enhagen, and from the English Channel to the Iron
Gates of the Danube, and who, parcelling out his dominion among his
boys, had set over the principality of Aquitaine as King his little
three-year-old Louis, forever famous as the son of Charlemagne.

Here, in his palace at Toulouse, did Louis rule as King of Aquitaine for
thirty-two years, subject only to his renowned father, Charles the
Emperor, called Carolus Magnus, or Charlemagne. This mighty man, "the
greatest of Germans"--great in stature, in aim, in energy, and in
authority--looked sharply after the small boy he had made King of
Aquitaine. He had the lad carefully and thoroughly educated, and Louis
grew to be an intelligent, bright-faced, clear-eyed, sturdy, and strong
young man, but he was sober and sedate, skilled in the Scriptures and
learned in Latin and Greek, unsuited to the rough war days in which he
lived, more a scholar than a soldier, and more a priest than a prince.

So the years slipped by. Then trouble came to the great Emperor. One by
one the sons of Charlemagne sickened and died--those brave and stalwart
boys upon whom the father had relied as the stay and help of his old
age, his successors in his plan of empire. At last only Louis the Clerk
was left.

Hludwig Fromme he was called by his subjects of Aquitaine--that is,
Louis the Kind; and thus, though wrongly rendered, the name of this good
and peace-loving son of Charlemagne has come down to us as Louis the
Pious, or Louis le Debonair.

Nowadays we are apt to think of debonair as meaning gay, careless,
fashionable, and "dudish"; but Louis, the son of Charlemagne, was
anything but this. He was kind, courteous, loving, gentle, and true; but
he was also strict, dutiful, and just. He was strong of limb and stout
of arm; none could bend bow better nor couch lance truer than he; but he
never cared for sport nor the rough "horse-play" of his day; he seldom
laughed aloud: he was grave, prudent, and wise, "slow to anger, swift to
pity, liberal in both giving and forgiving."

He won the loyalty of his subjects of Aquitaine by love and not by
tyranny; he kept at bay the pagan Moors of Spain, and, under wise
counsellors, sought to govern his kingdom justly and well.

But when his brothers died, and he, the youngest of the three, was
summoned to his father's side, he left his palace by the Garonne, in
pleasant Toulouse, and hastened to Aix-la-Chapelle, his father's
capital.

It was the year 813. An as