esign themselves to the cruel separation.
Robert's superstitious fears were worked on by his monkish advisers,
particularly Abbo, Abbot of Fleury, "who incessantly reprimanded the
king, in public and in, private." This holy man, says the biographer of
Robert, "continued his reproaches until the good King acknowledged his
fault and abandoned the wife whom it was not permitted him to possess."
The separation seems to have taken place definitely about the year 1006,
and Robert was to be miserable in his domestic life all the rest of his
days.

He and Bertha had passed part of their married life together in the
midst of a veritable reign of terror. All over Christendom the belief
was general that the end of the work! was at hand. The lurid prophecies
of the Apocalypse were supplemented by texts believed to be prophetic of
the Judgment Day, raked together from all parts of the Scriptures and
from what superstitious ignorance regarded as almost of equal authority,
the Sibylline Leaves. Preachers took as their text the horrors of the
approaching dissolution of the world, when, according to Revelations:
"The stars of heaven fell unto the earth... and the heavens departed as
a scroll when it is rolled together;" or in the magnificent words of a
hymn written long after: _Dies irae, dies illa Solvet, saeclum in favilla:
Teste David cum Sybilla_. (Day of wrath! O day of mourning! See
fulfilled the prophet's warning! Heaven and earth in ashes burning!)
They supplemented this picture by accounts of the torments of hell as
reported in the legends of those who had been granted a vision of them.
"Repent ye! repent ye! for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Woe unto
him who in that day shall be found still a sinner!" There was naturally
a paralysis of all useful activities. What was the use of preparing for
the morrow, if there was to be no morrow? During the last year of the
century the terror reached its highest point, and only absolute needs
were attended to. There were great donations to the Lord on the part of
tardy sinners who thought thus to purchase remission of their sins. But
there were also those who refused to repent, and who resolved, since
their life was to be short, to make it as merry as it could be. While
the former crowded the churches, weeping and praying and surrendering
themselves to the terrors suggested by the priest, the latter gave
themselves up to the wildest dissipation. The year 1000 passed away, and
still the