es or concubines, the various
indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the multitude of his
bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the long celibacy and
licentious manners of his daughters, [97] whom the father was suspected
of loving with too fond a passion. [971] I shall be scarcely
permitted to accuse the ambition of a conqueror; but in a day of equal
retribution, the sons of his brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes
of Aquitain, and the four thousand five hundred Saxons who were beheaded
on the same spot, would have something to allege against the justice and
humanity of Charlemagne. His treatment of the vanquished Saxons [98]
was an abuse of the right of conquest; his laws were not less sanguinary
than his arms, and in the discussion of his motives, whatever is
subtracted from bigotry must be imputed to temper. The sedentary reader
is amazed by his incessant activity of mind and body; and his subjects
and enemies were not less astonished at his sudden presence, at the
moment when they believed him at the most distant extremity of the
empire; neither peace nor war, nor summer nor winter, were a season of
repose; and our fancy cannot easily reconcile the annals of his reign
with the geography of his expeditions. [981] But this activity was a
national, rather than a personal, virtue; the vagrant life of a Frank
was spent in the chase, in pilgrimage, in military adventures; and the
journeys of Charlemagne were distinguished only by a more numerous train
and a more important purpose. His military renown must be tried by
the scrutiny of his troops, his enemies, and his actions. Alexander
conquered with the arms of Philip, but the two heroes who preceded
Charlemagne bequeathed him their name, their examples, and the
companions of their victories. At the head of his veteran and superior
armies, he oppressed the savage or degenerate nations, who were
incapable of confederating for their common safety: nor did he ever
encounter an equal antagonist in numbers, in discipline, or in arms The
science of war has been lost and revived with the arts of peace; but
his campaigns are not illustrated by any siege or battle of singular
difficulty and success; and he might behold, with envy, the Saracen
trophies of his grandfather. After the Spanish expedition, his
rear-guard was defeated in the Pyrenaean mountains; and the soldiers,
whose situation was irretrievable, and whose valor was useless, might
accuse, with their l