When Augustus Csar was in Egypt he ordered
Alexander's tomb to be opened; and upon their asking him whether he was
willing they should open the tombs of the Ptolemies, he made answer that
he wanted to see the king, and not the dead. Thus, in the history of the
second race, we are continually looking for Pepin and Charlemagne; we
want to see the kings, and not the dead.
A prince who was the sport of his passions, and a dupe even to his
virtues; a prince who never understood rightly either his own strength
or weakness; a prince who was incapable of making himself either feared
or beloved; a prince, in fine, who with few vices in his heart had all
manner of defects in his understanding, took into his hands the reins of
the empire which had been held by Charlemagne.
At a time when the whole world is in tears for the death of his
father, at a time of surprise and alarm, when the subjects of that
extensive empire all call upon Charles and find him no more; at a time
when he is advancing with all expedition to take possession of his
father's throne, he sends some trusty officers before him in order to
seize the persons of those who had contributed to the irregular conduct
of his sisters. This step was productive of the most terrible
catastrophes.
[136]
It was imprudent and precipitate. He began with
punishing domestic crimes before he reached the palace; and with
alienating the minds of his subjects before he ascended the throne.
His nephew, Bernard, King of Italy, having come to implore his
clemency, he ordered his eyes to be put out, which proved the cause of
that prince's death a few days after, and created Louis a great many
enemies. His apprehension of the consequence induced him to shut his
brothers up in a monastery; by which means the number of his enemies
increased. These two last transactions were afterwards laid to his
charge in a judicial manner,
[137]
and his accusers did not fail to tell
him that he had violated his oath and the solemn promises which he had
made to his father on the day of his coronation.
[138]
After the death of the Empress Hermengarde, by whom he had three
children, he married Judith, and had a son by that princess; but soon
mixing all the indulgence of an old husband, with all the weakness of an
old king, he flung his family into a disorder which was followed by the
downfall of the monarchy.
He was continually altering the partitions he had made among his
children. And yet these partitions had been confirmed each in their turn
by his own oath, and by those of his children and the nobility. This was
as if he wanted to try the fidelity of his subjects; it was endeavouring
by confusion, scruples, and equivocation, to puzzle their obedience; it
was confounding the different rights of those princes, and rendering
their titles dubious, especially at a time when there were but few
fortresses, and when the principal bulwark of authority was the fealty
sworn and accepted.
The Emperor's children, in order to preserve their shares, courted
the clergy, and granted them privileges till then unheard. These
privileges were specious; and the clergy in return were made to warrant
the revolution in favour of those princes. Agobard
[139]
represents to
Louis the Debonnaire his having sent Lotharius to Rome, in order to have
him declared emperor; and that he had made a division of his dominions
among his children, after having consulted heaven by three days fasting
and praying. What defence could such a weak prince make against the
attack of superstition? It is easy to perceive the shock which the
supreme authority must have twice received from his imprisonment, and
from his public penance; they would fain degrade the king, and they
degraded the regal dignity.
We find difficulty at first in conceiving how a prince who was
possessed of several good qualities, who had some knowledge, who had a
natural disposition to virtue, and who in short was the son of
Charlemagne, could have such a number of enemies.
[140]
so impetuous and
implacable as even to insult him in his humiliation and to be determined
upon his ruin: and, indeed they would have utterly completed it, if his
children, who in the main were more honest than they, had been steady in
their design, and could have agreed among themselves.
