was an absolute ruler, that is to say, one fed
entirely on his owns ideas, very ill-informed about the facts on which he
had to decide, and without a free public to warn him of the errors of his
ideas or the practical results of his decrees. He ordered the
persecution of the Christians without knowing what the Christians were,
or what the persecution would be, and this conscientious philosopher let
loose at Lyons, against the most conscientious of subjects, the zealous
servility of his agents, and the atrocious passions of the mob.
The persecution of the Christians did not stop at Lyons, or with Marcus
Aurelius; it became, during the third century, the common practice of the
emperors in all parts of the Empire: from A.D. 202 to 312, under the
reigns of Septimius Severus, Maximinus the First, Decius, Valerian,
Aurelian, Diocletian, Maximian, and Galerius, there are reckoned six
great general persecutions, without counting others more circumscribed or
less severe. The Emperors Alexander Severns, Philip the Arabian, and
Constantius Chlorus were almost the only exceptions to this cruel system;
and nearly always, wherever it was in force, the Pagan mob, in its
brutality or fanatical superstition, added to imperial rigor its own
atrocious and cynical excesses.
But Christian zeal was superior in perseverance and efficacy to Pagan
persecution. St. Pothinus the Martyr was succeeded as bishop at Lyons by
St. Irenaeus, the most learned, most judicious, and most illustrious of
the early heads of the Church in Gaul. Originally from Asia Minor,
probably from Smyrna, he had migrated to Gaul, at what particular date is
not known, and had settled as a simple priest in the diocese of Lyons,
where it was not long before he exercised vast influence, as well on the
spot as also during certain missions intrusted to him, and amongst them
one, they say, to the Pope St. Eleutherius at Rome. Whilst Bishop of
Lyons, from A.D. 177 to 202, he employed the five and twenty years in
propagating the Christian faith in Gaul, and in defending, by his
writings, the Christian doctrines against the discord to which they had
already been subjected in the East, and which was beginning to penetrate
to the West. In 202, during the persecution instituted by Septimius
Severus, St. Irenaeus crowned by martyrdom his active and influential
life. It was in his episcopate that there began what may be called the
swarm of Christian missionaries who, towards the end of the second and
during the third centuries, spread over the whole of Gaul, preaching the
faith and forming churches. Some went from Lyons at the instigation of
St. Irenaeus; others from Rome, especially under the pontificate of Pope
St. Fabian, himself martyred in 219; St. Felix and St. Fortunatus to
Valence, St. Ferreol to Besancon, St. Marcellus to Chalons-sur-Saone,
St. Benignus to Dijon, St. Trophimus to Arles, St. Paul to Narbonne,
St. Saturninus to Toulouse, St. Martial to Limoges, St. Andeol and
St. Privatus to the Cevennes, St. Austremoine to Clermont-Ferrand,
St. Gatian to Tours, St. Denis to Paris, and so many others that their
names are scarcely known beyond the pages of erudite historians, or the
very spots where they preached, struggled, and conquered, often at the
price of their lives. Such were the founders of the faith and of the
Christian Church in France. At the commencement of the fourth century
their work was, if not accomplished, at any rate triumphant; and when,
A.D. 312, Constantine declared himself a Christian, he confirmed the fact
of the conquest of the Roman world, and of Gaul in particular, by
Christianity. No doubt the majority of the inhabitants were not as yet
Christians; but it was clear that the Christians were in the ascendant
and had command of the future. Of the two grand elements which were to
meet together, on the ruins of Roman society, for the formation of modern
society, the moral element, the Christian religion, had already taken
possession of souls; the devastated territory awaited the coming of new
peoples, known to history under the general name of Germans, whom the
Romans called the barbarians.
CHAPTER VII.—-THE GERMANS IN GAUL.–THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS.
About A.D. 241 or 242 the sixth Roman legion, commanded by Aurelian, at
that time military tribune, and thirty years later, emperor, had just
finished a campaign on the Rhine, undertaken for the purpose of driving
the Germans from Gaul, and was preparing for Eastern service, to make war
on the Persians. The soldiers sang,–
We have slain a thousand Franks and a thousand Sarmatians;
we want a thousand, thousand, Thousand Persians.
[Illustration: Germans invading Gaul----129]
That was, apparently, a popular burden at the time, for on the days of
military festivals, at Rome and in Gaul, the children sang, as they
danced,–
We have cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand,
Thousand;
One man hath cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand,
Thousand, thousand;
May he live a thousand, thousand years, he who hath slain a
thousand, thousand!
Nobody hath so much of wine as he hath of blood poured out.
Aurelian, the hero of these ditties, was indeed much given to the pouring
out of blood, for at the approach of a fresh war he wrote to the
senate,–
“I marvel, Conscript Fathers, that ye have so much misgiving about
opening the Sibylline books, as if ye were deliberating in an assembly of
Christians, and not in the temple of all the gods. . . . Let inquiry
be made of the sacred books, and let celebration take place of the
ceremonies that ought to be fulfilled. Far from refusing, I offer, with
zeal, to satisfy all expenditure required, with captives of every
nationality, victims of royal rank. It is no shame to conquer with the
aid of the gods; it is thus that our ancestors began and ended many a
war.”
Human sacrifices, then, were not yet foreign to Pagan festivals, and
probably the blood of more than one Frankish captive on that occasion
flowed in the temple of all the gods.
It is the first time the name of _Franks_ appears in history; and it
indicated no particular, single people, but a confederation of Germanic
peoplets, settled or roving on the right bank of the Rhine, from the Mayn
to the ocean. The number and the names of the tribes united in this
confederation are uncertain. A chart of the Roman empire, prepared
apparently at the end of the fourth century, in the reign of the Emperor
Honorius (which chart, called _tabula Peutingeri,_ was found amongst the
ancient MSS. collected by Conrad Peutinger, a learned German philosopher,
in the fifteenth century), bears over a large territory on the right bank
of the Rhine, the word _Francia,_ and the following enumeration: “The
Chaucians, the Ampsuarians, the Cheruscans, and the Chamavians, who are
also called Franks;” and to these tribes divers chroniclers added several
others, “the Attuarians, the Bructerians, the Cattians, and the
Sicambrians.” Whatever may have been the specific names of these
peoplets, they were all of German race, called themselves Franks, that
is, “free-men,” and made, sometimes separately, sometimes collectively,
continued incursions into Gaul,–especially Belgica and the northern
portions of Lyonness,–at one time plundering and ravaging, at another
occupying forcibly, or demanding of the Roman emperors lands whereon to
settle. From the middle of the third to the beginning of the fifth
century, the history of the Western empire presents an almost
uninterrupted series of these invasions on the part of the Franks,
together with the different relationships established between them and
the Imperial government. At one time whole tribes settled on Roman soil,
submitted to the emperors, entered their service, and fought for them,
even against their own German compatriots. At another, isolated
individuals, such and such warriors of German race, put themselves at the
command of the emperors, and became of importance. At the middle of the
third century, the Emperor Valerian, on committing a command to Aurelian,
wrote, “Thou wilt have with thee Hartmund, Haldegast, Hildmund, and
Carioviscus.” Some Frankish tribes allied themselves more or less
fleetingly with the Imperial government, at the same time that they
preserved their independence; others pursued, throughout the Empire,
their life of incursion and adventure. From A.D. 260 to 268, under the
reign of Gallienus, a band of Franks threw itself upon Gaul, scoured it
from north-east to south-east, plundering and devastating on its way;
then it passed from Aquitania into Spain, took and burned Tarragona,
gained possession of certain vessels, sailed away, and disappeared in
Africa, after having wandered about for twelve years at its own will and
pleasure. There was no lack of valiant emperors, precarious and
ephemeral as their power may have been, to defend the Empire, and
especially Gaul, against those enemies, themselves ephemeral, but forever
recurring; Decius, Valerian, Gallienus, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, and
Probus gallantly withstood those repeated attacks of German hordes.
Sometimes they flattered themselves they had gained a definitive victory,
and then the old Roman pride exhibited itself in their patriotic
confidence. About A.D. 278, the Emperor Probes, after gaining several
victories in Gaul over the Franks, wrote to the senate,–
“I render thanks to the immortal gods, Conscript Fathers, for that they
have confirmed your judgment as regards me. Germany is subdued
throughout its whole extent; nine kings of different nations have come
and cast themselves at my feet, or rather at yours, as suppliants, with
their foreheads in the dust. Already all those barbarians are tilling
for you, sowing for you, and fighting for you against the most distant
nations.
“Order ye, therefore, according to your custom, prayers of thanksgiving,
for we have slain four thousand of the enemy; we have had offered to us
sixteen thousand men ready armed; and we have wrested from the enemy the
seventy most important towns. The Gauls, in fact, are completely
delivered. The crowns offered to me by all the cities of Gaul I have
submitted, Conscript Fathers, to your grace; dedicate ye them with your
own hands to Jupiter, all-bountiful, all-powerful, and to the other
immortal gods and goddesses. All the booty is re-taken, and, further, we
have made fresh captures, more considerable than our first losses; the
fields of Gaul are tilled by the oxen of the barbarians, and German teams
bend their necks in slavery to our husbandmen; divers nations raise
cattle for our consumption, and horses to remount our cavalry; our stores
are full of the corn of the barbarians–in one word, we have left to the
vanquished nought but the soil; all their other possessions are ours. We
had at first thought it necessary, Conscript Fathers, to appoint a new
Governor of Germany; but we have put off this measure to the time when
our ambition shall be more completely satisfied, which will be, as it
seems to us, when it shall have pleased Divine Providence to increase and
multiply the forces of our armies.”
Probus had good reason to wish that “Divine Providence might be pleased
to increase the forces of the Roman armies,” for even after his
victories, exaggerated as they probably were, they did not suffice for
their task, and it was not long before the vanquished recommenced war.
He had dispersed over the territory of the Empire the majority of the
prisoners he had taken. A band of Franks, who had been transported and
established as a military colony on the European shore of the Black Sea,
could not make up their minds to remain there. They obtained possession
of some vessels, traversed the Propontis, the Hellespont, and the
Archipelago, ravaged the coasts of Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa,
plundered Syracuse, scoured the whole of the Mediterranean, entered the
ocean by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, making their way up again along
the coasts of Gaul, arrived at last at the mouths of the Rhine, where
they once more found themselves at home amongst the vines which Probus,
in his victorious progress, had been the first to have planted, and with
probably their old taste for adventure and plunder.
After the commencement of the fifth century, from A.D. 406 to 409, it was
no longer by incursions limited to certain points, and sometimes repelled
with success, that the Germans harassed the Roman provinces: a veritable
deluge of divers nations, forced one upon another, from Asia into Europe,
by wars and migration in mass, inundated the Empire and gave the decisive
signal for its fall. St. Jerome did not exaggerate when he wrote to
Ageruchia, “Nations, countless in number and exceeding fierce, have
occupied all the Gauls; Quadians, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepidians,
Herulians, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemannians, Pannonians, and even
Assyrians have laid waste all that there is between the Alps and the
Pyrenees, the ocean and the Rhine. Sad destiny of the commonwealth!
Mayence, once a noble city, hath been taken and destroyed; thousands of
men were slaughtered in the church. Worms hath fallen after a long
siege. The inhabitants of Rheims, a powerful city, and those of Amiens,
Arras, Terouanne, at the extremity of Gaul, Tournay, Spires, and
Strasburg have been carried away to Germany. All hath been ravaged in
Aquitania (Novempopulania), Lyonness, and Narbonness; the towns, save a
few, are dispeopled; the sword pursueth them abroad and famine at home.
I cannot speak without tears of Toulouse; if she be not reduced to equal
ruin, it is to the merits of her holy Bishop Exuperus that she oweth it.”
Then took place throughout the Roman empire, in the East as well as in
the West, in Asia and Africa as well as in Europe, the last grand
struggle between the Roman armies and the barbaric nations. Armies is
the proper term; for, to tell the truth, there was no longer a Roman
nation, and very seldom a Roman emperor with some little capacity for
government or war. The long continuance of despotism and slavery had
enervated equally the ruling power and the people; everything depended on
the soldiers and their generals. It was in Gaul that the struggle was
most obstinate and most promptly brought to a decisive issue, and the
confusion there was as great as the obstinacy. Barbaric peoplets served
in the ranks and barbaric leaders held the command of the Roman armies:
Stilieho was a Goth; Arbogastes and Mellobaudes were Franks; Ricimer was
a Suevian. The Roman generals, Bonifacius, Aetius, AEgidius, Syagrius,
at one time fought the barbarians, at another negotiated with such and
such of them, either to entice them to take service against other
barbarians, or to promote the objects of personal ambition, for the Roman
generals also, under the titles of patrician, consul, or proconsul,
aspired to and attained a sort of political independence, and contributed
to the dismemberment of the empire in the very act of defending it. No
later than A.D. 412, two German nations, the Visigoths and the
Burgundians, took their stand definitively in Gaul, and founded there two
new kingdoms: the Visigoths, under their kings Ataulph and Wallia, in
Aquitania and Narbonness; the Burgundians, under their kings Gundichaire
and Gundioch, in Lyonness, from the southern point of Alsatia right into
Provence, along the two banks of the Saone and the left bank of the
Rhone, and also in Switzerland. In 451 the arrival in Gaul of the Huns
and their king Attila–already famous, both king and nation, for their
wild habits, their fierce valor, and their successes against the Eastern
empire–gravely complicated the situation. The common interest of
resistance against the most barbarous of barbarians, and the renown and
energy of Aetius, united, for the moment, the old and new masters of
Gaul; Romans, Gauls, Visigoths, Burgundians, Franks, Alans, Saxons, and
Britons, formed the army led by Aetius against that of Attila, who also
had in his ranks Goths, Burgundians, Gepidians, Alans, and beyond Rhine
Franks, gathered together and enlisted on his road. It was a chaos and a
conflict of barbarians, of every name and race, disputing one with
another, pell-mell, the remnants of the Roman empire torn asunder and in
dissolution. Attila had already arrived before Orleans, and was laying
siege to it. The bishop, St. Anianus, sustained a while the courage of
the besieged, by promising them aid from Aetius and his allies. The aid
was slow to come; and the bishop sent to Aetius a message: “If thou be
not here this very day, my son, it will be too late.” Still Aetius came
not. The people of Orleans determined to surrender; the gates flew open;
the Huns entered; the plundering began without much disorder; “wagons
were stationed to receive the booty as it was taken from the houses, and
the captives, arranged in groups, were divided by lot between the
victorious chieftains.” Suddenly a shout re-echoed through the streets:
it was Aetius, Theodoric, and Thorismund, his son, who were coming with
the eagles of the Roman legions and with the banners of the Visigoths. A
fight took place between them and the Huns, at first on the banks of the
Loire, and then in the streets of the city. The people of Orleans joined
their liberators; the danger was great for the Huns, and Attila ordered a
retreat. It was the 14th of June, 451, and that day was for a long while
celebrated in the church of Orleans, as the date of a signal deliverance.
The Huns retired towards Champagne, which they had already crossed at
their coming into Gaul; and when they were before Troyes, the bishop, St.
Lupus, repaired to Attila’s camp, and besought him to spare a defenceless
city, which had neither walls nor garrison. “So be it!” answered Attila;
“but thou shalt come with me and see the Rhine; I promise then to send
thee back again.” With mingled prudence and superstition, the barbarian
meant to keep the holy man as a hostage. The Huns arrived at the plains
hard by Chalons-sur-Marne; Aetius and all his allies had followed them;
and Attila, perceiving that a battle was inevitable, halted in a position
for delivering it. The Gothic historian Jornandes says that he consulted
his priests, who answered that the Huns would be beaten, but that the
general of the enemy would fall in the fight. In this prophecy Attila
saw predicted the death of Aetius, his most formidable enemy; and the
struggle commenced. There is no precise information about the date; but
“it was,” says Jornandes, “a battle which for atrocity, multitude,
horror, and stubbornness has not the like in the records of antiquity.”
Historians vary in their exaggerations of the numbers engaged and killed:
according to some, three hundred thousand, according to others, one
hundred and sixty-two thousand were left on the field of battle.
Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, was killed. Some chroniclers name
Meroveus as King of the Franks, settled in Belgica, near Tongres, who
formed part of the army of Aetius. They even attribute to him a
brilliant attack made on the eve of the battle upon the Gepidians, allies
of the Huns, when ninety thousand men fell, according to some, and only
fifteen thousand according to others. The numbers are purely imaginary,
and even the fact is doubtful. However, the battle of Chalons drove the
Huns out of Gaul, and was the last victory in Gaul, gained still in the
name of the Roman empire, but in reality for the advantage of the German
nations which had already conquered it. Twenty-four years afterwards the
very name of Roman empire disappeared with Augustulus, the last of the
emperors of the West.
[Illustration: The Huns at the Battle of Chalons----135]
Thirty years after the battle of Chalons, the Franks settled in Gaul were
not yet united as one nation; several tribes with this name, independent
one of another, were planted between the Rhine and the Somme; there were
some in the environs of Cologne, Calais, Cambrai, even beyond the Seine
and as far as Le Mans, on the confines of the Britons. This is one of
the reasons of the confusion that prevails in the ancient chronicles
about the chieftains or kings of these tribes, their names and dates, and
the extent and site of their possessions. Pharamond, Clodion, Meroveus,
and Childeric cannot be considered as Kings of France, and placed at the
beginning of her history. If they are met with in connection with
historical facts, fabulous legends or fanciful traditions are mingled
with them: Priam appears as a predecessor of Pharamond; Clodion, who
passes for having been the first to bear and transmit to the Frankish
kings the title of “long-haired,” is represented as the son, at one time
of Pharamond, at another, of another chieftain named Theodemer; romantic
adventures, spoiled by geographical mistakes, adorn the life of Childric.
All that can be distinctly affirmed is, that, from A.D. 450 to 480, the
two principal Frankish tribes were those of the Salian Franks and the
Ripuarian Franks, settled, the latter in the east of Belgica, on the
banks of the Moselle and the Rhine; the former, towards the west,
between the Meuse, the ocean, and the Somme. Meroveus, whose name was
perpetuated in his line, was one of the principal chieftains of the
Salian Franks; and his son Childeric, who resided at Tournay, where his
tomb was discovered in 1655, was the father of Clovis, who succeeded him
in 481, and with whom really commenced the kingdom and history of France.
Clovis was fifteen or sixteen years old when he became King of the Salian
Franks of Tournay. Five years afterwards his ruling passion, ambition,
exhibited itself, together with that mixture of boldness and craft which
was to characterize his whole life. He had two neighbors: one, hostile
to the Franks, the Roman patrician Syagrius, who was left master at
Soissons after the death of his father AEgidius, and whom Gregory of
Tours calls “King of the Romans;” the other, a Salian-Frankish chieftain,
just as Clovis was, and related to him, Ragnacaire, who was settled at
Cambrai. Clovis induced Ragnacaire to join him in a campaign against
Syagrius. They fought, and Syagrius was driven to take refuge in
Southern Gaul with Alaric, king of the Visigoths. Clovis, not content
with taking possession of Soissons, and anxious to prevent any
troublesome return, demanded of Alaric to send Syagrius back to him,
threatening war if the request were refused. The Goth, less bellicose
than the Frank, delivered up Syagrius to the envoys of Clovis, who
immediately had him secretly put to death, settled himself at Soissons,
and from thence set on foot, in the country between the Aisne and the
Loire, plundering and subjugating expeditions which speedily increased
his domains and his wealth, and extended far and wide his fame as well as
his ambition. The Franks who accompanied him were not long before they
also felt the growth of his power; like him they were pagans, and the
treasures of the Christian churches counted for a great deal in the booty
they had to divide. On one of their expeditions they had taken in the
church of Rheims, amongst other things, a vase “of marvellous size and
beauty.” The Bishop of Rheims, St. Remi, was not quite a stranger to
Clovis. Some years before, when he had heard that the son of Childeric
had become king of the Franks of Tournai, he had written to congratulate
him: “We are informed,” said he, “that thou halt undertaken the conduct
of affairs; it is no marvel that thou beginnest to be what thy fathers
ever were;” and, whilst taking care to put himself on good terms with the
young pagan chieftain, the bishop added to his felicitations some pious
Christian counsel, without letting any attempt at conversion be mixed up
with his moral exhortations. The bishop, informed of the removal of the
vase, sent to Clovis a messenger begging the return, if not of all his
church’s ornaments, at any rate of that. “Follow us as far as Soissons,”
said Clovis to the messenger; “it is there the partition is to take place
of what we have captured: when the lots shall have given me the vase, I
will do what the bishop demands.” When Soissons was reached, and all the
booty had been placed in the midst of the host, the king said, “Valiant
warriors, I pray you not to refuse me, over and above my share, this vase
here.” At these words of the king, those who were of sound mind amongst
the assembly answered, “Glorious king, everything we see here is thine,
and we ourselves are submissive to thy commands. Do thou as seemeth good
to thee, for there is none that can resist thy power.” When they had
thus spoken a certain Frank, light-minded, jealous, and vain, cried out
aloud as he struck the vase with his battle-axe, “Thou shalt have nought
of all this save what the lots shall truly give thee.” At these words
all were astounded; but the king bore the insult with sweet patience,
and, accepting the vase, he gave it to the messenger, hiding his wound in
the recesses of his heart. At the end of a year he ordered all his host
to assemble fully equipped at the March parade, to have their arms
inspected. After having passed in review all the other warriors, he came
to him who had struck the vase. “None,” said he, “hath brought hither
arms so ill kept as thine; nor lance, nor sword, nor battle-axe are in
condition for service.” And wresting from him his axe he flung it on the
ground. The man stooped down a little to pick it up, and forthwith the
king, raising with both hands his own battle-axe, drove it into his
skull, saying, “Thus didst thou to the vase of Soissons!” On the death of
this fellow he bade the rest begone; and by this act made himself greatly
feared.
[Illustration: "Thus didst thou to the Vase of Soissons."----139]
A bold and unexpected deed has always a great effect on men: with his
Frankish warriors, as well as with his Roman and Gothic foes, Clovis had
at command the instincts of patience and brutality in turn: he could bear
a mortification and take vengeance in due season. Whilst prosecuting his
course of plunder and war in Eastern Belgica, on the banks of the Meuse,
Clovis was inspired with a wish to get married. He had heard tell of a
young girl, like himself of the Germanic royal line, Clotilde, niece of
Gondebaud, at that time king of the Burgundians. She was dubbed
beautiful, wise, and well-informed; but her situation was melancholy and
perilous. Ambition and fraternal hatred had devastated her family. Her
father, Chilperic, and her two brothers, had been put to death by her
uncle Gondebaud, who had caused her mother Agrippina to be thrown into
the Rhone, with a stone round her neck; and drowned. Two sisters alone
had survived this slaughter; the elder, Chrona, had taken religions vows,
the other, Clotilde, was living almost in exile at Geneva, absorbed in
works of piety and charity. The principal historian of this epoch,
Gregory of Tours, an almost contemporary authority, for he was elected
bishop sixty-two years after the death of Clovis, says simply,
“Clovis at once sent a deputation to Gondebaud to ask Clotilde in
marriage. Gondebaud, not daring to refuse, put her into the hands of the
envoys, who took her promptly to the king. Clovis at sight of her was
transported with joy, and married her.” But to this short account other
chroniclers, amongst them Fredegaire, who wrote a commentary upon and a
continuation of Gregory of Tours’ work, added details which deserve
reproduction, first as a picture of manners, next for the better
understanding of history. “As he was not allowed to see Clotilde,” says
Fredegaire, “Clovis charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use all
his wit to come nigh her. Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothed
in rags and with his wallet upon his back, like a mendicant. To insure
confidence in himself he took with him the ring of Clovis. On his
arrival at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a pilgrim charitably, and,
whilst she was washing his feet, Aurelian, bending towards her, said
under his breath, ‘Lady, I have great matters to announce to thee if thou
deign to permit me secret revelation.’ She consenting, replied, ‘Say
on.’ ‘Clovis, king of the Franks,’ said he, ‘hath sent me to thee: if it
be the will of God, he would fain raise thee to his high rank by
marriage; and that thou mayest be certified thereof, he sendeth thee this
ring.’ She accepted the ring with great joy, and said to Aurelian, ‘Take
for recompense of thy pains these hundred sous in gold and this ring of
mine. Return promptly to thy lord; if he would fain unite me to him by
marriage, let him send without delay messengers to demand me of my uncle
Gondebaud, and let the messengers who shall come take me away in haste,
so soon as they shall have obtained permission; if they haste not, I fear
lest a certain sage, one Aridius, may return from Constantinople, and if
he arrive beforehand, all this matter will by his counsel come to
nought.’ Aurelian returned in the same disguise under which he had come.
On approaching the territory of Orleans, and at no great distance from
his house, he had taken as travelling companion a certain poor mendicant,
by whom he, having fallen asleep from sheer fatigue, and thinking himself
safe, was robbed of his wallet and the hundred sous in gold that it
contained. On awaking, Aurelian was sorely vexed, ran swiftly home and
sent his servants in all directions in search of the mendicant who had
stolen his wallet. He was found and brought to Aurelian, who, after
drubbing him soundly for three days, let him go his way. He afterwards
told Clovis all that had passed and what Clotilde suggested. Clovis,
pleased with his success and with Clotilde’s notion, at once sent a
deputation to Gondebaud to demand his niece in marriage. Gondebaud, not
daring to refuse, and flattered at the idea of making a friend of Clovis,
promised to give her to him. Then the deputation, having offered the
denier and the sou, according to the custom of the Franks, espoused
Clotilde in the name of Clovis, and demanded that she be given up to them
to be married. Without any delay the council was assembled at Chalons,
and preparations made for the nuptials. The Franks, having arrived with
all speed, received her from the hands of Gondebaud, put her into a
covered carriage, and escorted her to Clovis, together with much
treasure. She, however, having already learned that Aridius was on his
way back, said to the Frankish lords, “If ye would take me into the
presence of your lord, let me descend from this carriage, mount me on
horseback, and get you hence as fast as ye may; for never in this
carriage shall I reach the presence of your lord.”
“Aridius, in fact, returned very speedily from Marseilles, and Gondebaud,
on seeing him, said to him, ‘Thou knowest that we have made friends with
the Franks, and that I have given my niece to Clovis to wife.’ ‘This,’
answered Aridius, ‘is no bond of friendship, but the beginning of
perpetual strife; thou shouldst have remembered, my lord, that thou didst
slay Clotilde’s father, thy brother Chilperic, that thou didst drown her
mother, and that thou didst cut off her brothers’ heads and cast their
bodies into a well. If Clotilde become powerful she will avenge the
wrongs of her relatives. Send thou forthwith a troop in chase, and have
her brought back to thee. It will be easier for thee to bear the wrath
of one person, than to be perpetually at strife, thyself and thine, with
all the Franks.’ And Gondebaud did send forthwith a troop in chase to
fetch back Clotilde with the carriage and all the treasure; but she, on
approaching Villers, where Clovis was waiting for her, in the territory
of Troyes, and before passing the Burgundian frontier, urged them who
escorted her to disperse right and left over a space of twelve leagues in
the country whence she was departing, to plunder and burn; and that
having been done with the permission of Clovis, she cried aloud, ‘I thank
thee, God omnipotent, for that I see the commencement of vengeance for my
parents and my brethren!’”
The majority of the learned have regarded this account of Fredegaire as
a romantic fable, and have declined to give it a place in history.
M. Fauriel, one of the most learned associates of the Academy of
Inscriptions, has given much the same opinion, but he nevertheless adds,
“Whatever may be their authorship, the fables in question are historic in
the sense that they relate to real facts of which they are a poetical
expression, a romantic development, conceived with the idea of
popularizing the Frankish kings amongst the Gallo-Roman subjects.” It
cannot, however, be admitted that a desire to popularize the Frankish
kings is a sufficient and truth-like explanation of these tales of the
Gallo-Roman chroniclers, or that they are no more than “a poetical
expression,” a romantic development of the real facts briefly noted by
Gregory of Tours; the tales have a graver origin and contain more truth
than would be presumed from some of the anecdotes and sayings mixed up
with them. In the condition of minds and parties in Gaul at the end of
the fifth century the marriage of Clovis and Clotilde was, for the public
of the period, for the barbarians and for the Gallo-Romans, a great
matter. Clovis and the Franks were still pagans; Gondebaud and the
Burgundians were Christians, but Arians; Clotilde was a Catholic
Christian. To which of the two, Catholics or Arians, would Clovis ally
himself? To whom, Arian, pagan, or Catholic, would Clotilde be married?
Assuredly the bishops, priests, and all the Gallo-Roman clergy, for the
most part Catholics, desired to see Clovis, that young and audacious
Frankish chieftain, take to wife a Catholic rather than an Arian or a
pagan, and hoped to convert the pagan Clovis to Christianity much more
than an Arian to orthodoxy.
The question between Catholic orthodoxy and Arianism was, at that time,
a vital question for Christianity in its entirety, and St. Athanasius was
not wrong in attributing to it supreme importance. It may be presumed
that the Catholic clergy, the bishop of Rheims, or the bishop of Langres,
were no strangers to the repeated praises which turned the thoughts of
the Frankish king towards the Burgundian princess, and the idea of their
marriage once set afloat, the Catholics, priesthood or laity, labored
undoubtedly to push it forward, whilst the Burgundian Arians exerted
themselves to prevent it. Thus there took place, between opposing
influences, religious and national, a most animated struggle. No
astonishment can be felt, then, at the obstacles the marriage
encountered, at the complications mingled with it, and at the indirect
means employed on both sides to cause its success or failure. The
account of Fredegaire is but a picture of this struggle and its
incidents, a little amplified or altered by imagination or the credulity
of the period; but the essential features of the picture, the disguise of
Aurelian, the hurry of Clotilde, the prudent recollection of Aridius,
Gondebaud’s alternations of fear and violence, and Clotilde’s vindictive
passion when she is once out of danger, there is nothing in all this out
of keeping with the manners of the time or the position of the actors.
Let it be added that Aurelian and Aridius are real personages who are met
with elsewhere in history, and whose parts as played on the occasion of
Clotilde’s marriage are in harmony with the other traces that remain of
their lives.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF TOLBIACUM----144]
The consequences of the marriage justified before long the importance
which had on all sides been attached to it. Clotilde had a son; she was
anxious to have him baptized, and urged her husband to consent. “The
gods you worship,” said she, “are nought, and can do nought for
themselves or others; they are of wood, or stone, or metal.” Clovis
resisted, saying, “It is by the command of our gods that all things are
created and brought forth. It is plain that your God hath no power;
there is no proof even that He is of the race of the gods.” But Clotilde
prevailed; and she had her son baptized solemnly, hoping that the
striking nature of the ceremony might win to the faith the father whom
her words and prayers had been powerless to touch. The child soon died,
and Clovis bitterly reproached the queen, saying, “Had the child been
dedicated to my gods he would be alive; he was baptized in the name of
your God, and he could not live.” Clotilde defended her God and prayed.
She had a second son, who was also baptized, and fell sick. “It cannot
be otherwise with him than with his brother,” said Clovis; “baptized in
the name of your Christ, he is going to die.” But the child was cured,
and lived; and Clovis was pacified and less incredulous of Christ. An
event then came to pass which affected him still more than the sickness
or cure of his children. In 496 the Allemannians, a Germanic
confederation like the Franks, who also had been, for some time past,
assailing the Roman empire on the banks of the Rhine or the frontiers of
Switzerland, crossed the river, and invaded the settlements of the Franks
on the left bank. Clovis went to the aid of his confederation and
attacked the Allemannians at Tolbiac, near Cologne. He had with him
Aurelian, who had been his messenger to Clotilde, whom he had made Duke
of Melun, and who commanded the forces of Sens. The battle was going
ill; the Franks were wavering, and Clovis was anxious. Before setting
out he had, according to Fredegaire, promised his wife that if he were
victorious he would turn Christian. Other chroniclers say that Aurelian,
seeing the battle in danger of being lost, said to Clovis, “My lord king,
believe only on the Lord of heaven whom the queen, my mistress,
preacheth.” Clovis cried out with emotion, “Christ Jesus, Thou whom my
queen Clotilde calleth the Son of the living God; I have invoked my own
gods, and they have withdrawn from me; I believe that they have no power,
since they aid not those who call upon them. Thee, very God and Lord, I
invoke; if Thou give me victory over these foes, if I find in Thee the
power that the people proclaim of Thee, I will believe on Thee, and will
be baptized in Thy name.” The tide of battle turned: the Franks
recovered confidence and courage; and the Allemannians, beaten and seeing
their king slain, surrendered themselves to Clovis, saying, “Cease, of
thy grace, to cause any more of our people to perish; for we are thine.”
On the return of Clovis, Clotilde, fearing he should forget his victory
and his promise, “secretly sent,” says Gregory of Tours, “to St. Remi,
bishop of Rheims, and prayed him to penetrate the king’s heart, with the
words of salvation.” St. Remi was a fervent Christian and an able
bishop; and “I will listen to thee, most holy father,” said Clovis,
“willingly; but there is a difficulty. The people that follow me will
not give up their gods. But I am about to assemble them, and will speak
to them according to thy word.” The king found the people more docile or
better prepared than he had represented to the bishop. Even before he
opened his mouth the greater part of those present cried out, “We abjure
the mortal gods; we are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remi
preacheth.” About three thousand Frankish warriors, however, persisted
in their intention of remaining pagans, and deserting Clovis, betook
themselves to Ragnacaire, the Frankish king of Cambrai, who was destined
ere long to pay dearly for this acquisition. So soon as St. Remi was
informed of this good disposition on the part of king and people, he
fixed Christmas Day of this year, 496, for the ceremony of the baptism of
these grand neophytes. The description of it is borrowed from the
historian of the church of Rheims, Frodoard by name, born at the close of
the ninth century. He gathered together the essential points of it from
the _Life of Saint Remi,_ written, shortly before that period, by the
saint’s celebrated successor at Rheims, Archbishop Hincmar. “The
bishop,” says he, “went in search of the king at early morn in his
bed-chamber, in order that, taking him at the moment of freedom from
secular cares, he might more freely communicate to him the mysteries of
the holy word. The king’s chamber-people receive him with great respect,
and the king himself runs forward to meet him. Thereupon they pass
together into an oratory dedicated to St. Peter, chief of the apostles,
and adjoining the king’s apartment. When the bishop, the king, and the
queen had taken their places on the seats prepared for them, and
admission had been given to some clerics and also some friends and
household servants of the king, the venerable bishop began his
instructions on the subject of salvation. . . . Meanwhile
preparations are being made along the road from the palace to the
baptistery; curtains and valuable stuffs are hung up; the houses on
either side of the street are dressed out; the baptistery is sprinkled
with balm and all manner of perfume. The procession moves from the
palace; the clergy lead the way with the holy gospels, the cross, and
standards, singing hymns and spiritual songs; then comes the bishop,
leading the king by the hand; after him the queen, lastly the people.
On the road it is said that the king asked the bishop if that were the
kingdom promised him: ‘No,’ answered the prelate, ‘but it is the entrance
to the road that leads to it.’ . . . At the moment when the king bent
his head over the fountain of life, ‘Lower thy head with humility,
Sicambrian,’ cried the eloquent bishop; ‘adore what thou hast burned:
burn what thou hast adored.’ The king’s two sisters, Alboflede and
Lantechilde, likewise received baptism; and so at the same time did three
thousand of the Frankish army, besides a large number of women and
children.”
When it was known that Clovis had been baptized by St. Remi, and with
what striking circumstance, great was the satisfaction amongst the
Catholics. The chief Burgundian prelate, Avitus, bishop of Vienne, wrote
to the Frankish king, “Your faith is our victory; in choosing for you and
yours, you have pronounced for all; divine providence bath given you as
arbiter to our age. Greece can boast of having a sovereign of our
persuasion; but she is no longer alone in possession of this precious
gift; the rest of the world cloth share her light.” Pope Anastasius
hasted to express his joy to Clovis: “The Church, our common mother,” he
wrote, “rejoiceth to have born unto God so great a king. Continue,
glorious and illustrious son, to cheer the heart of this tender mother;
be a column of iron to support her, and she in her turn will give thee
victory over all thine enemies.”
Clovis was not a man to omit turning his Catholic popularity to the
account of his ambition. At the very time when he was receiving these
testimonies of good will from the heads of the Church, he learned that
Gondebaud, disquieted, no doubt, at the conversion of his powerful
neighbor, had just made a vain attempt, at a conference held at Lyons, to
reconcile in his kingdom the Catholics and the Arians. Clovis considered
the moment favorable to his projects of aggrandizement at the expense of
the Burgundian king; he fomented the dissensions which already prevailed
between Gondebaud and his brother Godegisile, assured to himself the
latter’s complicity, and suddenly entered Burgundy with his army.
Gondebaud, betrayed and beaten at the first encounter at Dijon, fled to
the south of his kingdom, and went and shut himself up in Avignon.
Clovis pursued and besieged him there. Gondebaud in great alarm asked
counsel of his Roman confidant Aridius, who had but lately foretold to
him what the marriage of his niece Clotilde would bring upon him. “On
every side,” said the king, “I am encompassed by perils, and I know not
what to do; lo! here be these barbarians come upon us to slay us and
destroy the land.” “To escape death,” answered Aridius, “thou must
appease the ferocity of this man. Now, if it please thee, I will feign
to fly from thee and go over to him. So soon as I shall be with him, I
will so do that he ruin neither thee nor the land. Only have thou care
to perform whatsoever I shall ask of thee, until the Lord in His goodness
deign to make thy cause triumph.” “All that thou shalt bid will I do,”
said Gondebaud. So Aridius left Gondebaud and went his way to Clovis,
and said, “Most pious king, I am thy humble servant; I give up this
wretched Gondebaud, and come unto thy mightiness. If thy goodness deign
to cast a glance upon me, thou and thy descendants will find in me a
servant of integrity and fidelity.” Clovis received him very kindly and
kept him by him, for Aridius was agreeable in conversation, wise in
counsel, just in judgment, and faithful in whatever was committed to his
care. As the siege continued, Aridius said to Clovis, “O king, if the
glory of thy greatness would suffer thee to listen to the words of my
feebleness, though thou needest not counsel, I would submit them to thee
in all fidelity, and they might be of use to thee, whether for thyself or
for the towns by the which thou dost propose to pass. Wherefore keepest
thou here thine army, whilst thine enemy doth hide himself in a
well-fortified place? Thou ravagest the fields, thou pillagest the
corn, thou cuttest down the vines, thou fellest the olive trees, thou
destroyest all the produce of the land, and yet thou succeedest not in
destroying thine adversary. Rather send thou unto him deputies, and lay
on him a tribute to be paid to thee every year. Thus the land will be
preserved, and thou wilt be lord forever over him who owes thee tribute.
If he refuse, thou shalt then do what pleaseth thee.” Clovis found the
counsel good, ordered his army to return home, sent deputies to
Gondebaud, and called upon him to undertake the payment every year of a
fixed tribute. Gondebaud paid for the time, and promised to pay
punctually for the future. And peace appeared made between the two
barbarians.
Pleased with his campaign against the Burgundians, Clovis kept on good
terms with Gondebaud, who was to be henceforth a simple tributary, and
transferred to the Visigoths of Aquitania, and their king, Alaric II.,
his views of conquest. He had there the same pretexts for attack and the
same means of success. Alaric and his Visigoths were Arians, and between
them and the bishops of Southern Gaul, nearly all orthodox Catholics,
there were permanent ill-will and distrust. Alaric attempted to
conciliate their good-will: in 506 a Council met at Agde; the thirty-four
bishops of Aquitania attended in person or by delegate; the king
protested that he had no design of persecuting the Catholics; the
bishops, at the opening of the Council, offered prayers for the king; but
Alaric did not forget that immediately after the conversion of Clovis,
Volusian, bishop of Tours, had conspired in favor of the Frankish king,
and the bishops of Aquitania regarded Volusian as a martyr, for he had
been deposed, without trial, from his see, and taken as a prisoner first
to Toulouse, and afterwards into Spain, where in a short time he had been
put to death. In vain did the glorious chief of the race of Goths,
Theodoric the Great, king of Italy, father-in-law of Alaric, and brother-
in-law of Clovis, exert himself to prevent any outbreak between the two
kings. In 498, Alaric, no doubt at his father-in-law’s solicitation,
wrote to Clovis, “If my brother consent thereto, I would, following my
desires and by the grace of God, have an interview with him.” The
interview took place at a small island in the Loire, called the Island
d’Or or de St. Jean, near Amboise. “The two kings,” says Gregory of
Tours, “conversed, ate, and drank together, and separated with mutual
promises of friendship.” The positions and passions of each soon made
the promises of no effect. In 505 Clovis was seriously ill; the bishops
of Aquitania testified warm interest in him; and one of them, Quintian,
bishop of Rodez, being on this account persecuted by the Visigoths, had
to seek refuge at Clermont, in Auvergne. Clovis no longer concealed his
designs. In 507 he assembled his principal chieftains; and, “It
displeaseth me greatly,” said he, “that these Arians should possess a
portion of the Gauls; march we forth with the help of God, drive we them
from that land, for it is very goodly, and bring we it under our own
power.” The Franks applauded their king; and the army set out on the
march in the direction of Poitiers, where Alaric happened at that time to
be. “As a portion of the troops was crossing the territory of Tours,”
says Gregory, who was shortly afterwards its bishop, “Clovis forbade, out
of respect for St. Martin, anything to be taken, save grass and water.
One of the army, however, having found some hay belonging to a poor man,
said, ‘This is grass; we do not break the king’s commands by taking it;’
and, in spite of the poor man’s resistance, he robbed him of his hay.
Clovis, informed of the fact, slew the soldier on the spot with one sweep
of his sword, saying, ‘What will become of our hopes of victory if we
offend St. Martin?’” Alaric had prepared for the struggle; and the two
armies met in the plain of Vouille, on the banks of the little river
Clain, a few leagues from Poitiers. The battle was very severe. “The
Goths,” says Gregory of Tours, “fought with missiles; the Franks sword in
hand. Clovis met and with his own hand slew Alaric in the fray; at the
moment of striking his blow, two Goths fell suddenly upon Clovis, and
attacked him with their pikes on either side, but he escaped death,
thanks to his cuirass and the agility of his horse.”
Beaten and kingless, the Goths retreated in great disorder; and Clovis,
pursuing his march, arrived without opposition at Bordeaux, where he
settled down with his Franks for the winter. When the war season
returned, he marched on Toulouse, the capital of the Visigoths, which he
likewise occupied without resistance, and where he seized a portion of
the treasure of the Visigothic kings. He quitted it to lay siege to
Carcassonne, which had been made by the Romans into the stronghold of
Septimauia.
There his course of conquest was destined to end. After the battle of
Vouille he had sent his eldest son Theodoric in command of a division,
with orders to cross Central Gaul from west to east, to go and join the
Burgundians of Gondebaud, who had promised his assistance, and in
conjunction with them to attack the Visigoths on the banks of the Rhone
and in Narbonness. The young Frank boldly executed his father’s orders,
but the intervention of Theodoric the Great, king of Italy, prevented the
success of the operation. He sent an army into Gaul to the aid of his
son-in-law Alaric; and the united Franks and Burgundians failed in their
attacks upon the Visigoths of the Eastern Provinces. Clovis had no idea
of compromising by his obstinacy the conquests already accomplished; he
therefore raised the siege of Carcassonne, returned first to Toulouse,
and then to Bordeaux, took Angouleme, the only town of importance he did
not possess in Aquitania; and feeling reasonably sure that the Visigoths,
who, even with the aid that had cone from Italy, had great difficulty in
defending what remained to them of Southern Gaul, would not come and
dispute with him what he had already conquered, he halted at Tours, and
staid there some time, to enjoy on the very spot the fruits of his
victory and to establish his power in his new possessions.
It appears that even the Britons of Armorica tendered to him at that
time, through the interposition of Melanins, bishop of Rennes, if not
their actual submission, at any rate their subordination and homage.
Clovis at the same time had his self-respect flattered in a manner to
which barbaric conquerors always attach great importance. Anastasius,
Emperor of the East, with whom he had already had some communication,
sent to him at Tours a solemn embassy, bringing him the titles and
insignia of Patrician and Consul. “Clovis,” says Gregory of Tours, “put
on the tunic of purple and the chlamys and the diadem; then mounting his
horse, he scattered with his own hand and with much bounty gold and
silver amongst the people, on the road which lies between the gate of the
court belonging to the basilica of St. Martin and the church of the city.
From that day he was called Consul and Augustus. On leaving the city of
Tours he repaired to Paris, where he fixed the seat of his government.”
Paris was certainly the political centre of his dominions, the
intermediate point between the early settlements of his race and himself
in Gaul and his new Gallic conquests; but he lacked some of the
possessions nearest to him and most naturally, in his own opinion, his.
To the east, north, and south-west of Paris were settled some independent
Frankish tribes, governed by chieftains with the name of kings. So soon
as he had settled at Paris, it was the one fixed idea of Clovis to reduce
them all to subjection. He had conquered the Burgundians and the
Visigoths; it remained for him to conquer and unite together all the
Franks. The barbarian showed himself in his true colors, during this new
enterprise, with his violence, his craft, his cruelty, and his perfidy.
He began with the most powerful of the tribes, the Ripuarian Franks. He
sent secretly to Cloderic, son of Sigebert, their king, saying, “Thy
father hath become old, and his wound maketh him to limp o’ one foot; if
he should die, his kingdom will come to thee of right, together with our
friendship.” Cloderic had his father assassinated whilst asleep in his
tent, and sent messengers to Clovis, saying, “My father is dead, and I
have in my power his kingdom and his treasures. Send thou unto me
certain of thy people, and I will gladly give into their hands whatsoever
amongst these treasures shall seem like to please thee.” The envoys of
Clovis came, and, as they were examining in detail the treasures of
Sigebert, Cloderic said to them, “This is the coffer wherein my father
was wont to pile up his gold pieces.” “Plunge,” said they, “thy hand
right to the bottom that none escape thee.” Cloderic bent forward, and
one of the envoys lifted his battle-axe and cleft his skull. Clovis went
to Cologne and convoked the Franks of the canton. “Learn,” said he,
“that which hath happened. As I was sailing on the river Scheldt,
Cloderic, son of my relative, did vex his father, saying I was minded to
slay him; and as Sigebert was flying across the forest of Buchaw, his son
himself sent bandits, who fell upon him and slew him. Cloderic also is
dead, smitten I know not by whom as he was opening his father’s
treasures. I am altogether unconcerned in it all, and I could not shed
the blood of my relatives, for it is a crime. But since it hath so
happened, I give unto you counsel, which ye shall follow if it seem to
you good; turn ye towards me, and live under my protection.” And they
who were present hoisted him on a huge buckler, and hailed him king.
After Sigebert and the Ripuarian Franks, came the Franks of Terouanne,
and Chararic their king. He had refused, twenty years before, to march
with Clovis against the Roman, Syagrius. Clovis, who had not forgotten
it, attacked him, took him and his son prisoners, and had them both
shorn, ordering that Chararic should be ordained priest and his son
deacon. Chararic was much grieved. Then said his son to him, “Here be
branches which were cut from a green tree, and are not yet wholly dried
up: soon they will sprout forth again. May it please God that he who
hath wrought all this shall die as quickly!” Clovis considered these
words as a menace, had both father and son beheaded, and took possession
of their dominions. Ragnacaire, king of the Franks of Cambrai, was the
third to be attacked. He had served Clovis against Syagrins, but Clovis
took no account of that. Ragnacaire, being beaten, was preparing for
flight, when he was seized by his own soldiers, who tied his hands behind
his back, and took him to Clovis along with his brother Riquier.
“Wherefore hast thou dishonored our race,” said Clovis, “by letting
thyself wear bonds?” “Twere better to have died;” and cleft his skull
with one stroke of his battle-axe. Then turning to Riquier, “Hadst thou
succored thy brother,” said he, “he had assuredly not been bound;” and
felled him likewise at his feet. Rignomer, king of the Franks of
Le Mans, met the same fate, but not at the hands, only by the order, of
Clovis. So Clovis remained sole king of the Franks, for all the
independent chieftains had disappeared.
It is said that one day, after all these murders, Clovis, surrounded by
his trusted servants, cried, “Woe is me! who am left as a traveller
amongst strangers, and who have no longer relatives to lend me support in
the day of adversity!” Thus do the most shameless take pleasure in
exhibiting sham sorrow after crimes they cannot disavow.
It cannot be known whether Clovis ever felt in his soul any scruple or
regret for his many acts of ferocity and perfidy, or if he looked, as
sufficient expiation, upon the favor he had bestowed on the churches and
their bishops, upon the gifts he lavished on them, and upon the
absolutions he demanded of them. In times of mingled barbarism and faith
there are strange cases of credulity in the way of bargains made with
divine justice. We read in the life of St. Eleutherus, bishop of
Tournai, the native land of Clovis, that at one of those periods when the
conscience of the Frankish king must have been most heavily laden, he
presented himself one day at the church. “My lord king,” said the
bishop, “I know wherefore thou art come to me.” “I have nothing special
to say unto thee,” rejoined Clovis. “Say not so, O king,” replied the
bishop; “thou hast sinned, and darest not avow it.” The king was moved,
and ended by confessing that he had deeply sinned and had need of large
pardon. St. Eleutherus betook himself to prayer; the king came back the
next day, and the bishop gave him a paper on which was written by a
divine hand, he said, “The pardon granted to royal offences which might
not be revealed.” Clovis accepted this absolution, and loaded the church
of Tournai with his gifts. In 511, the very year of his death, his last
act in life was the convocation at Orleans of a Council, which was
attended by thirty bishops from the different parts of his kingdom, and
at which were adopted thirty-one canons that, whilst granting to the
Church great privileges and means of influence, in many cases favorable
to humanity and respect for the rights of individuals, bound the Church
closely to the State, and gave to royalty, even in ecclesiastical
matters, great power. The bishops, on breaking up, sent these canons to
Clovis, praying him to give them the sanction of his adhesion, which he
did. A few months afterwards, on the 27th of November, 511, Clovis died
at Paris, and was buried in the church of St. Peter and St. Paul,
nowadays St. Genevieve, built by his wife Queen Clotilde, who survived
him.
It was but right to make the reader intimately acquainted with that great
barbarian who, with all his vices and all his crimes, brought about, or
rather began, two great matters which have already endured through
fourteen centuries, and still endure; for he founded the French monarchy
and Christian France. Such men and such facts have a right to be closely
studied and set in a clear light by history. Nothing similar will be
seen for two centuries, under the descendants of Clovis, the
Merovingians; amongst them will be encountered none but those personages
whom death reduces to insignificance, whatever may have been their rank
in the world, and of whom Virgil thus speaks to Dante:–
“Non ragionam di for, ma guarda e passa.”
“Waste we no words on them: one glance and pass thou on.”
Inferno, Canto III.
CHAPTER VIII.—THE MEROVINGIANS.
[Illustration: The Sluggard King Journeying----156]
In its beginning and in its end the line of the Merovingians is mediocre
and obscure. Its earliest ancestors, Meroveus, from whom it got its
name, and Clodion, the first, it is said, of the long-haired kings, a
characteristic title of the Frankish kings, are scarcely historical
personages; and it is under the qualification of sluggard kings that the
last Merovingians have a place in history. Clovis alone, amidst his
vices and his crimes, was sufficiently great and did sufficiently great
deeds to live forever in the course of ages; the greatest part of his
successors belong only to genealogy or chronology. In a moment of
self-abandonment and weariness, the great Napoleon once said, “What
trouble to take for half a page in universal history!” Histories far
more limited and modest than a universal history, not only have a right,
but are bound to shed their light only upon those men who have deserved
it by the eminence of their talents or the important results of their
passage through life; rarity only can claim to escape oblivion. And
save two or three, a little less insignificant or less hateful than the
rest, the Merovingian kings deserve only to be forgotten. From A.D. 511
to A.D. 752, that is, from the death of Clovis to the accession of the
Carlovingians, is two hundred and forty-one years, which was the
duration of the dynasty of the Merovingians. During this time there
reigned twenty-eight Merovingian kings, which reduces to eight years and
seven months the average reign of each, a short duration compared with
that of most of the royal dynasties. Five of these kings, Clotaire I.,
Clotaire II., Dagobert I., Thierry IV. and Childeric III., alone, at
different intervals, united under their power all the dominions
possessed by Clovis or his successors. The other kings of this line
reigned only over special kingdoms, formed by virtue of divers
partitions at the death of their general possessor. From A.D. 511 to
638 five such partitions took place. In 511, after the death of Clovis,
his dominions were divided amongst his four sons; Theodoric, or Thierry
I., was king of Metz; Clodomir, of Orleans; Childebert, of Paris;
Clotaire I., of Soissons. To each of these capitals fixed boundaries
were attached. In 558, in consequence of divers incidents brought about
naturally or by violence, Clotaire I. ended by possessing alone, during
three years, all the dominions of his fathers. At his death, in 561,
they were partitioned afresh amongst his four sons; Charibert was king
of Paris; Gontran of Orleans and Burgundy; Sigebert I., of Metz; and
Childeric, of Soissons. In 567, Charibert, king of Paris, died without
children, and a new partition left only three kingdoms, Austrasia,
Neustria, and Burgundy. Austrasia, in the east, extended over the two
banks of the Rhine, and comprised, side by side with Roman towns and
districts, populations that had remained Germanic. Neustria, in the
west, was essentially Gallo-Roman, though it comprised in the north the
old territory of the Salian Franks, on the borders of the Scheldt.
Burgundy was the old kingdom of the Burgundians, enlarged in the north
by some few counties. Paris, the residence of Clovis, was reserved and
undivided amongst the three kings, kept as a sort of neutral city into
which they could not enter without the common consent of all. In 613,
new incidents connected with family matters placed Clotaire II., son of
Chilperic, and heretofore king of Soissons, in possession of the three
kingdoms. He kept them united up to 628, and left them so to his son,
Dagobert I., who remained in possession of them up to 638. At his death
a new division of the Frankish dominions took place, no longer into
three but two kingdoms, Austrasia being one, and Neustria and Burgundy
the other. This was the definitive dismemberment of the great Frankish
dominion to the time of its last two Merovingian kings, Thierry IV. and
Childeric III., who were kings in name only, dragged from the cloister
as ghosts from the tomb to play a motionless part in the drama. For a
long time past the real power had been in the hands of that valiant
Austrasian family which was to furnish the dominions of Clovis with a
new dynasty and a greater king than Clovis.
Southern Gaul, that is to say, Aquitania, Vasconia, Narbonness, called
Septimania, and the two banks of the Rhone near its mouths, were not
comprised in these partitions of the Frankish dominions. Each of the
copartitioners assigned to themselves, to the south of the Garonne and on
the coasts of the Mediterranean, in that beautiful region of old Roman
Gaul, such and such a district or such and such a town, just as heirs-at-
law keep to themselves severally such and such a piece of furniture or
such and such a valuable jewel out of a rich property to which they
succeed, and which they divide amongst them. The peculiar situation of
those provinces at their distance from the Franks’ own settlements
contributed much towards the independence which Southern Gaul, and
especially Aquitania, was constantly striving and partly managed to
recover, amidst the extension and tempestuous fortunes of the Frankish
monarchy. It is easy to comprehend how these repeated partitions of a
mighty inheritance with so many successors, these dominions continually
changing both their limits and their masters, must have tended to
increase the already profound anarchy of Roman and Barbaric worlds thrown
pell-mell one upon the other, and fallen a prey, the Roman to the
disorganization of a lingering death, the barbaric to the fermentation of
a new existence striving for development under social conditions quite
different from those of its primitive life. Some historians have said
that, in spite of these perpetual dismemberments of the great Frankish
dominion, a real unity had always existed in the Frankish monarchy, and
regulated the destinies of its constituent peoples. They who say so show
themselves singularly easy to please in the matter of political unity and
international harmony. Amongst those various States, springing from a
common base and subdivided between the different members of one and the
same family, rivalries, enmities, hostile machinations, deeds of violence
and atrocity, struggles and wars soon became as frequent, as bloody, and
as obstinate as they have ever been amongst states and sovereigns as
unconnected as possible one with another. It will suffice to quote one
case which was not long in coming. In 424, scarcely thirteen years after
the death of Clovis and the partition of his dominions amongst his four
sons, the second of them, Clodomir, king of Orleans, was killed in a war
against the Burgundians, leaving three sons, direct heirs of his kingdom,
subject to equal partition between them. Their grandmother, Clotilde,
kept them with her at Paris; and “their uncle Childebert (king of Paris),
seeing that his mother bestowed all her affection upon the sons of
Clodomir, grew jealous; so, fearing that by her favor they would get a
share in the kingdom, he sent secretly to his brother Clotaire (king of
Soissons), saying, ‘Our mother keepeth by her the sons of our brother,
and willeth to give them the kingdom of their father. Thou must needs,
therefore, cone speedily to Paris, and we must take counsel together as
to what shall be done with them; whether they shall be shorn and reduced
to the condition of commoners, or slain and leave their kingdom to be
shared equally between us.’ Clotaire, overcome with joy at these words,
came to Paris. Childebert had already spread abroad amongst the people
that the two kings were to join in raising the young children to the
throne. The two kings then sent a message to the queen, who at that time
dwelt in the same city, saying, ‘Send thou the children to us, that we
may place them on the throne.’ Clotilde, full of joy, and unwitting of
their craft, set meat and drink before the children, and then sent them
away, saying, ‘I shall seem not to have lost my son if I see ye succeed
him in his kingdom.’ The young princes were immediately seized, and
parted from their servants and governors; and the servants and the
children were kept in separate places. Then Childebert and Clotaire sent
to the queen their confidant Arcadius (one of the Arvernian senators),
with a pair of shears and a naked sword. When he came to Clotilde, he
showed her what he bare with him, and said to her, ‘Most glorious queen,
thy sons, our masters, desire to know thy will touching these children:
wilt thou that they live with shorn hair or that they be put to death?’
Clotilde, astounded at this address, and overcome with indignation,
answered at hazard, amidst the grief that overwhelmed her, and not
knowing what she would say, ‘If they be not set upon the throne I would
rather know that they were dead than shorn.’ But Areadius, caring little
for her despair or for what she might decide after more reflection,
returned in haste to the two kings, and said, ‘Finish ye your work, for
the queen, favoring your plans, willeth that ye accomplish them.’
Forthwith Clotaire taketh the eldest by the arm, dasheth him upon the
ground, and slayeth him without mercy with the thrust of a hunting-knife
beneath the arm-pit. At the cries raised by the child, his brother
casteth himself at the feet of Childebert, and clinging to his knees,
saith amidst his sobs, ‘Aid me, good father, that I die not like my
brother.’ Childebert, his visage bathed in tears, saith to Clotaire,
‘Dear brother, I crave thy mercy for his life; I will give thee
whatsoever thou wilt as the price of his soul; I pray thee, slay him
not.’ Then Clotaire, with menacing and furious mien, crieth out aloud,
‘Thrust him away, or thou diest in his stead: thou, the instigator of all
this work, art thou, then, so quick to be faithless?’ At these words
Childebert thrust away the child towards Clotaire, who seized him,
plunged a hunting-knife in his side, as he had in his brother’s, and slew
him. They then put to death the slaves and governors of the children.
After these murders Clotaire mounted his horse and departed, taking
little heed of his nephew’s death; and Childebert withdrew into the
outskirts of the city. Queen Clotilde had the corpses of the two
children placed in a coffin, and followed them, with a great parade of
chanting, and immense mourning, to the basilica of St. Pierre (now St.
Genevieve), where they were buried together. One was ten years old and
the other seven. The third, named Clodoald (who died about the year 560,
after having founded, near Paris, a monastery called after him St.
Cloud), could not be caught, and was saved by some gallant men. He,
disdaining a terrestrial kingdom, dedicated himself to the Lord, was
shorn by his own hand, and became a church-man: he devoted himself wholly
to good works, and died a priest. And the two kings divided equally
between them the kingdom of Clodomir.” (Gregory of Tours, _Histoire des
Francs,_ III. xviii.)
[Illustration: "Thrust him away, or thou diest in his stead."----160]
The history of the most barbarous peoples and times assuredly offers no
example, in one and the same family, of an usurpation more perfidiously
and atrociously consummated. King Clodomir, the father of the two young
princes thus dethroned and murdered by their uncles, had, during his
reign, shown almost equal indifference and cruelty. In 523, during a war
which, in concert with his brothers Childebert and Clotaire, he had waged
against Sigismund, king of Burgundy, he had made prisoners of that king,
his wife, and their sons, and kept them shut up at Orleans. The year
after, the war was renewed with the Burgundians. “Clodomir resolved,”
says Gregory of Tours, “to put Sigismund to death. The blessed Avitus,
abbot of St. Mesrnin de Micy (an abbey about two leagues from Orleans), a
famous priest in those days, said to him on this occasion, ‘If, turning
thy thoughts towards God, thou change thy plan, and suffer not these folk
to be slain, God will be with thee, and thou wilt gain the victory; but
if thou slay them, thou thyself wilt be delivered into the hands of thine
enemies, and thou wilt undergo their fate; to thee and thy wife and thy
sons will happen that which thou wilt have done to Sigismund and his wife
and his sons.’ But Clodomir, taking no heed of this counsel, said, ‘It
were great folly to leave one enemy at home when I march out against
another; one attacking me behind and another in front, I should find
myself between two armies: victory will be surer and easier if I separate
one from the other; when the first is once dead, it will be less
difficult to get rid of the other also.’ Accordingly he put Sigismund to
death, together with his wife and his sons, ordered them to be thrown
into a well in the village of Coulmier, belonging to the territory of
Orleans, and set out for Burgundy. After his first success Clodomir fell
into an ambush and into the hands of his enemies, who cut off his head,
stuck it on the end of a pike and held it up aloft. Victory,
nevertheless, remained with the Franks; but scarcely had a year elapsed
when Queen Guntheuque, Clodomir’s widow, became the wife of his brother
Clotaire, and his two elder sons, Theobald and Gonthaire, fell beneath
their uncle’s hunting-knife.”
Even in the coarsest and harshest ages the soul of man does not
completely lose its instincts of justice and humanity. The bishops and
priests were not alone in crying out against such atrocities; the
barbarians themselves did not always remain indifferent spectators of
them, but sometimes took advantage of them to rouse the wrath and warlike
ardor of their comrades. “About the year 528, Theodoric, king of Metz,
the eldest son of Clovis, purposed to undertake a grand campaign on the
right bank of the Rhine against his neighbors the Thuringians, and
summoned the Franks to a meeting. ‘Bethink you,’ said he, that of old
time the Thuringians fell violently upon our ancestors, and did them much
harm. Our fathers, ye know, gave them hostages to obtain peace; but the
Thuringians put to death those hostages in divers ways, and once more
falling upon our relatives, took from them all they possessed. After
having hung children up, by the sinews of their thighs, on the branches
of trees, they put to a most cruel death more than two hundred young
girls, tying them by the legs to the necks of horses, which, driven by
pointed goads in different directions, tore the poor souls in pieces;
they laid others along the ruts of the roads, fixed them in the earth
with stakes, drove over them laden cars, and so left them, with their
bones all broken, as a meal for the birds and dogs. To this very day
doth Hermannfroi fail in his promise, and absolutely refuse to fulfil his
engagements: right is on our side; march we against them with the help of
God.’ Then the Franks, indignant at such atrocities, demanded with one
voice to be led into Thuringia. . . . Victory made them masters of
it, and they reduced the country under their dominion. . . . Whilst
the Frankish kings were still there, Theodoric would have slain his
brother Clotaire. Having put armed men in waiting, he had him fetched to
treat secretly of a certain matter. Then, having arranged, in a portion
of his house, a curtain from wall to wall, he posted his armed men behind
it; but, as the curtain was too short, it left their feet exposed.
Clotaire, having been warned of the snare, entered the house armed and
with a goodly company. Theodoric then perceived that he was discovered,
invented some story, and talked of this, that, and the other. At last,
not knowing how to get his treachery forgotten, he made Clotaire a
present of a large silvern dish. Clotaire wished him good by, thanked
him, and returned home. But Theodoric immediately complained to his own
folks that he had sacrificed his silvern dish to no purpose, and said to
his son Theodebert, ‘Go, find thy uncle, and pray him to give thee the
present I made him.’ Theodebert went, and got what he asked. In such
tricks did Theodoric excel.” (Gregory of Tours, III. vii.)
These Merovingian kings were as greedy and licentious as they were cruel.
Not only was pillage, in their estimation, the end and object of war, but
they pillaged even in the midst of peace and in their own dominions;
sometimes, after the Roman practice, by aggravation of taxes and fiscal
manoeuvres, at others after the barbaric fashion, by sudden attacks on
places and persons they knew to be rich. It often happened that they
pillaged a church, of which the bishop had vexed them by his protests,
either to swell their own personal treasury, or to make, soon afterwards,
offerings to another church of which they sought the favor. When some
great family event was at hand, they delighted in a coarse magnificence,
for which they provided at the expense of the populations of their
domains, or of the great officers of their courts, who did not fail to
indemnify themselves, thanks to public disorder, for the sacrifices
imposed upon them. At the end of the sixth century, Chilperic, king of
Neustria, had promised his daughter Rigonthe in marriage to Prince
Recared, son of Leuvigild, king of the Visigoths of Spain. “A grand
deputation of Goths came to Paris to fetch the Frankish princess. King
Chilperic ordered several families in the fiscal domains to be seized and
placed in cars. As a great number of them wept and were not willing to
go, he had them kept in prison that he might more easily force them to go
away with his daughter. It is said that several, in their despair, hung
themselves, fearing to be taken from their parents. Sons were separated
from fathers, daughters from mothers, and all departed with deep groans
and maledictions, and in Paris there reigned a desolation like that of
Egypt. Not a few, of superior birth, being forced to go away, even made
wills whereby they left their possessions to the churches, and demanded
that, so soon as the young girl should have entered Spain, their wills
should be opened just as if they were already in their graves. . . .
When King Chilperic gave up his daughter to the ambassadors of the Goths,
he presented them with vast treasures. Her mother (Queen Fredegonde)
added thereto so great a quantity of gold and silver and valuable
vestments, that, at the sight thereof, the king thought he must have
nought remaining. The queen, perceiving his emotion, turned to the
Franks, and said to them, ‘Think not, warriors, that there is here aught
of the treasures of former kings. All that ye see is taken from mine own
possessions, for my most glorious king hath made me many gifts. Thereto
have I added of the fruits of mine own toil, and a great part proceedeth
from the revenues I have drawn, either in kind or in money, from the
houses that have been ceded unto me. Ye yourselves have given me riches,
and ye see here a portion thereof; but there is here nought of the public
treasure.’ And the king was deceived into believing her words. Such was
the multitude of golden and silvern articles and other precious things
that it took fifty wagons to hold them. The Franks, on their part, made
many offerings; some gave gold, others silver, sundry gave horses, but
most of them vestments. At last the young girl, with many tears and
kisses, said farewell. As she was passing through the gate an axle of
her carriage broke, and all cried out alacic! which was interpreted by
some as a presage. She departed from Paris, and at eight miles’ distance
front the city she had her tents pitched. During the night fifty men
arose, and, having taken a hundred of the best horses and as many golden
bits and bridles, and two large silvern dishes, fled away, and took
refuge with king Childebert. During the whole journey whoever could
escape fled away with all that he could lay hands on. It was required
also of all the towns that were traversed on the way, that they should
make great preparations to defray expenses, for the king forbade any
contribution from the treasury: all the charges were met by extraordinary
taxes levied on the poor.” (Gregory of Tours, VI. xlv.)
“Close upon this tyrannical magnificence came unexpected sorrows, and
close upon these outrages remorse. The youngest son of King Chilperic,
Dagobert by name, fell ill. He was a little better, when his elder
brother Chlodebert was attacked with the same symptoms. His mother
Fredegonde, seeing him in danger of death, and touched by tardy
repentance, said to the king, ‘Long hath divine mercy borne with our
misdeeds; it hath warned us by fever, and other maladies, and we have not
mended our ways, and now we are losing our sons; now the tears of the
poor, the lamentations of widows, and the sighs of orphans are causing
them to perish, and leaving us no hope of laying by for any one. We heap
up riches and know not for whom. Our treasures, all laden with plunder
and curses, are like to remain without possessors. Our cellars are they
not bursting with wine, and our granaries with corn? Our coffers were
they not full to the brim with gold and silver and precious stones and
necklaces and other imperial ornaments? And yet that which was our most
beautiful possession we are losing! Come then, if thou wilt, and let us
burn all these wicked lists; let our treasury be content with what was
sufficient for thy father Clotaire.’ Having thus spoken, and beating her
breast, the queen had brought to her the rolls, which Mark had consigned
to her of each of the cities that belonged to her, and cast them into the
fire. Then, turning again to the king, ‘What!’ she cried, ‘dost thou
hesitate? Do thou even as I; if we lose our dear children, at least
escape we everlasting punishment.’ Then the king, moved with
compunction, threw into the fire all the lists, and, when they were
burned, sent people to stay the levy of those imposts. And afterwards
their youngest child died, worn out with lingering illness. Overwhelmed
with grief, they bare him from their house at Braine to Paris, and had
him buried in the basilica of St. Denis. As for Chlodebert, they placed
him on a litter, carried him to the basilica of St. Medard at Soissons,
and, laying him before the tomb of the saint, offered vows for his
recovery; but in the middle of the night, enfeebled and exhausted, he
gave up the ghost. They buried him in the basilica of the holy martyrs
Crispin and Crispinian. Then King Chilperic showed great largess to the
churches and the monasteries and the poor.” (Gregory of Tours, V.
xxxv.)
It is doubtful whether the maternal grief of Fredegonde were quite so
pious and so strictly in accordance with morality as it has been
represented by Gregory of Tours; but she was, without doubt, passionately
sincere. Rash actions and violent passions are the characteristics of
barbaric natures; the interest or impression of the moment holds sway
over them, and causes forgetfulness of every moral law as well as of
every wise calculation. These two characteristics show themselves in the
extreme license displayed in the private life of the Merovingian kings:
on becoming Christians, not only did they not impose upon themselves any
of the Christian rules in respect of conjugal relations, but the greater
number of them did not renounce polygamy, and more than one holy bishop,
at the very time that he reprobated it, was obliged to tolerate it.
“King Clotaire I. had to wife Ingonde, and her only did he love, when she
made to him the following request: ‘My lord,’ said she, ‘hath made of his
handmaid what seemed to him good; and now, to crown his favors, let my
lord deign to hear what his handmaid demandeth. I pray you be graciously
pleased to find for my sister Aregonde, your slave, a man both capable
and rich, so that I be rather exalted than abased thereby, and be enabled
to serve you still more faithfully.’ At these words Clotaire, who was
but too voluptuously disposed by nature, conceived a fancy for Aregonde,
betook himself to the country-house where she dwelt, and united her to
him in marriage. When the union had taken place he returned to Ingonde,
and said to her, ‘I have labored to procure for thee the favor thou didst
so sweetly demand, and, on looking for a man of wealth and capability
worthy to be united to thy sister, I could find no better than myself;
know, therefore, that I have taken her to wife, and I trow that it will
not displease thee.’ What seemeth good in my master’s eyes, that let him
do,’ replied Ingonde: ‘only let thy servant abide still in the king’s
grace.’”
Clotaire I. had, as has been already remarked, four sons: the eldest,
Charibert, king of Paris, had to wife Ingoberge, “who had in her service
two young persons, daughters of a poor work-man; one of them, named
Marcovieve, had donned the religious dress, the other was called
Meroflede, and the king loved both of them exceedingly. They were
daughters, as has been said, of a worker in wool. Ingoberge, jealous of
the affection borne to them by the king, had their father put to work
inside the palace, hoping that the king, on seeing him in such condition,
would conceive a distaste for his daughters; and, whilst the man was at
his work, she sent for the king.
“Charibert, thinking he was going to see some novelty, saw only the
workman afar off at work on his wool. He forsook Ingoberge, and took to
wife Meroflede. He had also (to wife) another young girl named
Theudoehilde, whose father was a shepherd, a mere tender of sheep, and
had by her, it is said, a son who, on issuing from his mother’s womb, was
carried straight-way to the grave.” Charibert afterwards espoused
Marcovive, sister of Meroflede; and for that cause both were
excommunicated by St. Germain, bishop of Paris.
Chilperic, fourth son of Clotaire I. and king of Soissons, “though he had
already several wives, asked the hand of Galsuinthe, eldest daughter of
Athanagild, king of Spain. She arrived at Soissons and was united to him
in marriage; and she received strong evidences of love, for she had
brought with her vast treasures. But his love for Fredegonde, one of the
principal women about Chilperic, occasioned fierce disputes between them.
As Galsuinthe had to complain to the king of continual insult and of not
sharing with him the dignity of his rank, she asked him in return for the
treasures which she had brought, and which she was ready to give up to
him, to send her back free to her own country. Chilperic, artfully
dissimulating, appeased her with soothing words; and then had her
strangled by a slave, and she was found dead in her bed. When he had
mourned for her death, he espoused Fredegonde after an interval of a few
days.” (Gregory of Tours, IV. xxvi., xxviii.)
Amidst such passions and such morals, treason, murder and poisoning were
the familiar processes of ambition, covetousness, hatred, vengeance, and
fear. Eight kings or royal heirs of the Merovingian line died of brutal
murder or secret assassination, to say nothing of innumerable crimes of
the same kind committed in their circle, and left unpunished, save by
similar crimes. Nevertheless, justice is due to the very worst times and
the very worst governments; and it must be recorded that, whilst sharing
in many of the vices of their age and race, especially their extreme
license of morals, three of Clovis’s successors, Theodebert, king of
Austrasia (from 534 to 548), Gontran, king of Burgundy (from 561 to 598),
and Dogobert I., who united under his own sway the whole Frankish
monarchy (from 622 to 688), were less violent, less cruel, less
iniquitous, and less grossly ignorant or blind than the majority of the
Merovingians.
“Theodebert,” says Gregory of Tours, “when confirmed in his kingdom,
showed himself full of greatness and goodness; he ruled with justice,
honoring the bishops, doing good to the churches, helping the poor, and
distributing in many directions numerous benefits with a very charitable
and very liberal hand. He generously remitted to the churches of
Auvergne all the tribute they were wont to pay into his treasury.” (III.
xxv.)
Gontran, king of Burgundy, in spite of many shocking and unprincipled
deeds, at one time of violence, at another of weakness, displayed, during
his reign of thirty-three years, an inclination towards moderation and
peace, in striking contrast with the measureless pretensions and
outrageous conduct of the other Frankish kings his contemporaries,
especially King Chilperic his brother. The treaty concluded by Gontran,
on the 38th of November, 587, at Andelot, near Langres, with his young
nephew Childebert, king of Metz, and Queen Brunehant, his mother,
contains dispositions, or, more correctly speaking, words, which breathe
a sincere but timid desire to render justice to all, to put an end to the
vindictive or retrospective quarrels and spoliations which were
incessantly harassing the Gallo-Frankish community, and to build up peace
between the two kings on the foundation of mutual respect for the rights
of their lieges. “It is established,” says this treaty, “that whatsoever
the kings have given to the churches or to their lieges, or with God’s
help shall hereafter will to give to them lawfully, shall be irrevocable
acquired; as also that none of the lieges, in one kingdom or the other,
shall have to suffer damage in respect of whatsoever belongeth to him,
either by law or by virtue of a decree, but shall be permitted to recover
and possess things due to him. . . . And as the aforesaid kings have
allied themselves, in the name of God, by a pure and sincere affection,
it hath been agreed that at no time shall passage through one kingdom be
refused to the Leudes (lieges–great vassals) of the other kingdom who
shall desire to traverse them on public or private affairs. It is
likewise agreed that neither of the two kings shall solicit the Leudes of
the other or receive them if they offer themselves; and if, peradventure,
any of these Leudes shall think it necessary, in consequence of some
fault, to take refuge with the other king, he shall be absolved according
to the nature of his fault and given back. It hath seemed good also to
add to the present treaty that whichever, if either, of the parties
happen to violate it, under any pretext and at any time whatsoever, it
shall lose all advantages, present or prospective, therefrom; and they
shall be for the profit of that party which shall have faithfully
observed the aforesaid conventions, and which shall be relieved in all
points from the obligations of its oath.” (Gregory of Tours, IX. xx.)
It may be doubted whether between Gontran and Childebert the promises in
the treaty were always scrupulously fulfilled; but they have a stamp of
serious and sincere intention foreign to the habitual relations between
the other Merovingian kings.
Mention was but just now made of two women–two queens–Fredegonde and
Brunehaut, who, at the Merovingian epoch, played important parts in the
history of the country. They were of very different origin and
condition; and, after fortunes which were for a long while analogous,
they ended very differently. Fredegonde was the daughter of poor
peasants in the neighborhood of Montdidier in Picardy, and at an early
age joined the train of Queen Audovere, the first wife of King Chilperic.
She was beautiful, dexterous, ambitious, and bold; and she attracted the
attention, and before long awakened the passion of the king. She pursued
with ardor and without scruple her unexpected fortune. Queen Audovere
was her first obstacle and her first victim; and on the pretext of a
spiritual relationship which rendered her marriage with Chilperic
illegal, was repudiated and banished to a convent. But Fredegonde’s hour
had not yet come; for Chilperic espoused Galsuinthe, daughter of the
Visigothic king, Athanagild, whose youngest daughter, Brunehaut, had just
married Chilperic’s brother, Sigebert, king of Austrasia. It has already
been said that before long Galsuinthe was found strangled in her bed, and
that Chilperic espoused Fredegonde. An undying hatred from that time
arose between her and Brunehaut, who had to avenge her sister. A war,
incessantly renewed, between the kings of Austrasia and Neustria
followed. Sigebert succeeded in beating Chilperic, but, in 575, in the
midst of his victory, he was suddenly assassinated in his tent by two
emissaries of Fredegonde. His army disbanded; and his widow, Brunehaut,
fell into the hands of Chilperic. The right of asylum belonging to the
cathedral of Paris saved her life, but she was sent away to Rouen.
There, at this very time, on a mission from his father, happened to be
Merovee, son of Chilperic, and the repudiated Queen Audovere; he saw
Brunehaut in her beauty, her attractiveness and her trouble; he was
smitten with her and married her privately, and Praetextatus, bishop of
Rouen, had the imprudent courage to seal their union. Fredegonde seized
with avidity upon this occasion for persecuting her rival and destroying
her step-son, heir to the throne of Chilperic. The Austrasians, who had
preserved the child Childebert, son of their murdered king, demanded back
with threats their queen Brunehaut. She was surrendered to them; but
Fredegonde did not let go her other prey, Merovice. First imprisoned,
then shorn and shut up in a monastery, afterwards a fugitive and secretly
urged on to attempt a rising against his father, he was so affrightened
at his perils, that he got a faithful servant to strike him dead, that he
might not fall into the hands of his hostile step-mother. Chilperic had
remaining another son, Clovis, issue, as Merovee was, of Queen Audovere.
He was accused of having caused by his sorceries the death of the three
children lost about this time by Fredegonde; and was, in his turn,
imprisoned and before long poniarded. His mother Audovere was strangled
in her convent. Fredegonde sought in these deaths, advantageous for her
own children, some sort of horrible consolation for her sorrows as a
mother. But the sum of crimes was not yet complete. In 584 King
Chilperic, on returning from the chase and in the act of dismounting, was
struck two mortal blows by a man who took to rapid flight, and a cry was
raised all around of “Treason! ’tis the hand of the Austrasian Childebert
against our lord the king!” The care taken to have the cry raised was
proof of its falsity; it was the hand of Fredegonde herself, anxious lest
Chilperic should discover the guilty connection existing between her and
an officer of her household, Landry, who became subsequently mayor of the
palace of Neustria. Chilperic left a son, a few months old, named.
Clotaire, of whom his mother Fredegonde became the sovereign guardian.
She employed, at one time in defending him against his enemies, at
another in endangering him by her plots, her hatreds and her assaults,
the last thirteen years of her life. She was a true type of the
strong-willed, artful, and perverse woman in barbarous times; she started
low down in the scale and rose very high without a corresponding
elevation of soul; she was audacious and perfidious, as perfect in
deception as in effrontery, proceeding to atrocities either from cool
calculation or a spirit of revenge, abandoned to all kinds of passion,
and, for gratification of them, shrinking from no sort of crime.
However, she died quietly at Paris, in 597 or 598, powerful and dreaded,
and leaving on the throne of Neustria her son Clotaire II., who, fifteen
years later, was to become sole king of all the Frankish dominions.
Brunehaut had no occasion for crimes to become a queen, and, in spite of
those she committed, and in spite of her out-bursts and the moral
irregularities of her long life, she bore, amidst her passion and her
power, a stamp of courageous frankness and intellectual greatness which
places her far above the savage who was her rival. Fredegonde was an
upstart, of barbaric race and habits, a stranger to every idea and every
design not connected with her own personal interest and successes; and
she was as brutally selfish in the case of her natural passions as in the
exercise of a power acquired and maintained by a mixture of artifice and
violence. Brunehaut was a princess of that race of Gothic kings who, in
Southern Gaul and in Spain, had understood and admired the Roman
civilization, and had striven to transfer the remains of it to the
newly-formed fabric of their own dominions. She, transplanted to a home
amongst the Franks of Austrasia, the least Roman of all the barbarians,
preserved there the ideas and tastes of the Visigoths of Spain, who had
become almost Gallo-Romans; she clung stoutly to the efficacious exercise
of the royal authority; she took a practical interest in the public
works, highways, bridges, monuments, and the progress of material
civilization; the Roman roads in a short time received and for a long
while kept in Anstrasia the name of Brunehaut’s causeways; there used to
he shown, in a forest near Bourges, Brunehaut’s castle, Brunehaut’s tower
at Etampes, Brunehaut’s stone near Tournay, and Brunehaut’s fort near
Cahors. In the royal domains and wheresoever she went she showed
abundant charity to the poor, and many ages after her death the people of
those districts still spoke of Brunehaut’s alms. She liked and protected
men of letters, rare and mediocre indeed at that time, but the only
beings, such as they were, with a notion of seeking and giving any kind
of intellectual enjoyment; and they in turn took pleasure in celebrating
her name and her deserts. The most renowned of all during that age,
Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, dedicated nearly all his little poems to
two queens; one, Brunehaut, plunging amidst all the struggles and
pleasures of the world, the other St. Radegonde, sometime wife of
Clotaire I., who had fled in all haste from a throne, to bury herself at
Poitiers, in the convent she had founded there. To compensate, Brunehaut
was detested by the majority of the Austrasian chiefs, those Leudes,
landowners and warriors, whose sturdy and turbulent independence she was
continually fighting against. She supported against them, with
indomitable courage, the royal officers, the servants of the palace, her
agents, and frequently her favorites. One of these, Lupus, a Roman by
origin, and Duke of Champagne, “was being constantly insulted and
plundered by his enemies, especially by Ursion Bertfried. At last, they,
having agreed to slay him, marched against him with an army. At the
sight, Brunehaut, compassionating the evil case of one of her lieges
unjustly persecuted, assumed quite a manly courage, and threw herself
amongst the hostile battalions, crying, “‘Stay, warriors; refrain from
this wicked deed; persecute not the innocent; engage not, for a single
man’s sake, in a battle which will desolate the country!’ ‘Back, woman,’
said Ursion to her; ‘let it suffice thee to have ruled under thy
husband’s sway; now ’tis thy son who reigns, and his kingdom is under our
protection, not thine. Back! if thou wouldest not that the hoofs of our
horses trample thee under as the dust of the ground!’ After the dispute
had lasted some time in this strain, the queen, by her address, at last
prevented the battle from taking place.” (Gregory of Tours, VI. iv.) It
was but a momentary success for Brunehaut; and the last words of Ursion
contained a sad presage of the death awaiting her. Intoxicated with
power, pride, hate, and revenge, she entered more violently every day
into strife not only with the Austrasian laic chieftains, but with some
of the principal bishops of Austrasia and Burgundy, among the rest with
St. Didier, bishop of Vienne, who, at her instigation, was brutally
murdered, and with the great Irish missionary St. Columba, who would not
sanction by his blessing the fruits of the royal irregularities. In 614,
after thirty-nine years of wars, plots, murders, and political and
personal vicissitudes, from the death of her husband Sigebert I., and
under the reigns of her son Theodebert, and her grandsons Theodebert II.
and Thierry II., Queen Brunehaut, at the age of eighty years, fell into
the hands of her mortal enemy, Clotaire II., son of Fredegonde, now sole
king of the Franks. After having grossly insulted her, he had her
paraded, seated on a camel, in front of his whole army, and then ordered
her to be tied by the hair, one foot, and one arm to the tail of an
unbroken horse, that carried her away, and dashed her in pieces as he
galloped and kicked, beneath the eyes of the ferocious spectators.
[Illustration: The Execution of Brunehaut----175]
After the execution of Brunehaut and the death of Clotaire II., the
history of the Franks becomes a little less dark and less bloody. Not
that murders and great irregularities, in the court and amongst the
people, disappear altogether. Dagobert I., for instance, the successor
of Clotaire II., and grandson of Chilperic and Fredegonde, had no
scruple, under the pressure of self-interest, in committing an iniquitous
and barbarous act. After having consented to leave to his younger
brother Charibert the kingdom of Aquitania, he retook it by force in 631,
at the death of Charibert, seizing at the same time his treasures, and
causing or permitting to be murdered his young nephew Chilperic, rightful
heir of his father. About the same time Dagobert had assigned amongst
the Bavarians, subjects of his beyond the Rhine, an asylum to nine
thousand Bulgarians, who had been driven with their wives and children
from Pannonia. Not knowing, afterwards, where to put or how to feed
these refugees, he ordered them all to be massacred in one night; and
scarcely seven hundred of them succeeded in escaping by flight. The
private morals of Dagobert were not more scrupulous than his public acts.
“A slave to incontinence as King Solomon was,” says his biographer
Fredegaire, “he had three queens and a host of concubines.” Given up to
extravagance and pomp, it pleased him to imitate the magnificence of the
imperial court at Constantinople, and at one time he laid hands for that
purpose, upon the possessions of certain of his “leudes” or of certain
churches; at another he gave to his favorite church, the Abbey of St.
Denis, “so many precious stones, articles of value, and domains in
various places, that all the world,” says Fredegaire, “was stricken with
admiration.” But, despite of these excesses and scandals, Dagobert was
the most wisely energetic, the least cruel in feeling, the most prudent
in enterprise, and the most capable of governing with some little
regularity and effectiveness, of all the kings furnished, since Clovis,
by the Merovingian race. He had, on ascending the throne, this immense
advantage, that the three Frankish dominions, Austrasia, Neustria, and
Burgundy were re-united under his sway; and at the death of his brother
Charibert, he added thereto Aquitania. The unity of the vast Frankish
monarchy was thus re-established, and Dagobert retained it by his
moderation at home and abroad. He was brave, and he made war on
occasion; but, he did not permit himself to be dragged into it either by
his own passions or by the unlimited taste of his lieges for adventure
and plunder. He found, on this point, salutary warnings in the history
of his predecessors. It was very often the Franks themselves, the royal
“leudes,” who plunged their kings into civil or foreign wars. In 530,
two sons of Clovis, Childebert and Clotaire, arranged to attack Burgundy
and its king Godomar. They asked aid of their brother Theodoric, who
refused to join them. However, the Franks who formed his party said, “If
thou refuse to march into Burgundy with thy brethren, we give thee up,
and prefer to follow them.” But Theodoric, considering that the
Arvernians had been faithless to him, said to the Franks, “Follow me, and
I will lead you into a country where ye shall seize of gold and silver as
much as ye can desire, and whence ye shall take away flocks and slaves
and vestments in abundance!” The Franks, overcome by these words,
promised to do whatsoever he should desire. So Theodoric entered
Auvergne with his army, and wrought devastation and ruin in the province.
“In 555, Clotaire I. had made an expedition against the Saxons, who
demanded peace; but the Frankish warriors would not hear of it. ‘Cease,
I pray you,’ said Clotaire to them, ‘to be evil-minded against these men;
they speak us fair; let us not go and attack them, for fear we bring down
upon us the anger of God.’ But the Franks would not listen to him. The
Saxons again came with offerings of vestments, flocks, even all their
possessions, saying, ‘Take all this, together with half our country;
leave us but our wives and little children; only let there be no war
between us.’ But the Franks again refused all terms. ‘Hold, I adjure
you,’ said Clotaire again to them; ‘we have not right on our side; if ye
be thoroughly minded to enter upon a war in which ye may find your loss,
as for me, I will not follow ye.’ Then the Franks, enraged against
Clotaire, threw themselves upon him, tore his tent to pieces as they
heaped reproaches upon him, and bore him away by force, determined to
kill him if he hesitated to march with them. So Clotaire, in spite of
himself, departed with them. But when they joined battle they were cut
to pieces by their adversaries, and on both sides so many fell that it
was impossible to estimate or count the number of the dead. Then
Clotaire with shame demanded peace of the Saxons, saying that it was not
of his own will that he had attacked them; and, having obtained it,
returned to his own dominions.” (Gregory of Tours, III. xi., xii.; IV.
xiv.)
King Dagobert was not thus under the yoke of his “leudes.” Either by his
own energy, or by surrounding himself with wise and influential
counsellors, such as Pepin of Landen, mayor of the palace of Austrasia,
St. Arnoul, bishop of Metz, St. Eligius, bishop of Noyon, and St.
Andoenus, bishop of Rouen, he applied himself to and succeeded in
assuring to himself, in the exercise of his power, a pretty large measure
of independence and popularity. At the beginning of his reign he held,
in Austrasia and Burgundy, a sort of administrative and judicial
inspection, halting at the principal towns, listening to complaints, and
checking, sometimes with a rigor arbitrary indeed, but approved of by the
people, the violence and irregularities of the grandees. At Langres,
Dijon, St. Jean-de, Losne, Chalons-sur-Saline, Auxerre, Autun, and Sens,
“he rendered justice,” says Fredegaire, “to rich and poor alike, without
any charges, and without any respect of persons, taking little sleep and
little food, caring only so to act that all should withdraw from his
presence full of joy and admiration.” Nor did he confine himself to this
unceremonious exercise of the royal authority. Some of his predecessors,
and amongst them Childebert I., Clotaire I., and Clotaire II., had caused
to be drawn up, in Latin and by scholars, digests more or less complete
of the laws and customs handed down by tradition, amongst certain of the
Germanic peoples established on Roman soil, notably the laws of the
Salian Franks and Ripuarian Franks; and Dagobert ordered a continuation
of these first legislative labors amongst the newborn nations. It was,
apparently, in his reign that a digest was made of the laws of the
Allemannians and Bavarians. He had also some taste for the arts, and the
pious talents displayed by Saints Eloi and Ouen in goldsmith’s-work and
sculpture, applied to the service of religion or the decoration of
churches, received from him the support of the royal favor and
munificence. Dagobert was neither a great warrior nor a great
legislator, and there is nothing to make him recognized as a great mind
or a great character. His private life, too, was scandalous; and
extortions were a sad feature of its close. Nevertheless his authority
was maintained in his dominions, his reputation spread far and wide, and
the name of great King Dagobert was his abiding title in the memory of
the people. Taken all in all, he was, next to Clovis, the most
distinguished of Frankish kings, and the last really king in the line of
the Merovingians. After him, from 638 to 732, twelve princes of this
line, one named Sigebert, two Clovis, two Childeric, one Clotaire, two
Dagobert, one Childebert, one Chilperic, and two Throdoric or Thierry,
bore, in Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy, or in the three kingdoms
united, the title of king, without deserving in history more than room
for their names. There was already heard the rumbling of great events to
come around the Frankish dominion; and in the very womb of this dominion
was being formed a new race of kings more able to bear, in accordance
with the spirit and wants of their times, the burden of power.
CHAPTER IX.—-THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE.–THE PEPINS AND THE CHANGE OF
DYNASTY.
There is a certain amount of sound sense, of intelligent activity and
practical efficiency, which even the least civilized and least exacting
communities absolutely must look for in their governing body. When this
necessary share of ability and influence of a political kind are
decidedly wanting in the men who have the titles and the official posts
of power, communities seek elsewhere the qualities (and their
consequences) which they cannot do without. The sluggard Merovingians
drove the Franks, Neustrians, and Austrasians to this imperative
necessity. The last of the kings sprung from Clovis acquitted themselves
too ill or not at all of their task; and the mayors of the palace were
naturally summoned to supply their deficiencies, and to give the
populations assurance of more intelligence and energy in the exercise of
power. The origin and primitive character of these supplements of
royalty were different according to circumstances; at one time,
conformably with their title, the mayors of the palace really came into
existence in the palace of the Frankish kings, amongst the “leudes,”
charged, under the style of antrustions (lieges in the confidence of the
king: in truste regia), with the internal management of the royal affairs
and household, or amongst the superior chiefs of the army; at another, on
the contrary, it was to resist the violence and usurpation of the kings
that the “leudes,” landholders or warriors, themselves chose a chief able
to defend their interests and their rights against the royal tyranny or
incapacity. Thus we meet, at this time, with mayors of the palace of
very different political origin and intention, some appointed by the
kings to support royalty against the “leudes,” others chosen by the
“leudes” against the kings. It was especially between the Neustrian and
Austrasian mayors of the palace that this difference became striking.
Gallo-Roman feeling was more prevalent in Neustria, Germanic in
Austrasia. The majority of the Neustrian mayors supported the interests
of royalty, the Austrasian those of the aristocracy of landholders and
warriors. The last years of the Merovingian line were full of their
struggles; but a cause far more general and more powerful than these
differences and conflicts in the very heart of the Frankish dominions
determined the definitive fall of that line and the accession of another
dynasty. When in 687 the battle fought at Testry, on the banks of the
Somme, left Pepin of Heristal, duke and mayor of the palace of Austrasia,
victorious over Bertaire, mayor of the palace of Neustria, it was a
question of something very different from mere rivalry between the two
Frankish dominions and their chiefs.
At their entrance and settlement upon the left bank of the Rhine and in
Gaul, the Franks had not abandoned the right bank and Germany; there also
they remained settled and incessantly at strife with their neighbors of
Germanic race, Thuringians, Bavarians, the confederation of Allemannians,
Frisons, and Saxons, people frequently vanquished and subdued to all
appearance, but always ready to rise either for the recovery of their
independence, or, again, under the pressure of that grand movement which,
in the third century, had determined the general invasion by the
barbarians of the Roman empire. After the defeat of the Huns at Chalons,
and the founding of the Visigothic, Burgundian, and Frankish kingdoms in
Gaul, that movement had been, if not arrested, at any rate modified, and
for the moment suspended. In the sixth century it received a fresh
impulse; new nations, Avars, Tartars, Bulgarians, Slavons, and Lombards
thrust one another with mutual pressure from Asia into Europe, from
Eastern Europe into Western; from the North to the South, into Italy and
into Gaul. Driven by the Ouigour Tartars from Pannonia and Noricum
(nowadays Austria), the Lombards threw themselves first upon Italy,
crossed before long the Alps, and penetrated into Burgundy and Provence,
to the very gates of Avignon. On the Rhine and along the Jura the Franks
had to struggle on their own account against the new comers; and they
were, further, summoned into Italy by the Emperors of the East, who
wanted their aid against the Lombards. Everywhere resistance to the
invasion of barbarians became the national attitude of the Franks, and
they proudly proclaimed themselves the defenders of that West of which
they had but lately been the conquerors.
When the Merovingians were indisputably nothing but sluggard kings, and
when Ebroin, the last great mayor of the palace of Neustria, had been
assassinated (in 681), and the army of the Neustrians destroyed at the
battle of Testry (in 687), the ascendency in the heart of the whole of
Frankish Gaul passed to the Franks of Austrasia, already bound by their
geographical position to the defence of their nation in its new
settlement. There had risen up among them a family, powerful from its
vast domains, from its military and political services, and already also
from the prestige belonging to the hereditary transmission of name and
power. Its first chief known in history had been Pepin of Landen, called
The Ancient, one of the foes of Queen Brunehaut, who was so hateful to
the Austrasians, and afterwards one of the privy councillors and mayor of
the palace of Austrasia, under Dagobert I. and his son Sigebert II. He
died in 639, leaving to his family an influence already extensive. His
son Grimoald succeeded him as mayor of the palace, ingloriously; but his
grandson, by his daughter Bega, Pepin of Heristal, was for twenty-seven
years not only virtually, as mayor of the palace, but ostensibly and with
the title of duke, the real sovereign of Austrasia and all the Frankish
dominion. He did not, however, take the name of king; and four
descendants of Clovis, Thierry III., Clovis III., Childebert III., and
Dagobert III. continued to bear that title in Neustria and Burgundy,
under the preponderating influence of Pepin of Heristal. He did, during
his long sway, three things of importance. He struggled without
cessation to keep or bring back under the rule of the Franks the Germanic
nations on the right bank of the Rhine,–Frisons, Saxons, Thuringians,
Bavarians, and Allemannians; and thus to make the Frankish dominion a
bulwark against the new flood of barbarians who were pressing one another
westwards.
He rekindled in Austrasia the national spirit and some political life by
beginning again the old March parades of the Franks, which had fallen
into desuetude under the last Merovingians. Lastly, and this was,
perhaps, his most original merit, he understood of what importance, for
the Frankish kingdom, was the conversion to Christianity of the Germanic
peoples over the Rhine, and he abetted with all his might the zeal of the
popes and missionaries, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and Gallo-Roman, devoted to
this great work. The two apostles of Friesland, St. Willfried and St.
Willibrod, especially the latter, had intimate relations with Pepin of
Heristal, and received from him effectual support. More than twenty
bishoprics, amongst others those of Utrecht, Mayence, Ratisbonne, Worms,
and Spire, were founded at this epoch; and one of those ardent pioneers
of Christian civilization, the Irish bishop, St. Lievin, martyred in 656
near Ghent, of which he has remained the patron saint, wrote in verse to
his friend Herbert, a little before his martyrdom, “I have seen a sun
without rays, days without light, and nights without repose. Around me
rageth a people impious and clamorous for my blood. O people, what harm
have I done thee? ‘Tis peace that I bring thee; wherefore declare war
against me? But thy barbarism will bring my triumph and give me the palm
of martyrdom. I know in whom I trust, and my hope shall not be
confounded. Whilst I am pouring forth these verses, there cometh unto me
the tired driver of the ass that beareth me the usual provisions: he
bringeth that which maketh the delights of the country, even milk and
butter and eggs; the cheeses stretch the wicker-work of the far too
narrow panniers. Why tarriest thou, good carrier? Quicken thy step;
collect thy riches, thou that this morning art so poor. As for me I am
no longer what I was, and have lost the gift of joyous verse. How could
it be other-wise when I am witness of such cruelties?”
It were difficult to describe with more pious, graceful, and melancholy
feeling a holier and a simpler life.
After so many firm and glorious acts of authority abroad, Pepin of
Heristal at his death, December 16, 714, did a deed of weakness at home.
He had two wives, Plectrude and Alpaide; he had repudiated the former to
espouse the latter, and the church, considering the second marriage
unlawful, had constantly urged him to take back Plectrude. He had by her
a son, Grimoald, who was assassinated on his way to join his father lying
ill near Liege. This son left a child, Theodoald, only six years old.
This child it was whom Pepin, either from a grandfather’s blind fondness,
or through the influence of his wife Plectrude, appointed to succeed him,
to the detriment of his two sons by Alpaide, Charles and Childebrand.
Charles, at that time twenty-five years of age, had already a name for
capacity and valor. On the death of Pepin, his widow Plectrude lost no
time in arresting and imprisoning at Cologne this son of her rival
Alpaide; but, some months afterwards, in 715, the Austrasians, having
risen against Plectrude, took Charles out of prison and set him at their
head, proclaiming him Duke of Austrasia. He was destined to become
Charles Martel.
He first of all took care to extend and secure his own authority over all
the Franks. At the death of Pepin of Heristal, the Neustrians, vexed at
the long domination of the Austrasians, had taken one of themselves,
Ragenfried, as mayor of the palace, and had placed at his side a
Merovingian sluggard king, Chilperic II., whom they had dragged from a
monastery. Charles, at the head of the Austrasians, twice succeeded in
beating, first near Cambrai and then near Soissons, the Neustrian king
and mayor of the palace, pursued them to Paris, returned to Cologne, got
himself accepted by his old enemy Queen Plectrude, and remaining
temperate amidst the triumph of his ambition, he, too, took from amongst
the surviving Merovingians a sluggard king, whom he installed under the
name of Clotaire IV., himself becoming, with the simple title of Duke of
Austrasia, master of the Frankish dominion.
Being in tranquillity on the left bank of the Rhine, Charles directed
towards the right bank–towards the Frisons and the Saxons–his attention
and his efforts. After having experienced, in a first encounter, a
somewhat severe check, he took, from 715 to 718, ample revenge upon them,
repressed their attempts at invasion of Frankish territory, and pursued
them on their own, imposed tribute upon them, and commenced with vigor,
against the Saxons in particular, that struggle, at first defensive and
afterwards aggressive, which was to hold so prominent a place in the life
and glorious but blood-stained annals of his grandson Charlemagne.
In the war against the Neustrians, at the battle of Soissons in 719,
Charles had encountered in their ranks Eudes or Eudon, Duke of Aquitania
and Vasconia, that beautiful portion of Southern Gaul situated between
the Pyrenees, the Ocean, the Garonne, and the Rhone, who had been for a
long time trying to shake off the dominion of the barbarians, Visigoths
or Franks. At the death of Pepin of Heristal, the Neustrians had drawn
into alliance with them, for their war against the Austrasians, this Duke
Elides, to whom they gave, as it appears, the title of king. After their
common defeat at Soissons, the Aquitanian prince withdrew precipitately
into his own country, taking with him the sluggard king of the
Neustrians, Chilperic II. Charles pursued him to the Loire, and sent
word to him, a few months afterwards, that he would enter into friendship
with him if he would deliver up Chilperic and his treasures; otherwise he
would invade and ravage Aquitania. Eudes delivered up Chilperic and his
treasures; and Charles, satisfied with having in his power this
Merovingian phantom, treated him generously, kept up his royal rank, and
at his death, which happened soon afterwards, replaced him by another
phantom of the same line, Theodoric or Thierry IV.; whom he dragged from
the abbey of Chelles, founded by Queen St. Bathilde, wife of Clovis II.,
and who for seventeen years bore the title of king, whilst Charles Martel
was ruling gloriously, and was, perhaps, the savior of the Frankish
dominions. When he contracted his alliance with the Duke of Aquitania,
Charles Martel did not know against what enemies and perils he would soon
have to struggle.
In the earlier years of the eighth century, less than a hundred years
from the death of Mahomet, the Mussulman Arabs, after having conquered
Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Northern Africa, had passed into Europe,
invaded Spain, overthrown the kingdom of the Visigoths, driven back the
remnants of the nation and their chief, Pelagius, to the north of the
Peninsula, into the Asturias and Galicia, and pushed even beyond the
Pyrenees, into old Narbonness, then called Septimania, their limitless
incursions. These fiery conquerors did not amount at that time,
according to the most probable estimates, to more than fifty thousand;
but they were under the influence of religious and warlike enthusiasm at
one and the same time; they were fanatics in the cause of Deism and of
glory. “The Arab warrior during campaigns was not excused from any one
of the essential duties of Islamism; he was bound to pray at least once a
day, on rising in the morning, at the blush of dawn. The general of the
army was its priest; he it was who, at the head of the ranks, gave the
signal for prayer, uttered the words, reminded the troops of the precepts
of the Koran, and enjoined upon them forgetfulness of personal quarrels.”
One day, on the point of engaging in a decisive battle, Moussaben-
Nossair, first governor of Mussulman Africa, was praying, according to
usage, at the head of the troops; and he omitted the invocation of the
name of the Khalif, a respectful formality indispensable on the occasion.
One of his officers, persuaded that it was a mere slip on Moussa’s part,
made a point of admonishing him. “Know thou,” said Moussa, “that we are
in such a position and at such an hour that no other name must be invoked
save that of the most high God.” Moussa was, apparently, the first Arab
chief to cross the Pyrenees and march, plundering as he went, into
Narbonness. The Arabs had but very confused ideas of Gaul; they called
it _Frandjas,_ and gave to all its inhabitants, without distinction, the
name of Frandj. The Khalif Abdelmelek, having recalled Moussa,
questioned him about the different peoples with which he had been
concerned. “And of these Frandj,” said he, “what hast thou to tell me?”
“They are a people,” answered Moussa, “very many in number and abundantly
provided with everything, brave and impetuous in attack, but spiritless
and timid under reverses.” “And how went the war betwixt them and thee?”
added Abdelmelek: “was it favorable to thee or the contrary?” “The
contrary! Nay, by Allah and the Prophet; never was my army vanquished;
never was a battalion beaten; and never did the Mussulmans hesitate to
follow me when I led them forty against fourscore.” (Fauriel, _Histoire
de la Gaule,_ &c., t. III., pp. 48, 67.)
In 719, under El-Idaur-ben-Abdel-Rhaman, a valiant and able leader, say
the Arab writers, but greedy, harsh, and cruel, the Arabs pursued their
incursions into Southern Gaul, took Narbonne, dispersed the inhabitants,
spread themselves abroad in search of plunder as far as the borders of
the Garonne, and went and laid siege to Toulouse. Eudes, Duke of
Aquitania, happened to be at Bordeaux, and he hastily summoned all the
forces of his towns and all the populations from the Pyrenees to the
Loire, and hurried to the relief of his capital. The Arabs, commanded
by a new chieftain, El-Samah, more popular amongst them than El-Haur,
awaited him beneath the walls of the city determined to give him battle.
“Have ye no fear of this multitude,” said El-Samah to his warriors; “if
God be with us, who shall be against us? “Elides had taken equally great
pains to kindle the pious courage of the Aquitanians; he spread amongst
his troops a rumor that he had but lately received as a present from Pope
Gregory II. three sponges that had served to wipe down the table at which
the sovereign pontiffs were accustomed to celebrate the communion; he had
them cut into little strips which he had distributed to all those of the
combatants who wished for them, and thereupon gave the sword to sound the
charge. The victory of the Aquitanians was complete; the Arab army was
cut in pieces; El-Samah was slain, and with him, according to the
victors’ accounts, full three hundred and seventy-five thousand of his
troops. The most truth-like testimonies and calculations do not put down
at more than from fifty to seventy thousand men, in fighting trim, the
number of Arabs that entered Spain eight or ten years previously, even
with the additions it must have received by means of the emigrations from
Africa; and undoubtedly El-Samah could not have led into Aquitania more
than from forty to forty-five thousand. However that may be, the defeat
of the Arabs before Toulouse was so serious that, four or five centuries
afterwards, Ibn-Hayan, the best of their historians, still spoke of it as
the object of solemn commemoration, and affirmed that the Arab army had
entirely perished there, without the escape of a single man. The spot in
the Roman road, between Carcassonne and Toulouse, where the battle was
fought, was one heap of dead bodies, and continued to be mentioned in the
Arab chronicles under the name of Martyrs’ Causeway. But the Arabs of
Spain were then in that unstable social condition and in that heyday of
impulsive youthfulness as a people, when men are more apt to be excited
and attracted by the prospect of bold adventures than discouraged by
reverses. El-Samah, on crossing the Pyrenees to go plundering and
conquering in the country of the Frandj, had left as his lieutenant in
the Iberian peninsula Anbessa-ben-Sohim, one of the most able, most
pious, most just, and most humane chieftains, say the Arab chronicles,
that Islamism ever produced in Europe. He, being informed of El-Samah’s
death before Toulouse, resolved to resume his enterprise and avenge his
defeat. In 725, he entered Gaul with a strong army; took Carcassonne;
reduced, either by force or by treaty, the principal towns of Septimania
to submission; and even carried the Arab arms, for the first time, beyond
the Rhone into Provence. At the news of this fresh invasion Duke Eudes
hurried from Aquitania, collecting on his march the forces of the
country, and, after having waited some time for a favorable opportunity,
gave the Arabs battle in Provence. It was indecisive at first, but
ultimately won by the Christians without other result than the retreat of
Anbessa, mortally wounded, upon the right bank of the Rhone, where he
died without having been able himself to recross the Pyrenees, but
leaving the Arabs masters of Septimania, where they established
themselves in force, taking Narbonne for capital and a starting-point
for their future enterprises.
The struggle had now begun in earnest, from the Rhone to the Garonne and
the Ocean, between the Christians of Southern Gaul and the Mussulmans of
Spain. Duke Eudes saw with profound anxiety his enemies settled in
Septimania, and ever on the point of invading and devastating Aquitania.
He had been informed that the Khalif Hashem had just appointed to the
governor-generalship of Spain Abdel-Rhaman (the Abderame of the
Christian chronicles), regarded as the most valiant of the Spanish Arabs,
and that this chieftain was making great preparations for resuming their
course of invasion. Another peril at the same time pressed heavily on
Duke Eudes: his northern neighbor, Charles, sovereign duke of the Franks,
the conqueror, beyond the Rhine, of the Frisons and Saxons, was directing
glances full of regret towards those beautiful countries of Southern
Gaul, which in former days Clovis had won from the Visigoths, and which
had been separated, little by little, from the Frankish empire. Either
justly or by way of ruse Charles accused Duke Eudes of not faithfully
observing the treaty of peace they had concluded in 720; and on this
pretext he crossed the Loire, and twice in the same year, 731, carried
fear and rapine into the possession of the Duke of Aquitania on the left
bank of that river. Eudes went, not unsuccessfully, to the rescue of
his domains; but he was soon recalled to the Pyrenees by the news he
received of the movements of Abdel-Rhaman and by the hope he had
conceived of finding, in Spain itself and under the sway of the Arabs,
an ally against their invasion of his dominions. The military command
of the Spanish frontier of the Pyrenees and of the Mussulman forces
there encamped had been intrusted to Othman-ben-Abi-Nessa, a chieftain
of renown, but no Arab, either in origin or at heart, although a
Mussulman. He belonged to the race of Berbers, whom the Romans called
Moors, a people of the north-west of Africa, conquered and subjugated by
the Arabs, but impatient under the yoke. The greater part of Abi-
Nessa’s troops were likewise Berbers and devoted to their chiefs. Abi-
Nessa, ambitious and audacious, conceived the project of seizing the
government of the Peninsula, or at the least of making himself
independent master of the districts he governed; and he entered into
negotiations with the Duke of Aquitania to secure his support. In spite
of religious differences their interests were too similar not to make an
understanding easy; and the secret alliance was soon concluded and
confirmed by a precious pledge. Duke Eudes had a daughter of rare
beauty, named Lampagie, and he gave her in marriage to Abi-Nessa, who,
say the chronicles, became desperately enamoured of her.
But whilst Eudes, trusting to this alliance, was putting himself in
motion towards the Loire to protect his possessions against a fresh
attack from the Duke of the Franks, the governor-general of Spain, Abdel-
Rhaman, informed of Abi-Nessa’s plot, was arriving with large forces at
the foot of the Pyrenees, to stamp out the rebellion. Its repression was
easy. “At the approach of Abdel-Rhaman,” say the chroniclers, “Abi-Nessa
hastened to shut himself up in Livia [the ancient capital of Cerdagne, on
the ruins of which Puycerda was built], flattering himself that he could
sustain a siege and there await succor from his father-in-law, Eudes; but
the advance-guard of Abdel-Rhaman followed him so closely and with such
ardor that it left him no leisure to make the least preparation for
defence. Abi-Nessa, had scarcely time to fly from the town and gain the
neighboring mountains with a few servants and his well-beloved Lampagie.
Already he had penetrated into an out-of-the-way and lonely pass, where
it seemed to him he ran no more risk of being discovered. He halted,
therefore, to rest himself and quench the thirst which was tormenting his
lovely companion and himself, beside a waterfall which gushed from a mass
of lofty rocks upon a piece of fresh, green turf. They were surrendering
themselves to the delightful feeling of being saved, when, all at once,
they hear a loud sound of steps and voices; they listen; they glance in
the direction of the sound, and perceive a detachment of armed men, one
of those that were out in search of them. The servants take to flight;
but Lampagie, too weary, cannot follow them, nor can Abi-Nessa abandon
Lampagie. In the twinkling of an eye they are surrounded by foes. The
chronicler Isidore of Bdja says that Abi-Nessa, in order not to fall
alive into their hands, flung himself from top to bottom of the rocks;
and an Arab historian relates that he took sword in hand, and fell
pierced with twenty lance-thrusts whilst fighting in defence of her he
loved. They cut off his head, which was forthwith carried to Abdel-
Rhaman, to whom they led away prisoner the hapless daughter of Eudes.
She was so lovely in the eyes of Abdel-Rhaman, that he thought it his
duty to send her to Damascus, to the commander of the faithful, esteeming
no other mortal worthy of her.” (Fauriel, _Historie de la Gaulle,_ &c.,
t. III., p. 115.)
Abdel-Rhaman, at ease touching the interior of Spain, reassembled the
forces he had prepared for his expedition, marched towards the Pyrenees
by Pampeluna, crossed the summit become so famous under the name of Port
de Roncevaux, and debouched by a single defile and in a single column,
say the chroniclers, upon Gallic Vasconia, greater in extent than French
Biscay now is. M. Fauriel, after scrupulous examination, according to
his custom, estimates the army of Abdel-Rhaman, whether Mussulman
adventurers flocking from all parts, or Arabs of Spain, at from
sixty-five to seventy thousand fighting men. Duke Eudes made a gallant
effort to stop his march and hurl him back towards the mountains; but
exhausted, even by certain small successes, and always forced to retire,
fight after fight, up to the approaches to Bordeaux, he crossed the
Garonne, and halted on the right bank of the river, to cover the city.
Abdel-Rhaman who had followed him closely, forced the passage of the
river, and a battle was fought, in which the Aquitanians were defeated
with immense loss. “God alone,” says Isidore of Beja, “knows the number
of those who fell.” The battle gained, Abdel-Rhaman took Bordeaux by
assault and delivered it over to his army. The plunder, to believe the
historians of the conquerors, surpassed all that had been preconceived
of the wealth of the vanquished: “The most insignificant soldier,” say
they, “had for his share plenty of topazes, jacinths, and emeralds, to
say nothing of gold, a somewhat vulgar article under the circumstances.”
What appears certain is that, at their departure from Bordeaux, the
Arabs were so laden with booty that their march became less rapid and
unimpeded than before.
In the face of this disaster, the Franks and their duke were evidently
the only support to which Eudes could have recourse; and he repaired in
all haste to Charles and invoked his aid against the common enemy, who,
after having crushed the Aquitanians, would soon attack the Franks, and
subject them in turn to ravages and outrages. Charles did not require
solicitation. He took an oath of the Duke of Aquitania to acknowledge
his sovereignty and thenceforth remain faithful to him; and then,
summoning all his warriors, Franks, Burgundians, Gallo-Romans, and
Germans from beyond the Rhine, he set himself in motion towards the
Loire. It was time. The Arabs had spread over the whole country between
the Garonne and the Loire; they had even crossed the latter river and
penetrated into Burgundy as far as Autun and Sens, ravaging the country,
the towns, and the monasteries, and massacring or dispersing the
populations. Abdel-Rhaman had heard tell of the city of Tours and its
rich abbey, the treasures whereof, it was said, surpassed those of any
other city and any other abbey in Gaul. Burning to possess it, he
recalled towards this point his scattered forces. On arriving at
Poitiers he found the gates closed and the inhabitants resolved to defend
themselves; and, after a fruitless attempt at assault, he continued his
march towards Tours. He was already beneath the walls of the place when
he learned that the Franks were rapidly advancing in vast numbers. He
fell back towards Poitiers, collecting the troops that were returning to
him from all quarters, embarrassed with the immense booty they were
dragging in their wake. He had for a moment, say the historians, an idea
of ordering his soldiers to leave or burn their booty, to keep nothing
but their arms, and think of nothing but battle: however, he did nothing
of the kind, and, to await the Franks, he fixed his camp between the
Vienne and the Clain, near Poitiers, not far from the spot where, two
hundred and twenty-five years before, Clovis had beaten the Visigoths;
or, according to others, nearer Tours, at Mire, in a plain still called
the Landes de Charlemagne.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF TOURS----193]
The Franks arrived. It was in the month of September or October, 732:
and the two armies passed a week face to face, at one time remaining in
their camps, at another deploying without attacking. It is quite certain
that neither Franks nor Arabs, neither Charles nor Abdel-Rhaman
themselves, took any such account, as we do in our day, of the importance
of the struggle in which they were on the point of engaging; it was a
struggle between East and West, South and North, Asia and Europe, the
Gospel and the Koran; and we now say, on a general consideration of
events, peoples, and ages, that the civilization of the world depended
upon it. The generations that are passing upon earth see not so far, nor
from such a height, the chances and consequences of their acts; the
Franks and Arabs, leaders and followers, did not regard themselves, now
nearly twelve centuries ago, as called upon to decide, near Poitiers,
such future question; but vaguely, instinctively they felt the grandeur
of the part they were playing, and they mutually scanned one another with
that grave curiosity which precedes a formidable encounter between
valiant warriors. At length, at the breaking of the seventh or eighth
day, Abdel-Rhaman, at the head of his cavalry, ordered a general attack;
and the Franks received it with serried ranks, astounding their enemies
by their tall stature, stout armor, and their stern immobility. “They
stood there,” says Isidore of Beja, “like solid walls or icebergs.”
During the fight, a body of Franks penetrated into the enemy’s camp,
either for pillage or to take the Arabs in the rear. The horsemen of
Abdel-Rhaman at once left the general attack, and turned back to defend
their camp or the booty deposited there. Disorder set in amongst them,
and, before long, throughout their whole army; and the battle became a
confused melley, wherein the lofty stature and stout armor of the Franks
had the advantage. A great number of Arabs and Abdel-Rhaman himself were
slain. At the approach of night both armies retired to their camps. The
next day, at dawn, the Franks moved out of theirs, to renew the
engagement. In front of them was no stir, no noise, no Arabs out of
their tents and reassembling in their ranks. Some Franks were sent to
reconnoitre, entered the enemy’s camp, and penetrated into their tents;
but they were deserted. “The Arabs had decamped silently in the night,
leaving the bulk of their booty, and by this precipitate retreat
acknowledging a more severe defeat than they had really sustained in the
fight.”
[Illustration: "The Arabs had decamped silently in the night."----195]
Foreseeing the effect which would be produced by their reverse in the
country they had but lately traversed as conquerors, they halted nowhere,
but hastened to reenter Septimania and their stronghold Narbonne, where
they might await reenforcements from Spain. Duke Eudes, on his side,
after having, as vassal, taken the oath of allegiance to Charles, who
will be henceforth called Charles Martel (Hammer), that glorious name
which he won by the great blow he dealt the Arabs, reentered his
dominions of Aquitania and Vasconia, and applied himself to the
reestablishment there of security and of his own power. As for Charles
Martel, indefatigable alike after and before victory, he did not consider
his work in Southern Gaul as accomplished. He wished to recover and
reconstitute in its entirety the Frankish dominion; and he at once
proceeded to reunite to it Provence and the portions of the old kingdom
of Burgundy situated between the Alps and the Rhone, starting from Lyons.
His first campaign with this object, in 733, was successful; he retook
Lyons, Vienne, and Valence, without any stoppage up to the Durance, and
charged chosen “leudes” to govern these provinces with a view especially
to the repression of attempts at independence at home and incursions on
the part of the Arabs abroad. And it was not long before these two
perils showed head. The government of Charles Martel’s “leudes” was hard
to bear for populations accustomed for some time past to have their own
way, and for their local chieftains thus stripped of their influence.
Maurontius, patrician of Arles, was the most powerful and daring of these
chieftains; and he had at heart the independence of his country and his
own power far more than Frankish grandeur. Caring little, no doubt, for
the interests of religion, he entered into negotiations with Youssouf-
ben-Abdel-Rhaman, governor of Narbonne, and summoned the Mussulmans into
Provence. Youssouf lost no time in responding to the summons; and, from
734 to 736, the Arabs conquered and were in military occupation of the
left bank of the Rhone from Arles to Lyons. But in 737 Charles Martel
returned, reentered Lyons and Avignon, and, crossing the Rhone, marched
rapidly on Narbonne, to drive the Arabs from Septimania. He succeeded in
beating them within sight of their capital; but, after a few attempts at
assault, not being able to become master of it, he returned to Provence,
laying waste on his march several towns of Septimania, Agde, Maguelonne,
and Nimes, where he tried, but in vain, to destroy the famous Roman
arenas by fire, as one blows up an enemy’s fortress. A rising of the
Saxons recalled him to Northern Gaul; and scarcely had he set out from
Provence, when national insurrection and Arab invasion recommenced.
Charles Martel waited patiently as long as the Saxons resisted; but as
soon as he was at liberty on their score, in 739, he collected a strong
army, made a third campaign along the Rhone, retook Avignon, crossed the
Durance, pushed on as far as the sea, took Marseilles, and then Arles,
and drove the Arabs definitively from Provence. Some Mussulman bands
attempted to establish themselves about St. Tropez, on the rugged heights
and among the forests of the Alps; but Charles Martel carried his pursuit
even into those wild retreats, and all Southern Gaul, on the left bank of
the Rhone, was incorporated in the Frankish dominion, which will be
henceforth called France.
The ordinary revenues of Charles Martel clearly could not suffice for so
many expeditions and wars. He was obliged to attract or retain by rich
presents, particularly by gifts of lands, the warriors, old and new
“leudes,” who formed his strength. He therefore laid hands on a great
number of the domains of the Church, and gave them, with the title of
benefices, in temporary holding, often converted into proprietorship,
and under the style of precarious tenure, to the chiefs in his service.
There was nothing new in this: the Merovingian kings and the mayors of
the palace had more than once thus made free with ecclesiastical
property; but Charles Martel carried this practice much farther than his
predecessors had. He did more: he sometimes gave his warriors
ecclesiastical offices and dignities. His liege Milo received from him
the archbishoprics of Rheims and Troves; and his nephew Hugh those of
Paris, Rouen, and Bayeux, with the abbeys of Fontenelle and Jumieges.
The Church protested with all her might against such violations of her
mission and her interest, her duties and her rights. She was so
specially set against Charles Martel that, more than a century after his
death, in 858, the bishops of France, addressing themselves to Louis the
Germanic on this subject, wrote to him, “St. Eucherius, bishop of
Orleans, who now reposeth in the monastery of St. Trudon, being at
prayer, was transported into the realms of eternity; and there, amongst
other things which the Lord did show unto him, he saw Prince Charles
delivered over to the torments of the damned in the lowest regions of
hell. And St. Eucherius demanding of the angel, his guide, what was the
reason thereof, the angel answered that it was by sentence of the saints
whom he had robbed of their possessions, and who, at the day of the last
judgment, will sit with God to judge the world.”
Whilst thus making use, at the expense of the Church, and for political
interests, of material force, Charles Martel was far from
misunderstanding her moral influence and the need he had of her support
at the very time when he was incurring her anathemas. Not content with
defending Christianity against Islamism, he aided it against Paganism by
lending the Christian missionaries in Germany and the north-west of
Europe, amongst others St. Willibrod and St. Boniface, the most effectual
assistance. In 724, he addressed to all religious and political
authorities that could be reached by his influence, not only to the
bishops, “but to the dukes, counts, their vicars, our palatines, all our
agents, our envoys, and our friends this circular letter: ‘Know that a
successor of the Apostles, our father in Christ, Boniface, bishop, hath
come unto us saying that we ought to take him under our safeguard and
protection. We do you to wit that we do so very willingly. Wherefore we
have thought proper to give him confirmation thereof under our own hand,
in order that, whithersoever he may go, he may there be in peace and
safety in the name of our affection and under our safeguard; in such sort
that he may be able everywhere to render, do, and receive justice. And
if he come to find himself in any pass or necessity which cannot be
determined by law, that he may remain in peace and safety until he be
come into our presence, he and all who shall have hope in him or
dependence on him. That none may dare to be contrary-minded towards him
or do him damage; and that he may rest at all times in tranquillity and
safety under our safeguard and protection. And in order that this may be
regarded as certified, we have subscribed these letters with our own hand
and sealed them with our ring.’”
Here were clearly no vague and meaningless words, written to satisfy
solicitation, and without a thought of their consequences: they were
urgent recommendations and precise injunctions, the most proper for
securing success to the protected in the name of the protector.
Accordingly St. Boniface wrote, soon after, from the heart of Germany,
“Without the patronage of the prince of the Franks, without his order and
the fear of his power, I could not guide the people, or defend the
priests, deacons, monks, or handmaids of God, or forbid in this country
the rites of the Pagans and their sacrilegious worship of idols.”
At the same time that he protected the Christian missionaries launched
into the midst of Pagan Germany, Charles Martel showed himself equally
ready to protect, but with as much prudence as good-will, the head of the
Christian Church. In 741, Pope Gregory III. sent to him two nuncios, the
first that ever entered France in such a character, to demand of him
succor against the Lombards, the Pope’s neighbors, who were threatening
to besiege Rome. These envoys took Charles Martel “so many presents that
none had ever seen or heard tell of the like,” and amongst them the keys
of St. Peter’s tomb, with a letter in which the Pope conjured Charles
Martel not to attach any credit to the representations or words of
Luitprandt, king of the Lombards, and to lend the Roman Church that
effectual support which, for some time past, she had been vainly
expecting from the Franks and their chief. “Let them come, we are told,”
wrote the Pope, piteously, “this Charles with whom ye have sought refuge,
and the armies of the Franks; let them sustain ye, if they can, and wrest
ye from our hands.” Charles Martel was in fact on good terms with
Luitprandt, who had come to his aid in his expeditions against the Arabs
in Provence. He, however, received the Pope’s nuncios with lively
satisfaction and the most striking proofs of respect; and he promised
them, not to make war on the Lombards, but to employ his influence with
King Luitprandt to make him cease from threatening Rome. He sent, in his
turn, to the Pope two envoys of distinction, Sigebert, abbot of St.
Denis, and Grimon, abbot of Corbie, with instructions to offer him rich
presents and to really exert themselves with the king of the Lombards to
remove the dangers dreaded by the Holy See. He wished to do something in
favor of the Papacy to show sincere good-will, without making his
relations with useful allies subordinate to the desires of the Pope.
Charles Martel had not time to carry out effectually with respect to the
Papacy this policy of protection and at the same time of independence; he
died at the close of this same year, October 22, 741, at Kiersy-sur-Oise,
aged fifty-two years, and his last act was the least wise of his life.
He had spent it entirely in two great works, the reestablishment
throughout the whole of Gaul of the Franco-Gallo-Roman empire, and the
driving back from the frontiers of this empire, of the Germans in the
north and the Arabs in the south. The consequence, as also the
condition, of this double success was the victory of Christianity over
Paganism and Islamism. Charles Martel endangered these results by
falling back into the groove of those Merovingian kings whose shadow he
had allowed to remain on the throne. He divided between his two
legitimate sons, Pepin, called the Short, from his small stature, and
Carloman, this sole dominion which he had with so much toil reconstituted
and defended. Pepin had Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and the suzerainty
of Aquitaine; Carloman, Austrasia, Thuringia, and Allemannia. They both,
at their father’s death, took only the title of mayor of the palace, and,
perhaps, of duke. The last but one of the Merovingians, Thierry IV., had
died in 737. For four years there had been no king at all.
But when the works of men are wise and true, that is, in conformity with
the lasting wants of peoples, and the natural tendency of social facts,
they get over even the mistakes of their authors. Immediately after the
death of Charles Martel, the consequences of dividing his empire became
manifest. In the north, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Allemannians
renewed their insurrections. In the south, the Arabs of Septimania
recovered their hopes of effecting an invasion; and Hunald, Duke of
Aquitaine, who had succeeded his father Eudes, after his death in 735,
made a fresh attempt to break away from Frankish sovereignty and win his
independence. Charles Martel had left a young son, Grippo, whose
legitimacy had been disputed, but who was not slow to set up pretensions
and to commence intriguing against his brothers. Everywhere there burst
out that reactionary movement which arises against grand and difficult
works when the strong hand that undertook them is no longer by to
maintain them; but this movement was of short duration and to little
purpose. Brought up in the school and in the fear of their father, his
two sons, Pepin and Carloman, were inoculated with his ideas and example;
they remained united in spite of the division of dominions, and labored
together, successfully, to keep down, in the north the Saxons and
Bavarians, in the south the Arabs and Aquitanians, supplying want of
unity by union, and pursuing with one accord the constant aim of Charles
Martel–abroad the security and grandeur of the Frankish dominion, at
home the cohesion of all its parts and the efficacy of its government.
Events came to the aid of this wise conduct. Five years after the death
of Charles Martel, in 746 in fact, Carloman, already weary of the burden
of power, and seized with a fit of religious zeal, abdicated his share of
sovereignty, left his dominions to his brother Pepin, had himself shorn
by the hands of Pope Zachary, and withdrew into Italy to the monastery of
Monte Cassino. The preceding year, in 745, Hunald, Duke of Aquitaine,
with more patriotic and equally pious views, also abdicated in favor of
his son Waifre, whom he thought more capable than himself of winning the
independence of Aquitaine, and went and shut himself up in a monastery in
the island of Rhe, where was the tomb of his father Eudes. In the course
of divers attempts at conspiracy and insurrection, the Frankish princes’
young brother, Grippo, was killed in combat whilst crossing the Alps.
The furious internal dissensions amongst the Arabs of Spain and their
incessant wars with the Berbers did not allow them to pursue any great
enterprise in Gaul. Thanks to all these circumstances, Pepin found
himself, in 747, sole master of the heritage of Clovis and with the sole
charge of pursuing, in State and Church, his father’s work, which was the
unity and grandeur of Christian France.
Pepin, less enterprising than his father, but judicious, persevering, and
capable of discerning what was at the same time necessary and possible,
was well fitted to continue and consolidate what he would, probably,
never have begun and created.
Like his father, he, on arriving at power, showed pretensions to
moderation, or, it might be said, modesty. He did not take the title of
king; and, in concert with his brother Carloman, he went to seek, Heaven
knows in what obscure asylum, a forgotten Merovingian, son of Chilperic
II., the last but one of the sluggard kings, and made him king, the last
of his line, with the title of Childeric III., himself, as well as his
brother, taking only the style of mayor of the palace. But at the end of
ten years, and when he saw himself alone at the head of the Frankish
dominion, Pepin considered the moment arrived for putting an end to this
fiction. In 751, he sent to Pope Zachary at Rome, Burchard, bishop of
Wurtzhurg, and Fulrad, abbot of St. Denis, “to consult the Pontiff,” says
Eginhard, “on the subject of the kings then existing amongst the Franks,
and who bore only the name of king without enjoying a tittle of royal
authority.” The Pope, whom St. Boniface, the great missionary of
Germany, had prepared for the question, answered that “it was better to
give the title of king to him who exercised the sovereign power;” and
next year, in March, 752, in the presence and with the assent of the
general assembly of “leudes” and bishops gathered together at Soissons,
Pepin was proclaimed king of the Franks, and received from the hand of
St. Boniface the sacred anointment. They cut off the hair of the last
Merovingian phantom, Childeric III., and put him away in the monastery of
St. Sithiu, at St. Omer. Two years later, July 28, 754, Pope Stephen
II., having come to France to claim Pepin’s support against the Lombards,
after receiving from him assurance of it, “anointed him afresh with the
holy oil in the church of St. Denis to do honor in his person to the
dignity of royalty,” and conferred the same honor on the king’s two sons,
Charles and Carloman. The new Gallo-Frankish kingship and the Papacy, in
the name of their common faith and common interests, thus contracted an
intimate alliance. The young Charles was hereafter to become
Charlemagne.
The same year, Boniface, whom, six years before, Pope Zachary had made
Archbishop of Mayence, gave up one day the episcopal dignity to his
disciple Lullus, charging him to carry on the different works himself had
commenced amongst the churches of Germany, and to uphold the faith of the
people. “As for me,” he added, “I will put myself on my road, for the
time of my passing away approacheth. I have longed for this departure,
and none can turn me from it; wherefore, my son, get all things ready,
and place in the chest with my books the winding-sheet to wrap up my old
body.” And so he departed with some of his priests and servants to go
and evangelize the Frisons, the majority of whom were still pagans and
barbarians. He pitched his tent on their territory and was arranging to
celebrate there the Lord’s Supper, when a band of natives came down and
rushed upon the archbishop’s retinue. The servitors surrounded him, to
defend him and themselves; and a battle began. “Hold, hold, my
children,” cried the arch-bishop; “Scripture biddeth us return good for
evil. This is the day I have long desired, and the hour of our
deliverance is at hand. Be strong in the Lord: hope in Him, and He will
save your souls.” The barbarians slew the holy man and the majority of
his company. A little while after, the Christians of the neighborhood
came in arms and recovered the body of St. Boniface. Near him was a
book, which was stained with blood, and seemed to have dropped from his
hands; it contained several works of the Fathers, and amongst others a
writing of St. Ambrose “on the Blessing of Death.” The death of the
pious missionary was as powerful as his preaching in converting
Friesland. It was a mode of conquest worthy of the Christian faith, and
one of which the history of Christianity had already proved the
effectiveness.
St. Boniface did not confine himself to the evangelization of the pagans;
he labored ardently in the Christian Gallo-Frankish Church, to reform the
manners and ecclesiastical discipline, and to assure, whilst justifying,
the moral influence of the clergy by example as well as precept. The
Councils, which had almost fallen into desuetude in Gaul, became once
more frequent and active there; from 742 to 753 there may be counted
seven, presided over by St. Boniface, which exercised within the Church
a salutary action. King Pepin, recognizing the services which the
Archbishop of Mayence had rendered him, seconded his reformatory efforts
at one time by giving the support of his royal authority to the canons of
the Councils, held often simultaneously with and almost confounded with
the laic assemblies of the Franks, at another by doing justice to the
protests of the churches against the violence and spoliation to which
they were subjected. “There was an important point,” says M. Fauriel,
“in respect of which the position of Charles Martel’s sons turned out to
be pretty nearly the same as that of their father: it was touching the
necessity of assigning to warriors a portion of the ecclesiastical
revenues. But they, being more religious, perhaps, than Charles Martel,
or more impressed with the importance of humoring the priestly power,
were more vexed and more anxious about the necessity under which they
found themselves of continuing to despoil the churches and of persisting
in a system which was putting the finishing stroke to the ruin of all
ecclesiastical discipline. They were more eager to mitigate the evil and
to offer the Church compensation for their share in this evil to which it
was not in their power to put a stop. Accordingly at the March parade
held at Leptines in 743, it was decided, in reference to ecclesiastical
lands applied to the military service: 1st, that the churches having the
ownership of those lands should share the revenue with the lay holder;
2d, that on the death of a warrior in enjoyment of an ecclesiastical
benefice, the benefice should revert to the Church; 3d, that every
benefice by deprivation whereof any church would be reduced to poverty
should be at once restored to her. That this capitular was carried out,
or even capable of being carried out, is very doubtful; but the less
Carloman and Pepin succeeded in repairing the material losses incurred by
the Church since the accession of the Carlovingians, the more zealous
they were in promoting the growth of her moral power and the restoration
of her discipline. . . . That was the time at which there began to be
seen the spectacle of the national assemblies of the Franks, the
gatherings of the March parades transformed into ecclesiastical synods
under the presidency of the titular legate of the Roman Pontiff, and
dictating, by the mouth of the political authority, regulations and laws
with the direct and formal aim of restoring divine worship and
ecclesiastical discipline, and of assuring the spiritual welfare of the
people.” (Fauriel, _Histoire de la Gaule,_ &c., t. III., p. 224.)
Pepin, after he had been proclaimed king and had settled matters with the
Church as well as the warlike questions remaining for him to solve
permitted, directed all his efforts towards the two countries which,
after his father’s example, he longed to reunite to the Gallo-Frankish
monarchy, that is, Septimania, still occupied by the Arabs, and
Aquitaine, the independence of which was stoutly and ably defended by
Duke Eudes’ grandson, Duke Waifre. The conquest of Septimania was rather
tedious than difficult. The Franks, after having victoriously scoured
the open country of the district, kept invested during three years its
capital, Narbonne, where the Arabs of Spain, much weakened by their
dissensions, vainly tried to throw in re-enforcements. Besides the
Mussulman Arabs the population of the town numbered many Christian Goths,
who were tired of suffering for the defence of their oppressors, and who
entered into secret negotiations with the chiefs of Pepin’s army, the end
of which was, that they opened the gates of the town. In 759, then,
after forty years of Arab rule, Narbonne passed definitively under that
of the Franks, who guaranteed to the inhabitants free enjoyment of their
Gothic or Roman law and of their local institutions. It even appears
that, in the province of Spain bordering on Septimania, an Arab chief,
called Soliman, who was in command at Gerona and Barcelona, between the
Ebro and the Pyrenees, submitted to Pepin, himself and the country under
him. This was an important event indeed in the reign of Pepin, for here
was the point at which Islamism, but lately aggressive and victorious in
Southern Europe, began to feel definitively beaten and to recoil before
Christianity.
The conquest of Aquitaine and Vasconia was much more keenly disputed and
for a much longer time uncertain. Duke Waifre was as able in negotiation
as in war: at one time he seemed to accept the pacific overtures of
Pepin, or, perhaps, himself made similar, without bringing about any
result, at another he went to seek and found even in Germany allies who
caused Pepin much embarrassment and peril. The population of Aquitaine
hated the Franks; and the war, which for their duke was a question of
independent sovereignty, was for themselves a question of passionate
national feeling. Pepin, who was naturally more humane and even more
generous, it may be said, in war than his predecessors had usually been,
was nevertheless induced, in his struggle against the Duke of Aquitaine,
to ravage without mercy the countries he scoured, and to treat the
vanquished with great harshness. It was only after nine years’ war and
seven campaigns full of vicissitudes that he succeeded, not in conquering
his enemy in a decisive battle, but in gaining over some servants who
betrayed their master. In the month of July, 759, “Duke Waifre was slain
by his own folk, by the king’s advice,” says Fredegaire; and the conquest
of all Southern Gaul carried the extent and power of the Gallo-Frankish
monarchy farther and higher than it had ever yet been, even under Clovis.
In 753, Pepin had made an expedition against the Britons of Armorica, had
taken Vannes, and “subjugated,” add certain chroniclers, “the whole of
Brittany.” In point of fact Brittany was no more subjugated by Pepin
than by his predecessors; all that can be said is, that the Franks
resumed, under him, an aggressive attitude towards the Britons, as if to
vindicate a right of sovereignty.
Exactly at this epoch Pepin was engaging in a matter which did not allow
him to scatter his forces hither and thither. It has been stated
already, that in 741 Pope Gregory III. had asked aid of the Franks
against the Lombards who were threatening Rome, and that, whilst fully
entertaining the Pope’s wishes, Charles Martel had been in no hurry to
interfere by deed in the quarrel. Twelve years later, in 753, Pope
Stephen, in his turn threatened by Astolphus, king of the Lombards, after
vain attempts to obtain guarantees of peace, repaired to Paris, and
renewed to Pepin the entreaties used by Zachary. It was difficult for
Pepin to turn a deaf ear; it was Zachary who had declared that he ought
to be made king; Stephen showed readiness to anoint him a second time,
himself and his sons; and it was the eldest of these sons, Charles,
scarcely twelve years old, whom Pepin, on learning the near arrival of
the Pope, had sent to meet him and give brilliancy to his reception.
Stephen passed the winter at St. Denis, and gained the favor of the
people as well as that of the king. Astolphus peremptorily refused to
listen to the remonstrances of Pepin, who called upon him to evacuate the
towns in the exarchate of Ravenna, and to leave the Pope unmolested in
the environs of Rome as well as in Rome itself. At the March parade held
at Braine, in the spring of 754, the Franks approved of the war against
the Lombards; and at the end of the summer Pepin and his army descended
into Italy by Mount Cenis, the Lombards trying in vain to stop them as
they debouched into the valley of Suza. Astolphus beaten, and, before
long, shut up in Pavia, promised all that was demanded of him; and Pepin
and his warriors, laden with booty, returned to France, leaving at Rome
the Pope, who conjured them to remain a while in Italy, for to a
certainty, he said, king Astolphus would not keep his promises. The Pope
was right. So soon as the Franks had gone, the King of the Lombards
continued occupying the places in the exarchate and molesting the
neighborhood of Rome. The Pope, in despair and doubtful of his
auxiliaries’ return, conceived the idea of sending “to the king, the
chiefs, and the people of the Franks, a letter written, he said, by
Peter, Apostle of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, to announce to
them that, if they came in haste, he would aid them as if he were alive
according to the flesh amongst them, that they would conquer all their
enemies and make themselves sure of eternal life!” The plan was
perfectly successful: the Franks once more crossed the Alps with
enthusiasm, once more succeeded in beating the Lombards, and once more
shut up in Pavia King Astolphus, who was eager to purchase peace at any
price. He obtained it on two principal conditions: 1st, that he would
not again make a hostile attack on Roman territory or wage war against
the Pope or people of Rome; 2d, that he would henceforth recognize the
sovereignty of the Franks, pay them tribute, and cede forthwith to Pepin
the towns and all the lands, belonging to the jurisdiction of the Roman
empire, which were at that time occupied by the Lombards. By virtue of
these conditions, Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, that is to say, the Romagna,
the Duchy of Urbino and a portion of the Marches of Ancona, were at once
given up to Pepin, who, regarding them as his own direct conquest, the
fruit of victory, disposed of them forthwith, in favor of the Popes, by
that famous deed of gift which comprehended pretty nearly what has since
formed the Roman States, and which founded the temporal independence of
the Papacy, the guarantee of its independence in the exercise of the
spiritual power.
At the head of the Franks as mayor of the palace from 741, and as king
from 752, Pepin had completed in France and extended in Italy the work
which his father, Charles Martel, had begun and carried on, from 714 to
741, in State and Church. He left France reunited in one and placed at
the head of Christian Europe. He died at the monastery of St. Denis,
September 18, 768, leaving his kingdom and his dynasty thus ready to the
hands of his son, whom history has dubbed Charlemagne.
CHAPTER X—-CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS.
The most judicious minds are sometimes led blindly by tradition and
habit, rather than enlightened by reflection and experience. Pepin the
Short committed at his death the same mistake that his father, Charles
Martel, had committed: he divided his dominions between his two sons,
Charles and Carloman, thus destroying again that unity of the Gallo-
Frankish monarchy which his father and he had been at so much pains to
establish. But, just as had already happened in 746 through the
abdication of Pepin’s brother, events discharged the duty of repairing
the mistake of men. After the death of Pepin, and notwithstanding that
of Duke Waifre, insurrection broke out once more in Aquitaine; and the
old duke, Hunald, issued from his monastery in the island of Rhe to try
and recover power and independence. Charles and Carloman marched against
him; but, on the march, Carloman, who was jealous and thoughtless, fell
out with his brother, and suddenly quitted the expedition, taking away
his troops. Charles was obliged to continue it alone, which he did with
complete success. At the end of this first campaign, Pepin’s widow, the
Queen-mother Bertha, reconciled her two sons; but an unexpected incident,
the death of Carloman two years afterwards in 771, re-established unity
more surely than the reconciliation had re-established harmony. For,
although Carloman left sons, the grandees of his dominions, whether laic
or ecclesiastical, assembled at Corbeny, between Laon and Rheims, and
proclaimed in his stead his brother Charles, who thus became sole king of
the Gallo-Franco-Germanic monarchy. And as ambition and manners had
become less tinged with ferocity than they had been under the
Merovingians, the sons of Carloman were not killed or shorn or even shut
up in a monastery: they retired with their mother, Gerberge, to the court
of Didier, king of the Lombards. “King Charles,” says Eginhard, “took
their departure patiently, regarding it as of no importance.” Thus
commenced the reign of Charlemagne.
The original and dominant characteristic of the hero of this reign, that
which won for him, and keeps for him after more than ten centuries, the
name of Great, is the striking variety of his ambition, his faculties,
and his deeds. Charlemagne aspired to and attained to every sort of
greatness, military greatness, political greatness, and intellectual
greatness; he was an able warrior, an energetic legislator, a hero of
poetry. And he united, he displayed all these merits in a time of
general and monotonous barbarism, when, save in the Church, the minds of
men were dull and barren. Those men, few in number, who made themselves
a name at that epoch, rallied round Charlemagne and were developed under
his patronage. To know him well and appreciate him justly, he must be
examined under those various grand aspects, abroad and at home, in his
wars and in his government.
In Guizot’s _History of Civilization in France_ is to be found a complete
table of the wars of Charlemagne, of his many different expeditions in
Germany, Italy, Spain, all the countries, in fact, that became his
dominion. A summary will here suffice. From 769 to 813, in Germany and
Western and Northern Europe, Charlemagne conducted thirty-one campaigns
against the Saxons, Frisons, Bavarians, Avars, Slavons, and Danes; in
Italy, five against the Lombards; in Spain, Corsica, and Sardinia, twelve
against the Arabs; two against the Greeks; and three in Gaul itself,
against the Aquitanians and the Britons; in all, fifty-three expeditions;
amongst which those he undertook against the Saxons, the Lombards, and
the Arabs, were long and difficult wars. It is undesirable to recount
them in detail, for the relation would be monotonous and useless; but it
is obligatory to make fully known their causes, their characteristic
incidents, and their results.
It has already been seen that, under the last Merovingian kings, the
Saxons were, on the right bank of the Rhine, in frequent collision with
the Franks, especially with the Austrasian Franks, whose territory they
were continually threatening and often invading. Pepin the Short had
more than once hurled them back far from the very uncertain frontiers of
Germanic Austrasia; and, on becoming king, he dealt his blows still
farther, and entered, in his turn, Saxony itself. “In spite of the
Saxons’ stout resistance,” says Eginhard (_Annales,_ t. i., p. 135), “he
pierced through the points they had fortified to bar entrance into their
country, and, after having fought here and there battles wherein fell
many Saxons, he forced them to promise that they would submit to his
rule; and that, every year, to do him honor, they would send to the
general assembly of the Franks a present of three hundred horses. When
these conventions were once settled, he insisted, to insure their
performance, upon placing them under the guarantee of rites peculiar to
the Saxons; then he returned with his army to Gaul.”
[Illustration: Charlemagne at the Head of his Army----212]
Charlemagne did not confine himself to resuming his father’s work; he
before long changed its character and its scope. In 772, being left sole
master of France after the death of his brother Carloman, he convoked at
Worms the general assembly of the Franks, “and took,” says Eginhard, “the
resolution of going and carrying war into Saxony. He invaded it without
delay, laid it waste with fire and sword, made himself master of the fort
of Ehresburg, and threw down the idol that the Saxons called _Irminsul_.”
And in what place was this first victory of Charlemagne won? Near the
sources of the Lippe, just where, more than seven centuries before, the
German Arminius (Herrmann) had destroyed the legions of Varus, and
whither Germanicus had come to avenge the disaster of Varus. This ground
belonged to Saxon territory; and this idol, called _Irminsul,_ which was
thrown down by Charlemagne, was probably a monument raised in honor of
Arminius (Herrmann-Saule, or Herrmann’s pillar), whose name it called to
mind. The patriotic and hereditary pride of the Saxons was passionately
roused by this blow; and, the following year, “thinking to find in the
absence of the king the most favorable opportunity,” says Eginhard, they
entered the lands of the Franks, laid them waste in their turn, and,
paying back outrage for outrage, set fire to the church not long since
built at Fritzlar, by Boniface, martyr. From that time the question
changed its object as well as its aspect; it was no longer the repression
of Saxon invasions of France, but the conquest of Saxony by the Franks,
that was to be dealt with; it was between the Christianity of the Franks
and the national Paganism of the Saxons that the struggle was to take
place.
For thirty years such was its character. Charlemagne regarded the
conquest of Saxony as indispensable for putting a stop to the incursions
of the Saxons, and the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity as
indispensable for assuring the conquest of Saxony. The Saxons were
defending at one and the same time the independence of their country and
the gods of their fathers. Here was wherewithal to stir up and foment,
on both sides, the profoundest passions; and they burst forth, on both
sides, with equal fury. Whithersoever Charlemagne penetrated he built
strong castles and churches; and, at his departure, left garrisons and
missionaries. When he was gone the Saxons returned, attacked the forts
and massacred the garrisons and the missionaries. At the commencement of
the struggle, a priest of Anglo-Saxon origin, whom St. Willibrod, bishop
of Utrecht, had but lately consecrated, St. Liebwin in fact, undertook to
go and preach the Christian religion in the very heart of Saxony, on the
banks of the Weser, amidst the general assembly of the Saxons. “What do
ye” said he, cross in hand; “the idols ye worship live not, neither do
they perceive: they are the work of men’s hands; they can do nought
either for themselves or for others. Wherefore the one God, good and
just, having compassion on your errors, hath sent me unto you. If ye put
not away your iniquity, I foretell unto you a trouble that ye do not
expect, and that the King of Heaven hath ordained aforetime; there shall
come a prince, strong and wise and indefatigable, not from afar, but from
nigh at hand, to fall upon you like a torrent, in order to soften your
hard hearts and bow down your proud heads. At one rush he shall invade
the country; he shall lay it waste with fire and sword, and carry away
your wives and children into captivity.” A thrill of rage ran through
the assembly; and already many of those present had begun to cut, in the
neighboring woods, stakes sharpened to a point to pierce the priest, when
one of the chieftains named Buto cried aloud, “Listen, ye who are the
most wise. There have often come unto us ambassadors from neighboring
peoples, Northmen, Slavons or Frisons; we have received them in peace,
and when their messages have been heard, they have been sent away with a
present. Here is an ambassador from a great God, and ye would slay him!”
Whether it were from sentiment or from prudence, the multitude was
calmed, or at any rate restrained; and for this time the priest retired
safe and sound.
Just as the pious zeal of the missionaries was of service to Charlemagne,
so did the power of Charlemagne support and sometimes preserve the
missionaries. The mob, even in the midst of its passions, is not
throughout or at all times inaccessible to fear. The Saxons were not one
and the same nation, constantly united in one and the same assembly and
governed by a single chieftain. Three populations of the same race,
distinguished by names borrowed from their geographical situation, just
as had happened amongst the Franks in the case of the Austrasians and
Neustrians, to wit, Eastphalian or eastern Saxons, Westphalian or
western, and Angrians, formed the Saxon confederation. And to them was
often added a fourth peoplet of the same origin, closer to the Danes and
called North-Albingians, inhabitants of the northern district of the
Elbe. These four principal Saxon populations were sub-divided into a
large number of tribes, who had their own particular chieftains, and who
often decided, each for itself, their conduct and their fate.
Charlemagne, knowing how to profit by this want of cohesion and unity
amongst his foes, attacked now one and now another of the large Saxon
peoplets or the small Saxon tribes, and dealt separately with each of
them, according as he found them inclined to submission or resistance.
After having, in four or five successive expeditions, gained victories
and sustained checks, he thought himself sufficiently advanced in his
conquest to put his relations with the Saxons to a grand trial. In 777,
he resolved, says Eginhard, “to go and hold, at the place called
Paderborn (close to Saxony) the general assembly of his people. On his
arrival he found there assembled the senate and people of this perfidious
nation, who, conformably to his orders, had repaired thither, seeking to
deceive him by a false show of submission and devotion. . . . They
earned their pardon, but on this condition, however, that, if hereafter
they broke their engagements, they would be deprived of country and
liberty. A great number amongst them had themselves baptized on this
occasion; but it was with far from sincere intentions that they had
testified a desire to become Christians.”
[Illustration: Charlemagne inflicting Baptism upon the Saxons----215]
There had been absent from this great meeting a Saxon chieftain called
Wittikind, son of Wernekind, king of the Saxons at the north of the Elbe.
He had espoused the sister of Siegfried, king of the Danes; and he was
the friend of Ratbod, king of the Frisons. A true chieftain at heart as
well as by descent, he was made to be the hero of the Saxons just as,
seven centuries before, the Cheruscan Herrmann (Arminius) had been the
hero of the Germans. Instead of repairing to Paderborn, Wittikind had
left Saxony, and taken refuge with his brother-in-law, the king of the
Danes. Thence he encouraged his Saxon compatriots, some to persevere in
their resistance, others to repent them of their show of submission. War
began again; and Wittikind hastened back to take part in it. In 778 the
Saxons advanced as far as the Rhine; but, “not having been able to cross
this river,” says Eginhard, “they set themselves to lay waste with fire
and sword all the towns and all the villages from the city of Duitz
(opposite Cologne) as far as the confluence of the Moselle. The churches
as well as the houses were laid in ruins from top to bottom. The enemy,
in his frenzy, spared neither age nor sex, wishing to show thereby that
he had invaded the territory of the Franks, not for plunder, but for
revenge!” For three years the struggle continued, more confined in area,
but more and more obstinate. Many of the Saxon tribes submitted; many
Saxons were baptized; and Siegfried, king of the Danes, sent to
Charlemagne a deputation, as if to treat for peace. Wittikind had left
Denmark; but he had gone across to her neighbors, the Northmen; and,
thence re-entering Saxony, he kindled there an insurrection as fierce as
it was unexpected. In 782 two of Charlemagne’s lieutenants were beaten
on the banks of the Weser, and killed in the battle, together with four
counts and twenty leaders, the noblest in the army; indeed the Franks
were nearly all exterminated. “At news of this disaster,” says Eginhard,
“Charlemagne, without losing a moment, re-assembled an army and set out
for Saxony. He summoned into his presence all the chieftains of the
Saxons and demanded of them who had been the promoters of the revolt.
All agreed in denouncing Wittikind as the author of this treason. But as
they could not deliver him up, because immediately after his sudden
attack he had taken refuge with the Northmen, those who, at his
instigation, had been accomplices in the crime, were placed, to the
number of four thousand five hundred, in the hands of the king; and, by
his order, all had their heads cut off the same day, at a place called
Werden, on the river Aller. After this deed of vengeance the king
retired to Thionville to pass the winter there.”
[Illustration: A Battle between Franks and Saxons----216]
But the vengeance did not put an end to the war. “Blood calls for
blood,” were words spoken in the English parliament, in 1643, by Sir
Benjamin Rudyard, one of the best citizens of his country in her hour of
revolution. For three years Charlemagne had to redouble his efforts to
accomplish in Saxony, at the cost of Frankish as well as Saxon blood, his
work of conquest and conversion: “Saxony,” he often repeated, “must be
christianized or wiped out.” At last, in 785, after several victories
which seemed decisive, he went and settled down in his strong castle of
Ehresburg, “whither he made his wife and children come, being resolved to
remain there all the bad season,” says Eginhard, and applying himself
without cessation to scouring the country of the Saxons and wearing them
out by his strong and indomitable determination. But determination did
not blind him to prudence and policy. “Having learned that Wittikind and
Abbio (another great Saxon chieftain) were abiding in the part of Saxony
situated on the other side of the Elbe, he sent to them Saxon envoys to
prevail upon them to renounce their perfidy, and come, without
hesitation, and trust themselves to him. They, conscious of what they
had attempted, dared not at first trust to the king’s word; but having
obtained from him the promise they desired of impunity, and, besides, the
hostages they demanded as guarantee of their safety, and who were brought
to them, on the king’s behalf, by Amalwin, one of the officers of his
court, they came with the said lord and presented themselves before the
king in his palace of Attigny [Attigny-sur-Aisne, whither Charlemagne had
now returned] and there received baptism.”
Charlemagne did more than amnesty Wittikind; he named him Duke of Saxony,
but without attaching to the title any right of sovereignty. Wittikind,
on his side, did more than come to Attigny and get baptized there; he
gave up the struggle, remained faithful to his new engagements, and led,
they say, so Christian a life, that some chroniclers have placed him on
the list of saints. He was killed in 807, in a battle against Gerold,
duke of Suabia, and his tomb is still to be seen at Ratisbonne. Several
families of Germany hold him for their ancestor; and some French
genealogists have, without solid ground, discovered in him the
grandfather of Robert the Strong, great-grandfather of Hugh Capet.
However that may be, after making peace with Wittikind, Charlemagne had
still, for several years, many insurrections to repress and much rigor to
exercise in Saxony, including the removal of certain Saxon peoplets out
of their country and the establishment of foreign colonists in the
territories thus become vacant; but the great war was at an end, and
Charlemagne might consider Saxony incorporated in his dominions.
[Illustration: THE SUBMISSION OF WITTIKIND----218]
He had still, in Germany and all around, many enemies to fight and many
campaigns to re-open. Even amongst the Germanic populations, which were
regarded as reduced under the sway of the king of the Franks, some, the
Frisons and Saxons as well as others, were continually agitating for the
recovery of their independence. Farther off towards the north, east, and
south, people differing in origin and language–Avars, Huns, Slavons,
Bulgarians, Danes, and Northmen–were still pressing or beginning to
press upon the frontiers of the Frankish dominion, for the purpose of
either penetrating within or settling at the threshold as powerful and
formidable neighbors. Charlemagne had plenty to do, with the view at one
time of checking their incursions and at another of destroying or hurling
back to a distance their settlements; and he brought his usual vigor and
perseverance to bear on this second struggle. But by the conquest of
Saxony he had attained his direct national object: the great flood of
population from East to West came, and broke against the Gallo-Franco-
Germanic dominion as against an insurmountable rampart.
This was not, however, Charlemagne’s only great enterprise at this epoch,
nor the only great struggle he had to maintain. Whilst he was
incessantly fighting in Germany, the work of policy commenced by his
father Pepin in Italy called for his care and his exertions. The new
king of the Lombards, Didier, and the new Pope, Adrian I., had entered
upon a new war; and Dither was besieging Rome, which was energetically
defended by the Pope and its inhabitants. In 773, Adrian invoked the aid
of the king of the Franks, whom his envoys succeeded, not without
difficulty, in finding at Thionville. Charlemagne could not abandon the
grand position left him by his father as protector of the Papacy and as
patrician of Rome. The possessions, moreover, wrested by Didier from the
Pope were exactly those which Pepin had won by conquest from King
Astolphus, and had presented to the Papacy. Charlemagne was, besides, on
his own account, on bad terms with the king of the Lombards, whose
daughter, Desiree, he had married, and afterwards repudiated and sent
home to her father, in order to marry Hildegarde, a Suabian by nation.
Didier, in dudgeon, had given an asylum to Carloman’s widow and sons, on
whose intrigues Charlemagne kept a watchful eye. Being prudent and
careful of appearances, even when he was preparing to strike a heavy
blow, Charlemagne tried, by means of special envoys, to obtain from the
king of the Lombards what the Pope demanded. On Didier’s refusal he at
once set to work, convoked the general meeting of the Franks, at Geneva,
in the autumn of 773, gained them over, not without encountering some
objections, to the projected Italian expedition, and forthwith commenced
the campaign with two armies. One was to cross the Valais and descend
upon Lombardy by Mount St. Bernard; Charlemagne in person led the other,
by Mount Cenis. The Lombards, at the outlet of the passes of the Alps,
offered a vigorous resistance; but when the second army had penetrated
into Italy by Mount St. Bernard, Didier, threatened in his rear, retired
precipitately, and, driven from position to position, was obliged to go
and shut himself up in Pavia, the strongest place in his kingdom, whither
Charlemagne, having received on the march the submission of the principal
counts and nearly all the towns of Lombardy, came promptly to besiege
him.
To place textually before the reader a fragment of an old chronicle will
serve better than any modern description to show the impression of
admiration and fear produced upon his contemporaries by Charlemagne, his
person and his power. At the close of this ninth century a monk of the
abbey of St. Gall, in Switzerland, had collected, direct from the mouth
of one of Charlemagne’s warriors, Adalbert, numerous stories of his
campaigns and his life. These stories are full of fabulous legends,
puerile anecdotes, distorted reminiscences, and chronological errors, and
they are written sometimes with a credulity and exaggeration of language
which raise a smile; but they reveal the state of men’s minds and fancies
within the circle of Charlemagne’s influence and at the sight of him.
This monk gives a naive account of Charlemagne’s arrival before Pavia and
of the king of the Lombards’ disquietude at his approach. Didier had
with him at that time one of Charlemagne’s most famous comrades, Ogier
the Dane, who fills a prominent place in the romances and epopoeas,
relating to chivalry, of that age. Ogier had quarrelled with his great
chief and taken refuge with the king of the Lombards. It is probable
that his Danish origin and his relations with the king of the Danes,
Gottfried, for a long time an enemy of the Franks, had something to do
with his misunderstanding with Charlemagne. However that may have been,
“when Didier and Ogger (for so the monk calls him) heard that the dread
monarch was coming, they ascended a tower of vast height, whence they
could watch his arrival from afar off and from every quarter. They saw,
first of all, engines of war such as must have been necessary for the
armies of Darius or Julius Caesar. ‘Is not Charles,’ asked Didier of
Ogger, ‘with this great army?’ But the other answered, ‘No.’ The
Lombard, seeing afterwards an immense body of soldiery gathered from all
quarters of the vast empire, said to Ogger, ‘Certes, Charles advanceth in
triumph in the midst of this throng.’ ‘No, not yet; he will not appear
so soon,’ was the answer. ‘What should we do, then,’ rejoined Didier,
who began to be perturbed, ‘should he come accompanied by a larger band
of warriors?’ ‘You will see what he is when he comes,’ replied Ogger,
‘but as to what will become of us I know nothing.’ As they were thus
parleying appeared the body of guards that knew no repose; and at this
sight the Lombard, overcome with dread, cried, ‘This time ’tis surely
Charles.’ ‘No,’ answered Ogger, ‘not yet.’ In their wake came the
bishops, the abbots, the ordinaries of the chapels royal, and the counts;
and then Didier, no longer able to bear the light of day or to face
death, cried out with groans, ‘Let us descend and hide ourselves in the
bowels of the earth, far from the face and the fury of so terrible a foe.
Trembling the while, Ogger, who knew by experience what were the power
and might of Charles, and who had learned the lesson by long consuetude
in better days, then said, ‘When ye shall behold the crops shaking for
fear in the fields, and the gloomy Po and the Ticino overflowing the
walls of the city with their waves blackened with steel (iron), then may
ye think that Charles is coming.’ He had not ended these words when
there began to be seen in the west, as it were a black cloud, raised by
the north-west wind or by Boreas, which turned the brightest day into
awful shadows. But as the emperor drew nearer and nearer, the gleam of
arms caused to shine on the people shut up within the city a day more
gloomy than any kind of night. And then appeared Charles himself, that
man of steel, with his head encased in a helmet of steel, his hands
garnished with gauntlets of steel, his heart of steel and his shoulders
of marble protected by a cuirass of steel, and his left hand armed with a
lance of steel which he held aloft in the air, for as to his right hand
he kept that continually on the hilt of his invincible sword. The
outside of his thighs, which the rest, for their greater ease in mounting
a horseback, were wont to leave unshackled even by straps, he wore
encircled by plates of steel. What shall I say concerning his boots?
All the army were wont to have them invariably of steel; on his buckler
there was nought to be seen but steel; his horse was of the color and the
strength of steel. All those who went before the monarch, all those who
marched at his side, all those who followed after, even the whole mass of
the army, had armor of the like sort, so far as the means of each
permitted. The fields and the highways were covered with steel: the
points of steel reflected the rays of the sun; and this steel, so hard,
was borne by a people with hearts still harder. The flash of steel
spread terror through-out the streets of the city. ‘What steel! alack,
what steel!’ Such were the bewildered cries the citizens raised. The
firmness of manhood and of youth gave way at sight of the steel; and the
steel paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I, poor
tale-teller, mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a long
description, Ogger perceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier,
‘Here is what ye have so anxiously sought:’ and whilst uttering these
words he fell down almost lifeless.”
The monk of St. Gall does King Didier and his people wrong. They showed
more firmness and valor than he ascribes to them: they resisted
Charlemagne obstinately, and repulsed his first assaults so well that he
changed the siege into an investment and settled down before Pavia, as if
making up his mind for a long operation. His camp became a town; he sent
for Queen Hildegarde and her court; and he had a chapel built, where he
celebrated the festival of Christmas. But on the arrival of spring,
close upon the festival of Easter, 774, wearied with the duration of the
investment, he left to his lieutenants the duty of keeping it up, and,
attended by a numerous and brilliant following, set off for Rome, whither
the Pope was urgently pressing him to come.
On Holy Saturday, April 1, 774, Charlemagne found, at three miles from
Rome, the magistrates and the banner of the city, sent forward by the
Pope to meet him; at one mile all the municipal bodies and the pupils of
the schools carrying palm-branches and singing hymns; and at the gate of
the city, the cross, which was never taken out save for exarchs and
patricians. At sight of the cross Charlemagne dismounted, entered Rome
on foot, ascended the steps of the ancient basilica of St. Peter,
repeating at each step a sign of respectful piety, and was received at
the top by the Pope himself. All around him and in the streets a chant
was sung, “Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!” At his
entry and during his sojourn at Rome Charlemagne gave the most striking
proofs of Christian faith and respect for the head of the Church.
According to the custom of pilgrims he visited all the basilicas, and in
that of St. Maria Maggiore he performed his solemn devotions. Then,
passing to temporal matters, he caused to be brought and read over, in
his private conferences with the Pope, the deed of territorial gift made
by his father Pepin to Stephen II., and with his own lips dictated the
confirmation of it, adding thereto a new gift of certain territories
which he was in course of wresting by conquest from the Lombards. Pope
Adrian, on his side, rendered to him, with a mixture of affection and
dignity, all the honors and all the services which could at one and the
same time satisfy and exalt the king and the priest, the protector and
the protected. He presented to Charlemagne a book containing a
collection of the canons written by the pontiffs from the origin of the
Church, and he put at the beginning of the book, which was dedicated to
Charlemagne, an address in forty-five irregular verses, written with his
own hand, which formed an anagram: “Pope Adrian to his most excellent son
Charlemagne, king.” (_Domino excellentissimo filio Carolo Magno regi
Ipadrianus papa_). At the same time he encouraged him to push his
victory to the utmost and make himself king of the Lombards, advising
him, however, not to incorporate his conquest with the Frankish
dominions, as it would wound the pride of the conquered people to be thus
absorbed by the conquerors, and to take merely the title of “King of the
Franks and Lombards.” Charlemagne appreciated and accepted this wise
advice; for he could preserve proper limits in his ambition and in the
hour of victory. Three years afterwards he even did more than Pope
Adrian had advised. In 777 Queen Hildegarde bore him a son, Pepin, whom
in 781 Charlemagne had baptized and anointed king of Italy at Rome by the
Pope, thus separating not only the two titles, but also the two kingdoms,
and restoring to the Lombards a national existence, feeling quite sure
that, so long as he lived, the unity of his different dominions would not
be imperilled. Having thus regulated at Rome his own affairs and those
of the Church, he returned to his camp, took Pavia, received the
submission of all the Lombard dukes and counts, save one only, Aregisius,
duke of Beneventum, and entered France again, taking with him as prisoner
King Didier, whom he banished to a monastery, first at Liege and then at
Corbie, where the dethroned Lombard, say the chroniclers, ended his days
in saintly fashion.
The prompt success of this war in Italy, undertaken at the appeal of the
Head of the Church, this first sojourn of Charlemagne at Rome, the
spectacles he had witnessed, and the homage he had received, exercised
over him, his plans, and his deeds, a powerful influence. This rough
Frankish warrior, chief of a people who were beginning to make a
brilliant appearance upon the stage of the world, and issue himself
of a new line, had a taste for what was grand, splendid, ancient, and
consecrated by time and public respect; he understood and estimated at
its full worth the moral force and importance of such allies. He
departed from Rome in 774, more determined than ever to subdue Saxony, to
the advantage of the Church as well as of his own power, and to promote,
in the South as in the North, the triumph of the Frankish Christian
dominion.
Three years afterwards, in 777, he had convoked at Paderborn, in
Westphalia, that general assembly of his different peoples at which
Wittikind did not attend, and which was destined to bring upon the Saxons
a more and more obstinate war. “The Saracen Ibn-al-Arabi,” says
Eginhard, “came to this town, to present himself before the king. He
had arrived from Spain, together with other Saracens in his train, to
surrender to the king of the Franks himself and all the towns which the
king of the Saracens had confided to his keeping.” For a long time past
the Christians of the West had given the Mussulmans, Arab or other, the
name of Saracens. Ibn-al-Arabi was governor of Saragossa, and one of the
Spanish Arab chieftains in league against Abdel-Rhaman, the last offshoot
of the Ommiad khalifs, who, with the assistance of the Berbers, had
seized the government of Spain. Amidst the troubles of his country and
his nation, Ibn-al-Arabi summoned to his aid, against Abdel-Rhaman, the
Franks and the Christians, just as, but lately, Maurontius, duke of
Arles, had summoned to Provence, against Charles Martel, the Arabs and
the Mussulmans.
Charlemagne accepted the summons with alacrity. With the coming of
spring in the following year, 778, and with the full assent of his chief
warriors, he began his march towards the Pyrenees, crossed the Loire,
and halted at Casseneuil, at the confluence of the Lot and the Garonne,
to celebrate there the festival of Easter, and to make preparations for
his expedition thence. As he had but lately done for his campaign in
Italy against the Lombards, he divided his forces into two armies one
composed of Austrasians, Neustrians, Burgundians, and divers German
contingents, and commanded by Charlemagne in person, was to enter Spain
by the valley of Roncesvalles, in the western Pyrenees, and make for
Pampeluna; the other, consisting of Provenccals, Septimanians, Lombards,
and other populations of the South, under the command of Duke Bernard,
who had already distinguished himself in Italy, had orders to penetrate
into Spain by the eastern Pyrenees, to receive on the march the
submission of Gerona and Barcelona, and not to halt till they were before
Saragossa, where the two armies were to form a junction, and which Ibn-
al-Arabi had promised to give up to the king of the Franks. According to
this plan, Charlemagne had to traverse the territories of Aquitaine and
Vasconia, domains of Duke Lupus II., son of Duke Waifre, so long the foe
of Pepin the Short, a Merovingian by descent, and in all these qualities
little disposed to favor Charlemagne. However, the march was
accomplished without difficulty. The king of the Franks treated his
powerful vassal well; and Duke Lupus swore to him afresh, “or for the
first time,” says M. Fauriel, “submission and fidelity; but the event
soon proved that it was not without umbrage or without all the feelings
of a true son of Waifre that he saw the Franks and the son of Pepin so
close to him.”
The aggressive campaign was an easy and a brilliant one. Charles with
his army entered Spain by the valley of Roncesvalles without encountering
any obstacle. On his arrival before Pampeluna the Arab governor
surrendered the place to him, and Charlemagne pushed forward vigorously
to Saragossa. But there fortune changed. The presence of foreigners and
Christians on the soil of Spain caused a suspension of interior quarrels
amongst the Arabs, who rose in mass, at all points, to succor Saragossa.
The besieged defended themselves with obstinacy; there was more scarcity
of provisions amongst the besiegers than inside the place; sickness broke
out amongst them; they were incessantly harassed from without; and rumors
of a fresh rising amongst the Saxons reached Charlemagne. The Arabs
demanded negotiation. To decide the king of the Franks upon an
abandonment of the siege, they offered him “an immense quantity of gold,”
say the chroniclers, hostages, and promises of homage and fidelity.
Appearances had been saved; Charlemagne could say, and even perhaps
believe, that he had pushed his conquests as far as the Ebro; he decided
on retreat, and all the army was set in motion to recross the Pyrenees.
On arriving before Pampeluna, Charlemagne had its walls completely razed
to the ground, “in order that,” as he said, “that city might not be able
to revolt.” The troops entered those same passes of Roncesvalles which
they had traversed without obstacle a few weeks before; and the
advance-guard and the main body of the army were already clear of them.
The account of what happened shall be given in the words of Eginhard,
the only contemporary historian whose account, free from all
exaggeration, can be considered authentic. “The king,” he says,
“brought back his army without experiencing any loss, save that at the
summit of the Pyrenees he suffered somewhat from the perfidy of the
Vascons (Basques). Whilst the army of the Franks, embarrassed in a
narrow defile, was forced by the nature of the ground to advance in one
long, close line, the Basques, who were in ambush on the crest of the
mountain (for the thickness of the forest with which these parts are
covered is favorable to ambuscade), descend and fall suddenly on the
baggage-train and on the troops of the rear-guard, whose duty it was to
cover all in their front, and precipitate them to the bottom of the
valley. There took place a fight in which the Franks were killed to a
man. The Basques, after having plundered the baggage-train, profited by
the night, which had come on, to disperse rapidly. They owed all their
success in this engagement to the lightness of their equipment and to
the nature of the spot where the action took place; the Franks, on the
contrary, being heavily armed and in an unfavorable position, struggled
against too many disadvantages. Eginhard, master of the household of the
king; Anselm, count of the palace; and Roland, prefect of the marches of
Brittany, fell in this engagement. There were no means, at the time, of
taking revenge for this cheek; for after their sudden attack, the enemy
dispersed to such good purpose that there was no gaining any trace of
the direction in which they should be sought for.”
[Illustration: Death of Roland at Roncesvalles----227]
History says no more; but in the poetry of the people there is a longer
and a more faithful memory than in the court of kings. The disaster of
Roncesvalles and the heroism of the warriors who perished there became,
in France, the object of popular sympathy and the favorite topic for the
exercise of the popular fancy. The _Song of Roland,_ a real Homeric poem
in its great beauty, and yet rude and simple as became its national
character, bears witness to the prolonged importance attained in Europe
by this incident in the history of Charlemagne. Three centuries later
the comrades of William the Conqueror, marching to battle at Hastings for
the possession of England, struck up _The Song of Roland_ “to prepare
themselves for victory or death,” says M. Vitel, in his vivid estimate
and able translation of this poetical monument of the manners and first
impulses towards chivalry of the middle ages. There is no determining
how far history must be made to participate in these reminiscences of
national feeling; but, assuredly, the figures of Roland and Oliver, and
Archbishop Turpin, and the pious, unsophisticated and tender character of
their heroism are not pure fables invented by the fancy of a poet, or the
credulity of a monk. If the accuracy of historical narrative must not be
looked for in them, their moral truth must be recognized in their
portrayal of a people and an age.
The political genius of Charlemagne comprehended more fully than would be
imagined from his panegyrist’s brief and dry account all the gravity of
the affair of Roncesvalles. Not only did he take immediate vengeance by
hanging Duke Lupus of Aquitaine, whose treason had brought down this
mishap, and by reducing his two sons, Adairic and Sancho, to a more
feeble and precarious condition, but he resolved to treat Aquitaine as he
had but lately treated Italy, that is to say, to make of it, according to
the correct definition of M. Fauriel, “a special kingdom,” an integral
portion, indeed, of the Frankish empire, but with an especial
destination, which was that of resisting the invasions of the Andalusian
Arabs, and confining them as much as possible to the soil of the
Peninsula. This was, in some sort, giving back to the country its
primary task as an independent duchy; and it was the most natural and
most certain way of making the Aquitanians useful subjects by giving play
to their national vanity, to their pretensions of forming a separate
people, and to their hopes of once more becoming, sooner or later, an
independent nation. Queen Hildegarde, during her husband’s sojourn at
Casseneuil, in 778, had borne him a son, whom he called Louis, and who
was, afterwards, Louis the Debonnair. Charlemagne, summoned a second
time to Rome, in 781, by the quarrels of Pope Adrian I. with the imperial
court of Constantinople, brought with him his two sons, Pepin aged only
four years, and Louis only three years, and had them anointed by the
Pope, the former King of Italy, and the latter King of Aquitaine. “On
returning from Rome to Austrasia, Charlemagne sent Louis at once to take
possession of his kingdom. From the banks of the Meuse to Orleans the
little prince was carried in his cradle; but once on the Loire, this
manner of travelling beseemed him no longer; his conductors would that
his entry into his dominions should have a manly and warrior-like
appearance; they clad him in arms proportioned to his height and age;
they put him and held him on horseback; and it was in such guise that he
entered Aquitaine. He came thither accompanied by the officers who were
to form his council of guardians, men chosen by Charlemagne, with care,
amongst the Frankish ‘leudes,’ distinguished not only for bravery and
firmness, but also for adroitness, and such as they should be to be
neither deceived nor seared by the cunning, fickle, and turbulent
populations with whom they would have to deal.” From this period to the
death of Charlemagne, and by his sovereign influence, though all the
while under his son’s name, the government of Aquitaine was a series of
continued efforts to hurl back the Arabs of Spain beyond the Ebro, to
extend to that river the dominion of the Franks, to divert to that end
the forces as well as the feelings of the populations of Southern Gaul,
and thus to pursue, in the South as in the North, against the Arabs as
well as against the Saxons and Huns, the grand design of Charlemagne,
which was the repression of foreign invasions and the triumph of
Christian France over Asiatic Paganism and Islamism.
Although continually obliged to watch, and often still to fight,
Charlemagne might well believe that he had nearly gained his end. He had
everywhere greatly extended the frontiers of the Frankish dominions and
subjugated the populations comprised in his conquests. He had proved
that his new frontiers would be vigorously defended against new invasions
or dangerous neighbors. He had pursued the Huns and the Saxons to the
confines of the empire of the East, and the Saracens to the islands of
Corsica and Sardinia. The centre of the dominion was no longer in
ancient Gaul; he had transferred it to a point not far from the Rhine, in
the midst and within reach of the Germanic populations, at the town of
Aix-la-Chapelle, which he had founded, and which was his favorite
residence; but the principal parts of the Gallo-Frankish kingdom,
Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy, were effectually welded in one single
mass. What he had done with Southern Gaul has but just been pointed out:
how he had both separated it from his own kingdom and still retained it
under his control. Two expeditions into Armorica, without taking
entirely from the Britons their independence, had taught them real
deference, and the great warrior Roland, installed as count upon their
frontier, warned them of the peril any rising would encounter. The moral
influence of Charlemagne was on a par with his material power; he had
everywhere protected the missionaries of Christianity; he had twice
entered Rome, also in the character of protector, and he could count on
the faithful support of the Pope at least as much as the Pope could count
on him. He had received embassies and presents from the sovereigns of
the East, Christian and Mussulman, from the emperors at Constantinople
and the khalifs at Bagdad. Everywhere, in Europe, in Africa, and in
Asia, he was feared and respected by kings and people. Such, at the
close of the eighth century, were, so far as he was concerned, the
results of his wars, of the superior capacity he had displayed, and of
the successes he had won and kept.
In 799 he received, at Aix-la-Chapelle, news of serious disturbances
which had broken out at Rome; that Pope Leo III. had been attacked by
conspirators, who, after pulling out, it was said, his eyes and his
tongue, had shut him up in the monastery of St. Erasmus, whence he had
with great difficulty escaped, and that he had taken refuge with
Winigisius, duke of Spoleto, announcing his intention of repairing thence
to the Frankish king. Leo was already known to Charlemagne; at his
accession to the pontificate, in 795, he had sent to him, as to the
patrician and defender of Rome, the keys of the prison of St. Peter and
the banner of the city. Charlemagne showed a disposition to receive him
with equal kindness and respect. The Pope arrived, in fact, at
Paderborn, passed some days there, according to Eginhard, and returned to
Rome on the 30th of November, 799, at ease regarding his future, but
without knowledge on the part of any one of what had been settled between
the king of the Franks and him. Charlemagne remained all the winter at
Aix-la-Chapelle, spent the first months of the year 800 on affairs
connected with Western France, at Rouen, Tours, Orleans, and Paris, and,
returning to Mayence in the month of August, then for the first time
announced to the general assembly of Franks his design of making a
journey to Italy. He repaired thither, in fact, and arrived on the 23d
of November, 800, at the gates of Rome. The Pope received him there as
he was dismounting; then, the next day, standing on the steps of the
basilica of St. Peter and amidst general hallelujahs, he introduced the
king into the sanctuary of the blessed apostle, glorifying and thanking
the Lord for this happy event. Some days were spent in examining into
the grievances which had been set down to the Pope’s account, and in
receiving two monks arrived from Jerusalem to present to the king, with
the patriarch’s blessing, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary, as
well as the sacred standard. Lastly, on the 25th of December, 800, “the
day of the Nativity of our Lord,” says Eginhard, “the king came into the
basilica of the blessed St. Peter, apostle, to attend the celebration of
mass. At the moment when, in his place before the altar, he was bowing
down to pray, Pope Leo placed on his head a crown, and all the Roman
people shouted, ‘Long life and victory to Charles Augustus, crowned by
God, the great and pacific emperor of the Romans!’ After this
proclamation the pontiff prostrated himself before him and paid him
adoration, according to the custom established in the days of the old
emperors; and thenceforward Charles, giving up the title of patrician,
bore that of Emperor and Augustus.”
Eginhard adds, in his Life of Charlemagne, “The king at first testified
great aversion for this dignity, for he declared that, notwithstanding
the importance of the festival, he would not on that day have entered the
church, if he could have foreseen the intentions of the sovereign
pontiff. However, this event excited the jealousy of the Roman emperors
(of Constantinople), who showed great vexation at it; but Charles met
their bad graces with nothing but great patience, and thanks to this
magnanimity, which raised him so far above them, he managed, by sending
to them frequent embassies and giving them in his letters the name of
brother, to triumph over their conceit.”
No one, probably, believed in the ninth century, and no one, assuredly,
will nowadays believe, that Charlemagne was innocent beforehand of what
took place on the 25th of December, 800, in the basilica of St. Peter.
It is doubtful, also, if he were seriously concerned about the ill-temper
of the emperors of the East. He had wit enough to understand the value
which always remains attached to old traditions, and he might have taken
some pains to secure their countenance to his title of emperor; but all
his contemporaries believed, and he also undoubtedly believed, that he
had on that day really won and set up again the Roman empire.
CHAPTER XI.—-CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS GOVERNMENT.
What, then, was the government of this empire of which Charlemagne was
proud to assume the old title? How did this German warrior govern that
vast dominion which, thanks to his conquests, extended from the Elbe to
the Ebro, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean; which comprised nearly
all Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and the north of Italy and of
Spain, and which, sooth to say, was still, when Charlemagne caused
himself to be made emperor, scarce more than the hunting-ground and the
battle-field of all the swarms of barbarians who tried to settle on the
ruins of the Roman world they had invaded and broken to pieces? The
government of Charlemagne in the midst of this chaos is the striking,
complicated, and transitory fact which is now to be passed in review.
A word of warning must be first of all given touching this word
government, with which it is impossible to dispense. For a long time
past the word has entailed ideas of national unity, general organization,
and regular and efficient power. There has been no lack of revolutions
which have changed dynasties and the principles and forms of the supreme
power in the State; but they have always left existing, under different
names, the practical machinery whereby the supreme power makes itself
felt and exercises its various functions over the whole country. Open
the Almanac, whether it be called the Imperial, the Royal, or the
National, and you will find there always the working system of the
government of France; all the powers and their agents, from the lowest to
the highest, are there indicated and classed according to their
prerogatives and relations. Nor have we there a mere empty nomenclature,
a phantom of theory; things go on actually as they are described–the
book is the reflex of the reality. It were easy to construct, for the
empire of Charlemagne, a similar list of officers; there might be set
down in it dukes, counts, vicars, centeniers, and sheriffs (seabini), and
they might be distributed, in regular gradation, over the whole
territory; but it would be one huge lie; for most frequently, in the
majority of places, these magistracies were utterly powerless and
themselves in complete disorder. The efforts of Charlemagne, either to
establish them on a firm footing or to make them act with regularity,
were continual, but unavailing. In spite of the fixity of his purpose
and the energy of his action, the disorder around him was measureless and
insurmountable. He might check it for a moment at one point; but the
evil existed wherever his terrible will did not reach, and wherever it
did the evil broke out again so soon as it had been withdrawn. How could
it be otherwise? Charlemagne had not to grapple with one single nation
or with one single system of institutions; he had to deal with different
nations, without cohesion, and foreign one to another. The authority
belonged, at one and the same time, to assemblies of free men, to
landholders over the dwellers on their domains, and to the king over the
“leudes” and their following. These three powers appeared and acted side
by side in every locality as well as in the totality of the State. Their
relations and their prerogatives were not governed by any generally-
recognized principle, and none of the three was invested with sufficient
might to prevail habitually against the independence or resistance of its
rivals. Force alone, varying according to circumstances and always
uncertain decided matters between them. Such was France at the accession
of the second line. The co-existence of and the struggle between the
three systems of institutions and the three powers just alluded to had as
yet had no other result. Out of this chaos Charlemagne caused to issue a
monarchy, strong through him alone and so long as he was by, but
powerless and gone like a shadow when the man was lost to the
institution.
Whoever is astonished either at this triumph of absolute monarchy through
the personal movement of Charlemagne, or at the speedy fall of the fabric
on the disappearance of the moving spirit, understands neither what can
be done by a great man, when without him society sees itself given over
to deadly peril, nor how unsubstantial and frail is absolute power when
the great man is no longer by, or when society has no longer need of him.
It has just been shown how Charlemagne by his wars, which had for their
object and result permanent and well-secured conquests, had stopped the
fresh incursions of barbarians, that is, had stopped disorder coming from
without. An attempt will now be made to show by what means he set about
suppressing disorder from within and putting his own rule in the place of
the anarchy that prevailed in the Roman world which lay in ruins, and in
the barbaric world which was a prey to blind and ill-regulated force.
A distinction must be drawn between the local and central governments.
Far from the centre of the State, in what have since been called the
provinces, the power of the emperor was exercised by the medium of two
classes of agents, one local and permanent, the other despatched from the
centre and transitory.
In the first class we find:–
1st. The dukes, counts, vicars of counts, centeniers, sheriffs
(scabini), officers or magistrates residing on the spot, nominated by the
emperor himself or by his delegates, and charged with the duty of acting
in his name for the levying of troops, rendering of justice, maintenance
of order, and receipt of imposts.
2d. The beneficiaries or vassals of the emperor, who held of him,
sometimes as hereditaments, more often for life, and more often still
without fixed rule or stipulation, lands; domains, throughout the extent
of which they exercised, a little bit in their own name and a little bit
in the name of the emperor, a certain jurisdiction and nearly all the
rights of sovereignty. There was nothing very fixed or clear in the
position of the beneficiaries and in the nature of their power; they were
at one and the same time delegates and independent, owners and enjoyers
of usufruct, and the former or the latter character prevailed amongst
them according to circumstances. But, altogether, they were closely
bound to Charlemagne, who, in a great number of cases, charged them with
the execution of his orders in the lands they occupied.
Above these agents, local and resident, magistrates or beneficiaries,
were the _missi dominici,_ temporary commissioners, charged to inspect,
in the emperor’s name, the condition of the provinces; authorized to
penetrate into the interior of the free lands as well as of the domains
granted with the title of benefices; having the right to reform certain
abuses, and bound to render an account of all to their master. The
_missi dominici_ were the principal instruments Charlemagne had,
throughout the vast territory of his empire, of order and administration.
As to the central government, setting aside for a moment the personal
action of Charlemagne and of his counsellors, the general assemblies,
to judge by appearances and to believe nearly all the modern historians,
occupied a prominent place in it. They were, in fact, during his reign,
numerous and active; from the year 776 to the year 813 we may count
thirty-five of these national assemblies, March-parades and May-parades,
held at Worms, Valenciennes, Geneva, Paderborn, Aix-la-Chapelle,
Thionville, and several other towns, the majority situated round about
the two banks of the Rhine. The number and periodical nature of these
great political reunions are undoubtedly a noticeable fact. What, then,
went on in their midst? What character and weight must be attached to
their intervention in the government of the State? It is important to
sift this matter thoroughly.
There is extant, touching this subject, a very curious document. A
contemporary and counsellor of Charlemagne, his cousin-german Adalbert,
abbot of Corbic, had written a treatise entitled _Of the Ordering of the
Palace (De Ordine Palatii),_ and designed to give an insight into the
government of Charlemagne, with especial reference to the national
assemblies. This treatise was lost; but towards the close of the ninth
century, Hincmar, the celebrated archbishop of Rheims, reproduced it
almost in its entirety, in the form of a letter or of instructions,
written at the request of certain grandees of the kingdom who had asked
counsel of him with respect to the government of Carloman, one of the
sons of Charles the Stutterer. We read therein,
“It was the custom at this time to hold two assemblies every year. . .
In both, that they might not seem to have been convoked without motive,
there were submitted to the examination and deliberation of the grandees
. . . and by virtue of orders from the king, the fragments of law
called _capitula,_ which the king himself had drawn up under the
inspiration of God or the necessity for which had been made manifest to
him in the intervals between the meetings.”
Two striking facts are to be gathered from these words: the first, that
the majority of the members composing these assemblies probably regarded
as a burden the necessity for being present at them, since Charlemagne
took care to explain their convocation by declaring to them the motive
for it and by always giving them something to do; the second, that the
proposal of the capitularies, or, in modern phrase, the initiative,
proceeded from the emperor. The initiative is naturally exercised by him
who wishes to regulate or reform, and in his time it was especially
Charlemagne who conceived this design. There is no doubt, however, but
that the members of the assembly might make on their side such proposals
as appeared to them suitable; the constitutional distrusts and artifices
of our times were assuredly unknown to Charlemagne, who saw in these
assemblies a means of government rather than a barrier to his authority.
To resume the text of Hincmar:–
“After having received these communications, they deliberated on them
two or three days or more, according to the importance of the business.
Palace-messengers, going and coming, took their questions and carried
back the answers. No stranger came near the place of their meeting until
the result of their deliberations had been able to be submitted to the
scrutiny of the great prince, who then, with the wisdom he had received
from God, adopted a resolution which all obeyed.”
The definitive resolution, therefore, depended upon Charlemagne alone;
the assembly contributed only information and counsel.
Hinemar continues, and supplies details worthy of reproduction, for they
give an insight into the imperial government and the action of
Charlemagne himself amidst those most ancient of the national assemblies.
“Things went on thus for one or two capitularies, or a greater number,
until, with God’s help, all the necessities of the occasion were
regulated.
“Whilst these matters were thus proceeding out of the king’s presence,
the prince himself, in the midst of the multitude, came to the general
assembly, was occupied in receiving the presents, saluting the men of
most note, conversing with those he saw seldom, showing towards the
elders a tender interest, disporting himself with the youngsters, and
doing the same thing, or something like it, with the ecclesiastics as
well as the seculars. However, if those who were deliberating about the
matter submitted to their examination showed a desire for it, the king
repaired to them and remained with them as long as they wished; and then
they reported to him with perfect familiarity what they thought about all
matters, and what were the friendly discussions that had arisen amongst
them. I must not forget to say that, if the weather were fine,
everything took place in the open air; otherwise, in several distinct
buildings, where those who had to deliberate on the king’s proposals were
separated from the multitude of persons come to the assembly, and then
the men of greater note were admitted. The places appointed for the
meeting of the lords were divided into two parts, in such sort that the
bishops, the abbots, and the clerics of high rank might meet without
mixture with the laity. In the same way the counts and other chiefs of
the State underwent separation, in the morning, until, whether the king
was present or absent, all were gathered together; then the lords above
specified, the clerics on their side, and the laics on theirs, repaired
to the hall which had been assigned to them, and where seats had been
with due honor prepared for them. When the lords laical and
ecclesiastical were thus separated from the multitude, it remained in
their power to sit separately or together, according to the nature of the
business they had to deal with, ecclesiastical, secular, or mixed. In
the same way, if they wished to send for any one, either to demand
refreshment, or to put any question and to dismiss him after getting what
they wanted, it was at their option. Thus took place the examination of
affairs proposed to them by the king for deliberation.
[Illustration: Charlemagne and the General Assembly----239]
“The second business of the king was to ask of each what there was to
report to him, or enlighten him touching the part of the kingdom each had
come from. Not only was this permitted to all, but they were strictly
enjoined to make inquiries, during the interval between the assemblies,
about what happened within or without the kingdom; and they were bound to
seek knowledge from foreigners as well as natives, enemies as well as
friends, sometimes by employing emissaries, and without troubling
themselves much about the manner in which they acquired their
information. The king wished to know whether in any part, in any corner
of the kingdom, the people were restless, and what was the cause of their
restlessness; or whether there had happened any disturbance to which it
was necessary to draw the attention of the council-general, and other
similar matters. He sought also to know whether any of the subjugated
nations were inclined to revolt; whether any of those that had revolted
seemed disposed towards submission; and whether those that were still
independent were threatening the kingdom with any attack. On all these
subjects, whenever there was any manifestation of disorder or danger, he
demanded chiefly what were the motives or occasion of them.”
There is need of no great reflection to recognize the true character of
these assemblies: it is clearly imprinted upon the sketch drawn by
Hincmar. The figure of Charlemagne alone fills the picture: he is the
centre-piece of it and the soul of everything. ‘Tis he who wills that
the national assemblies should meet and deliberate; ’tis he who inquires
into the state of the country; ’tis he who proposes and approves of or
rejects the laws; with him rest will and motive, initiative and decision.
He has a mind sufficiently judicious, unshackled, and elevated to
understand that the nation ought not to be left in darkness about its
affairs, and that he himself has need of communicating with it, of
gathering information from it, and of learning its opinions. But we have
here no exhibition of great political liberties, no people discussing its
interests and its business, interfering effectually in the adoption of
resolutions, and, in fact, taking in its government so active and
decisive a part as to have a right to say that it is self-governing,
or, in other words, a free people. It is Charlemagne, and he alone,
who governs; it is absolute government marked by prudence, ability,
and grandeur.
When the mind dwells upon the state of Gallo-Frankish society in the
eighth century, there is nothing astonishing in such a fact. Whether it
be civilized or barbarian, that which every society needs, that which it
seeks and demands first of all in its government, is a certain degree of
good sense and strong will, of intelligence and innate influence, so far
as the public interests are concerned; qualities, in fact, which suffice
to keep social order maintained or make it realized, and to promote
respect for individual rights and the progress of the general well-being.
This is the essential aim of every community of men; and the institutions
and guarantees of free government are the means of attaining it. It is
clear that, in the eighth century, on the ruins of the Roman and beneath
the blows of the barbaric world, the Gallo-Frankish nation, vast and
without cohesion, brutish and ignorant, was incapable of bringing forth,
so to speak, from its own womb, with the aid of its own wisdom and
virtue, a government of the kind. A host of different forces, without
enlightenment and without restraint, were everywhere and incessantly
struggling for dominion, or, in other words, were ever troubling and
endangering the social condition. Let there but arise, in the midst of
this chaos of unruly forces and selfish passions, a great man, one of
those elevated minds and strong characters that can understand the
essential aim of society and then urge it forward, and at the same time
keep it well in hand on the roads that lead thereto, and such a man will
soon seize and exercise the personal power almost of a despot, and people
will not only make him welcome, but even celebrate his praises, for they
do not quit the substance for the shadow, or sacrifice the end to the
means. Such was the empire of Charlemagne. Amongst annalists and
historians, some, treating him as a mere conqueror and despot, have
ignored his merits and his glory; others, that they might admire him
without scruple, have made of him a founder of free institutions, a
constitutional monarch. Both are equally mistaken. Charlemagne was,
indeed, a conqueror and a despot; but by his conquests and his personal
power he, so long as he was by, that is, for six and forty years, saved
Gallo-Frankish society from barbaric invasion without and anarchy within.
That is the characteristic of his government and his title to glory.
What he was in his wars and his general relations with his nation has
just been seen; he shall now be exhibited in all his administrative
activity and his intellectual life, as a legislator and as a friend to
the human mind. The same man will be recognized in every ease; he will
grow in greatness, without changing, as he appears under his various
aspects.
There are often joined together, under the title of Capitularies
(_capitula,_ small chapters, articles) a mass of Acts, very different in
point of dates and objects, which are attributed indiscriminately to
Charlemagne. This is a mistake. The Capitularies are the laws or
legislative measures of the Frankish kings, Merovingian as well as
Carlovingian. Those of the Merovingians are few in number and of slight
importance, and amongst those of the Carlovingians, which amount to one
hundred and fifty-two, sixty-five only are due to Charlemagne. When an
attempt is made to classify these last according to their object, it is
impossible not to be struck with their incoherent variety; and several of
them are such as we should nowadays be surprised to meet with in a code
or in a special law. Amongst Charlemagne’s sixty-five Capitularies,
which contain eleven hundred and fifty-one articles, may be counted
eighty-seven of moral, two hundred and ninety-three of political, one
hundred and thirty of penal, one hundred and ten of civil, eighty-five of
religious, three hundred and five of canonical, seventy-three of
domestic, and twelve of incidental legislation. And it must not be
supposed that all these articles are really acts of legislation, laws
properly so called; we find amongst them the texts of ancient national
laws revised and promulgated afresh; extracts from and additions to these
same ancient laws, Salle, Lombard, and Bavarian; extracts from acts of
councils; instructions given by Charlemagne to his envoys in the
provinces; questions that he proposed to put to the bishops or counts
when they came to the national assembly; answers given by Charlemagne
to questions addressed to him by the bishops, counts, or commissioners
(_missi dominici_); judgments, decrees, royal pardons, and simple notes
that Charlemagne seems to have had written down for himself alone, to
remind him of what he proposed to do; in a word, nearly all the various
acts which could possibly have to be framed by an earnest, far-sighted
and active government. Often, indeed, these Capitularies have no
imperative or prohibitive character; they are simple counsels, purely
moral precepts. We read therein, for example,–
“Covetousness doth consist in desiring that which others possess, and in
giving away nought of that which one’s self possesseth; according to the
Apostle it is the root of all evil.”
And,–
“Hospitality must be practised.”
The Capitularies which have been classed under the heads of political,
penal, and canonical legislation are the most numerous, and are those
which bear most decidedly an imperative or prohibitive stamp; amongst
them a prominent place is held by measures of political economy,
administration, and police; you will find therein an attempt to put a
fixed price on provisions, a real trial of a maximum for cereals, and a
prohibition of mendicity, with the following clause:–
“If such mendicants be met with, and they labor not with their hands, let
none take thought about giving unto them.”
The interior police of the palace was regulated thereby, as well as that
of the empire:
“We do will and decree that none of those who serve in our palace shall
take leave to receive therein any man who seeketh refuge there and cometh
to hide there, by reason of theft, homicide, adultery, or any other
crime. That if any free man do break through our interdicts, and hide
such malefactor in our palace, he shall be bound to carry him on his
shoulders to the public quarter, and be there tied to the same stake as
the malefactor.”
Certain Capitularies have been termed religious legislation in
contradistinction to canonical legislation, because they are really
admonitions, religious exhortations, addressed not to ecclesiastics
alone, but to the faithful, the Christian people in general, and notably
characterized by good sense, and, one might almost say, freedom of
thought.
For example,
“Beware of venerating the names of martyrs falsely so called, and the
memory of dubious saints.”
“Let none suppose that prayer cannot be made to God save in three tongues
[probably Latin, Greek, and Germanic, or perhaps the vulgar tongue; for
the last was really beginning to take form], for God is adored in all
tongues, and man is heard if he do but ask for the things that be right.”
These details are put forward that a proper idea may be obtained of
Charlemagne as a legislator, and of what are called his laws. We have
here, it will be seen, no ordinary legislator and no ordinary laws: we
see the work, with infinite variations and in disconnected form, of a
prodigiously energetic and watchful master, who had to think and provide
for everything, who had to be everywhere the moving and the regulating
spirit. This universal and untiring energy is the grand characteristic
of Charlemagne’s government, and was, perhaps, what made his superiority
most incontestable and his power most efficient.
It is noticeable that the majority of Charlemagne’s Capitularies belong
to that epoch of his reign when he was Emperor of the West, when he was
invested with all the splendor of sovereign power. Of the sixty-five
Capitularies classed under different heads, thirteen only are previous to
the 25th of December, 800, the date of his coronation as emperor at Rome;
fifty-two are comprised between the years 801 and 804.
The energy of Charlemagne as a warrior and a politician having thus been
exhibited, it remains to say a few words about his intellectual energy.
For that is by no means the least original or least grand feature of his
character and his influence.
Modern times and civilized society have more than once seen despotic
sovereigns filled with distrust towards scholars of exalted intellect,
especially such as cultivated the moral and political sciences, and
little inclined to admit them to their favor or to public office. There
is no knowing whether, in our days, with our freedom of thought and of
the press, Charlemagne would have been a stranger to this feeling of
antipathy; but what is certain is, that in his day, in the midst of a
barbaric society, there was no inducement to it, and that, by nature, he
was not disposed to it. His power was not in any respect questioned;
distinguished intellects were very rare; Charlemagne had too much need of
their services to fear their criticisms, and they, on their part, were
more anxious to second his efforts than to show towards him anything like
exaction or independence. He gave rein, therefore, without any
embarrassment or misgiving, to his spontaneous inclination towards them,
their studies, their labors, and their influence. He drew them into the
management of affairs. In Guizot’s _History of Civilization in France_
there is a list of the names and works of twenty-three men of the eighth
and ninth centuries who have escaped oblivion, and they are all found
grouped about Charlemagne as his own habitual advisers, or assigned by
him as advisers to his sons Pepin and Louis in Italy and Aquitania, or
sent by him to all points of his empire as his commissioners (_missi
dominici_), or charged in his name with important negotiations. And
those whom he did not employ at a distance formed, in his immediate
neighborhood, a learned and industrious society, a school of the palace,
according to some modern commentators, but an academy, and not a school,
according to others, devoted rather to conversation than to teaching. It
probably fulfilled both missions; it attended Charlemagne at his various
residences, at one time working for him at questions he invited them to
deal with, at another giving to the regular components of his court, to
his children and to himself, lessons in the different sciences called
liberal, grammar, rhetoric, logic, astronomy, geometry, and even theology
and the great religious problems it was beginning to discuss.
[Illustration: Charlemagne presiding at the School of the Palace----246]
Two men, Alcuin and Eginhard, have remained justly celebrated in the
literary history of the age. Alcuin was the principal director of the
school of the palace, and the favorite, the confidant, the learned
adviser of Charlemagne. “If your zeal were imitated,” said he one day to
the emperor, “perchance one might see arise in France a new Athens, far
more glorious than the ancient–the Athens of Christ.” Eginhard, who was
younger, received his scientific education in the school of the palace,
and was head of the public works to Charlemagne, before becoming his
biographer, and, at a later period, the intimate adviser of his son Louis
the Debonnair. Other scholars of the school of the palace, Angilbert,
Leidrade, Adalhard, Agobard, Theodulph, were abbots of St. Riquier or
Corbie, archbishops of Lyons, and bishops of Orleans. They had all
assumed, in the school itself, names illustrious in pagan antiquity;
Alcuin called himself Flaeens; Angilbert, Homer; Theodulph, Pindar.
Charlemagne himself had been pleased to take, in their society, a great
name of old, but he had borrowed from the history of the Hebrews–he
called himself David; and Eginhard, animated, no doubt, by the same
sentiments, was Bezaleel, that nephew of Moses to whom God had granted
the gift of knowing how to work skilfully in wood and all the materials
which served for the construction of the ark and the tabernacle. Either
in the lifetime of their royal patron, or after his death, all these
scholars became great dignitaries of the Church, or ended their lives in
monasteries of note; but, so long as they lived, they served Charlemagne
or his sons not only with the devotion of faithful advisers, but also as
followers proud of the master who had known how to do them honor by
making use of them.
It was without effort and by natural sympathy that Charlemagne had
inspired them with such sentiments; for he, too, really loved sciences,
literature, and such studies as were then possible, and he cultivated
them on his own account and for his own pleasure, as a sort of conquest.
It has been doubted whether he could write, and an expression of
Eginhard’s might authorize such a doubt; but, according to other evidence
and even according to the passage in Eginhard, one is inclined to believe
merely that Charlemagne strove painfully, and without much success, to
write a good hand. He had learned Latin, and he understood Greek. He
caused to be commenced, and, perhaps, himself commenced the drawing up of
the first Germanic grammar. He ordered that the old barbaric poems, in
which the deeds and wars of the ancient kings were celebrated, should be
collected for posterity. He gave Germanic names to the twelve months of
the year. He distinguished the winds by twelve special terms, whereas
before his time they had but four designations. He paid great attention
to astronomy. Being troubled one day at no longer seeing in the
firmament one of the known planets, he wrote to Alcuin, “What thinkest
thou of this Mars, which, last year, being concealed in the sign of
Cancer, was intercepted from the sight of men by the light of the sun?
Is it the regular course of his revolution? Is it the influence of the
sun? Is it a miracle? Could he have been two years about performing the
course of a single one?” In theological studies and discussions he
exhibited a particular and grave interest. “It is to him,” say M.M.
Ampere and Haureau, “that we must refer the honor of the decision taken
in 794 by the Council of Frankfort in the great dispute about images; a
temperate decision which is as far removed from the infatuation of the
image-worshippers as from the frenzy of the image-breakers.” And at the
same time that he thus took part in the great ecclesiastical questions,
Charlemagne paid zealous attention to the instruction of the clergy,
whose ignorance he deplored. “Ah,” said he one day, “if only I had about
me a dozen clerics learned in all the sciences, as Jerome and Augustin
were!” With all his puissance it was not in his power to make Jeromes
and Augustins; but he laid the foundation, in the cathedral churches and
the great monasteries, of episcopal and cloistral schools for the
education of ecclesiastics, and carrying his solicitude still farther,
he recommended to the bishops and abbots that, in those schools, “they
should take care to make no difference between the sons of serfs and of
free men, so that they might come and sit on the same benches to study
grammar, music, and arithmetic.” (_Capitularies_ of 789, art. 70.) 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,” said 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 amongst 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 churches; the second set aside for
his sons and daughters, and for the sons and daughters of his sons, and
redivided amongst them in a just and proportionate manner; the third
dedicated, according to the usage of Christians, to the necessities of
the poor; and, lastly, the fourth distributed in the same way, under the
name of alms, amongst the servants, of both sexes, of the palace for
their lifetime. . . . As for the books, of which he had amassed a
large number in his library, he decided that those who wished to have
them might buy them at their proper value, and that the money which they
produced should be distributed amongst the poor.”
Having thus carefully regulated his own private affairs and bounty, he,
two years later, in 813, took the measures necessary for the regulation,
after his death, of public affairs. He had lost, in 811, his eldest son
Charles, who had been his constant companion in his wars, and, in 810,
his second son Pepin, whom he had made king of Italy; and he summoned to
his side his third son Louis, king of Aquitaine, who was destined to
succeed him. He ordered the convocation of five local councils which
were to assemble at Mayence, Rheims, Chalons, Tours, and Arles, for the
purpose of bringing about, subject to the king’s ratification, the
reforms necessary in the Church. Passing from the affairs of the Church
to those of the State, he convoked at Aix-la-Chapelle a general assembly
of bishops, abbots, counts, laic grandees, and of the entire people, and,
holding council in his palace with the chief amongst them, “he invited
them to make his son Louis king-emperor; whereto all assented, saying
that it was very expedient, and pleasing, also, to the people. On Sunday
in the next month, August 813, Charlemagne repaired, crown on head, with
his son Louis, to the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, laid upon the altar
another crown, and, after praying, addressed to his son a solemn
exhortation respecting all his duties as king towards God and the Church,
towards his family and his people, asked him if he were fully resolved to
fulfil them, and, at the answer that he was, bade him take the crown that
lay upon the altar, and place it with his own hands upon his head, which
Louis did amidst the acclamations of all present, who cried, ‘Long live
the emperor Louis!’ Charlemagne then declared his son emperor jointly
with him, and ended the solemnity with these words: ‘Blessed be Thou, O
Lord God, who hast granted me grace to see with mine own eyes my son
seated on my throne!’” And Louis set out again immediately for
Aquitaine.
He was never to see his father again. Charlemagne, after his son’s
departure, went out hunting, according to his custom, in the forest of
Ardenne, and continued during the whole autumn his usual mode of life.
“But in January, 814, he was taken ill,” says Eginhard, “of a violent
fever, which kept him to his bed. Recurring forthwith to the remedy he
ordinarily employed against fever, he abstained from all nourishment,
persuaded that this diet would suffice to drive away or at the least
assuage the malady; but added to the fever came that pain in the side
which the Greeks call pleurisy; nevertheless the emperor persisted in his
abstinence, supporting his body only by drinks taken at long intervals;
and on the seventh day after that he had taken to his bed, having
received the holy communion,” he expired about nine A.M., on Saturday,
the 28th of January, 814, in his seventy-first year.
“After performance of ablutions and funeral duties, the corpse was
carried away and buried, amidst the profound mourning of all the people,
in the church he himself had built; and above his tomb there was put up a
gilded arcade with his image and this superscription: ‘In this tomb
reposeth the body of Charles, great and orthodox emperor, who did
gloriously extend the kingdom of the Franks, and did govern it happily
for forty-seven years. He died at the age of seventy years, in the year
of the Lord 814, in the seventh year of the Indiction, on the 5th of the
Kalends of February.’”
If we sum up his designs and his achievements, we find an admirably sound
idea and a vain dream, a great success and a great failure.
Charlemagne took in hand the work of placing upon a solid foundation the
Frankish-Christian dominion by stopping, in the north and south, the
flood of barbarians and Arabs–Paganism and Islamism. In that he
succeeded: the inundations of Asiatic populations spent their force in
vain against the Gallic frontier. Western and Christian Europe was
placed, territorially, beyond reach of attacks from the foreigner and
infidel. No sovereign, no human being, perhaps, ever rendered greater
service to the civilization of the world.
Charlemagne formed another conception and made another attempt. Like
more than one great barbaric warrior, he admired the Roman empire that
had fallen, its vastness all in one, and its powerful organization under
the hand of a single master. He thought he could resuscitate it,
durably, through the victory of a new people and a new faith, by the hand
of Franks and Christians. With this view he labored to conquer, convert,
and govern. He tried to be, at one and the same time, Caesar, Augustus,
and Constantine. And for a moment he appeared to have succeeded; but the
appearance passed away with himself. The unity of the empire and the
absolute power of the emperor were buried in his grave. The Christian
religion and human liberty set to work to prepare for Europe other
governments and other destinies.
Great men do great things which would not get done without them; they set
their mark plainly upon history, which realizes a portion of their ideas
and wishes; but they are far from doing all they meditate, and they know
not all they do. They are at one and the same time instruments and free
agents in a general design which is infinitely above their ken, and
which, even if a glimpse of it be caught, remains inscrutable to them–
the design of God towards mankind. When great men understand that such
is their position and accept it, they show sense, and they work to some
purpose. When they do not recognize the limits of their free agency, and
the veil which hides from their eyes the future they are laboring for,
they become the dupes, and frequently the victims, of a blind pride,
which events, in the long run, always end by exposing and punishing.
Amongst men of his rank, Charlemagne has had this singular good fortune,
that his error, his misguided attempt at imperialism, perished with him,
whilst his salutary achievement, the territorial security of Christian
Europe, has been durable, to the great honor, as well as great profit, of
European civilization.
