line of sovereigns, it takes its designation from
the _people_, instead of the _territory_. Thus we have Emperors and
Kings of the French, and a King of the Belgians. At the period of
which we have been speaking, under similar circumstances a different
alternative presented itself. The Chieftain who would no longer call
himself King of the tribe must claim to be Emperor of the world. Thus,
when the hereditary Mayors of the Palace had ceased to compromise
with the monarchs they had long since virtually dethroned, they soon
became unwilling to call themselves Kings of the Franks, a title which
belonged to the displaced Merovings; but they could not style
themselves Kings of France, for such a designation, though apparently
not unknown, was not a title of dignity. Accordingly they came forward
as aspirants to universal empire. Their motive has been greatly
misapprehended. It has been taken for granted by recent French writers
that Charlemagne was far before his age, quite as much in the
character of his designs as in the energy with which he prosecuted
them. Whether it be true or not that anybody is at any time before his
age, it is certainly true that Charlemagne, in aiming at an unlimited
dominion, was emphatically taking the only course which the
characteristic ideas of his age permitted him to follow. Of his
intellectual eminence there cannot be a question, but it is proved by
his acts and not by his theory.

These singularities of view were not altered on the partition of the
inheritance of Charlemagne among his three grandsons. Charles the
Bald, Lewis, and Lothair were still theoretically--if it be proper to
use the word--Emperors of Rome. Just as the Caesars of the Eastern and
Western Empires had each been _de jure_ emperor of the whole world,
with _de facto_ control over half of it, so the three Carlovingians
appear to have considered their power as limited, but their title as
unqualified. The same speculative universality of sovereignty
continued to be associated with the Imperial throne after the second
division on the death of Charles the Fat, and, indeed, was never
thoroughly dissociated from it so long as the empire of Germany
lasted. Territorial sovereignty--the view which connects sovereignty
with the possession of a limited portion of the earth's surface--was
distinctly an offshoot, though a tardy one, of _feudalism_. This might
have been expected _a priori_, for it was feudalism which for the
first time