were not much given to carrying their pious zeal into the home of the Mussulman; and the Mussulmans were far less disposed than the pagans to become Christians. To preserve their conquests, the Arabs of Spain had to struggle against the refugee Goths in the Asturias; and Charlemagne, by extending those of the Franks to the Ebro, had given the Christian Goths a powerful alliance against the Spanish Mussulmans. For all these reasons, the invasions of the Saracens in the south of France did not threaten, as those of the Northmen did in the north, the security of the Gallo-Frankish monarchy, and the Gallo-Roman populations of the south were able to defend their national independence at the same time against the Saracens and the Franks. They did so successfully in the ninth and tenth centuries; and the French monarchy, which was being founded between the Loire and the Rhine, had thus for some time a breach in it, without ever suffering serious displacement.
A new people, the Hungarians, which was the only name then given to the Magyars, appeared at this epoch, for the first time, amongst the devastators of Western Europe. From 910 to 954, as a consequence of movements and wars on the Danube, Hungarian hordes, after scouring Central Germany, penetrated into Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne, Burgundy, Berry, Dauphine, Provence, and even Aquitaine; but this inundation was transitory, and if the populations of those countries had much to suffer from it, the Gallo-Frankish dominion, in spite of inward disorder and the feebleness of the latter Carlovingians, was not seriously endangered thereby.
And so the first of Charlemagne’s grand designs, the territorial security of the Gallo-Frankish and Christian dominion, was accomplished. In the east and the north, the Germanic and Asiatic populations, which had so long upset it, were partly arrested at its frontiers, partly incorporated regularly in its midst. In the south, the Mussulman populations which, in the eighth century, had appeared so near overwhelming it, were powerless to deal it any heavy blow. Substantially France was founded. But what had become of Charlemagne’s second grand design, the resuscitation of the Roman empire at the hands of the barbarians that had conquered it and become Christians?
Let us leave Louis the Debonnair his traditional name, although it is not an exact rendering of that which was given him by his contemporaries. They called him Louis the Pious. And so indeed he was, sincerely and even scrupulously pious; but he was still more weak than pious, as weak in heart and character as in mind, as destitute of ruling ideas as of strength of will; fluctuating at the mercy of transitory impressions, or surrounding influences, or positional embarrassments. The name of Debonnair is suited to him; it expresses his moral worth and his political incapacity, both at once.
As king of Aquitania, in the time of Charlemagne, Louis made himself esteemed and loved; his justice, his suavity, his probity, and his piety were pleasing to the people, and his weaknesses disappeared under the strong hand of his father. When he became emperor, he began his reign by a reaction against the excesses, real or supposed, of the preceding reign. Charlemagne’s morals were far from regular, and he troubled himself but little about the license prevailing in his family or his palace. At a distance he ruled with a tight and a heavy hand. Louis established at his court, for his sisters as well as his servants, austere regulations. He restored to the subjugated Saxons certain of the rights of which Charlemagne had deprived them. He sent out everywhere his commissioners (missi dominici) with orders to listen to complaints and redress grievances, and to mitigate his father’s rule, which was rigorous in its application, and yet insufficient to repress disturbance, notwithstanding its preventive purpose and its watchful supervision.
Almost simultaneously with his accession, Louis committed an act more serious and compromising. He had, by his wife Hermengarde, three sons, Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis, aged respectively nineteen, eleven, and eight. In 817 Louis summoned at Aix-la-Chapelle the general assembly of his dominions; and there, whilst declaring that “neither to those who were wisely-minded, nor to himself, did it appear expedient to break up, for the love he bare his sons and by the will of man, the unity of the empire, preserved by God himself,” he had resolved to share with his eldest son, Lothaire, the imperial throne. Lothaire was in fact crowned emperor; and his two brothers, Pepin and Louis, were crowned king, “in order that they might reign, after their father’s death and under their brother and lord, Lothaire, to wit: Pepin, over Aquitaine and a great part of Southern Gaul and of Burgundy; Louis, beyond the Rhine, over Bavaria and the divers peoplets in the east of Germany.” The rest of Gaul and of Germany, as well as the kingdom of Italy, was to belong to Lothaire, emperor and head of the Frankish monarchy, to whom his brothers would have to repair year by year to come to an understanding with him and receive his instructions. The last-named kingdom, the most considerable of the three, remained under the direct government of Louis the Debonnair, and at the same time of his son Lothaire, sharing the title of emperor. The two other sons, Pepin and Louis, entered, notwithstanding their childhood, upon immediate possession, the one of Aquitaine and the other of Bavaria, under the superior authority of their father and their brother, the joint emperors.
Charlemagne had vigorously maintained the unity of the empire, for all that he had delegated to two of his sons, Pepin and Louis, the government of Italy and Aquitaine, with the title of king. Louis the Debonnair, whilst regulating beforehand the division of his dominion, likewise desired, as he said, to maintain the unity of the empire. But he forgot that he was no Charlemagne.
It was not long before numerous mournful experiences showed to what extent the unity of the empire required personal superiority in the emperor, and how rapid would be the decay of the fabric when there remained nothing but the title of the founder.
In 816 Pope Stephen IV. came to France to consecrate Louis the Debonnair emperor. Many a time already the Popes had rendered the Frankish kings this service and honor. The Franks had been proud to see their king, Charlemagne, protecting Adrian I. against the Lombards; then crowned emperor at Rome by Leo III., and then having his two sons, Pepin and Louis, crowned at Rome, by the same Pope, kings respectively of Italy and of Aquitaine. On these different occasions, Charlemagne, whilst testifying the most profound respect for the Pope, had, in his relations with him, always taken care to preserve, together with his political greatness, all his personal dignity. But when, in 816, the Franks saw Louis the Pious not only go out of Rheims to meet Stephen IV., but prostrate himself, from head to foot, and rise only when the Pope held out a hand to him, the spectators felt saddened and humiliated at the sight of their emperor in the posture of a penitent monk.
Several insurrections burst out in the empire; the first amongst the Basques of Aquitaine; the next in Italy, where Bernard, son of Pepin, having, after his father’s death, become king in 812, with the consent of his grandfather Charlemagne, could not quietly see his kingdom pass into the hands of his cousin Lothaire at the orders of his uncle Louis. These two attempts were easily repressed, but the third was more serious. It took place in Brittany, amongst those populations of Armorica who were still buried in their woods, and were excessively jealous of their independence. In 818 they took for king one of their principal chieftains, named Morvan; and, not confining themselves to a refusal of all tribute to the king of the Franks, they renewed their ravages upon the Frankish territories bordering on their frontier. Louis was at that time holding a general assembly of his dominions at Aix-la-Chapelle; and Count Lantbert, commandant of the marches of Brittany, came and reported to him what was going on. A Frankish monk, named Ditcar, happened to be at the assembly: he was a man of piety and sense, a friend of peace, and, moreover, with some knowledge of the Breton king Morvan, as his monastery had property in the neighborhood. Him the emperor commissioned to convey to the king his grievances and his demands. After some days’ journey the monk passed the frontier, and arrived at a vast space enclosed on one side by a noble river, and on all the others by forests and swamps, hedges and ditches. In the middle of this space was a large dwelling, which was Morvan’s. Ditcar found it full of warriors, the king having, no doubt, some expedition on hand. The monk announced himself as a messenger from the emperor of the Franks. The style of announcement caused some confusion, at first, to the Briton, who, however, hasted to conceal his emotion under an air of good-will and joyousness, to impose upon his comrades. The latter were got rid of; and the king remained alone with the monk, who explained the object of his mission. He descanted upon the power of the Emperor Lotus, recounted his complaints,
