ct
kingdoms of Italy and Rome. II. But that he might not legally assume the
titles of emperor and Augustus, till he had received the crown from the
hands of the Roman pontiff. [119]

[Footnote 117: He was the son of Otho, the son of Ludolph, in whose
favor the Duchy of Saxony had been instituted, A.D. 858. Ruotgerus, the
biographer of a St. Bruno, (Bibliot. Bunavianae Catalog. tom. iii. vol.
ii. p. 679,) gives a splendid character of his family. Atavorum atavi
usque ad hominum memoriam omnes nobilissimi; nullus in eorum stirpe
ignotus, nullus degener facile reperitur, (apud Struvium, Corp. Hist.
German. p. 216.) Yet Gundling (in Henrico Aucupe) is not satisfied of
his descent from Witikind.]

[Footnote 118: See the treatise of Conringius, (de Finibus Imperii
Germanici, Francofurt. 1680, in 4to.: ) he rejects the extravagant and
improper scale of the Roman and Carlovingian empires, and discusses with
moderation the rights of Germany, her vassals, and her neighbors.]

[Footnote 119: The power of custom forces me to number Conrad I. and
Henry I., the Fowler, in the list of emperors, a title which was never
assumed by those kings of Germany. The Italians, Muratori for instance,
are more scrupulous and correct, and only reckon the princes who have
been crowned at Rome.]

The Imperial dignity of Charlemagne was announced to the East by the
alteration of his style; and instead of saluting his fathers, the Greek
emperors, he presumed to adopt the more equal and familiar appellation
of brother. [120] Perhaps in his connection with Irene he aspired to
the name of husband: his embassy to Constantinople spoke the language of
peace and friendship, and might conceal a treaty of marriage with
that ambitious princess, who had renounced the most sacred duties of a
mother. The nature, the duration, the probable consequences of such a
union between two distant and dissonant empires, it is impossible to
conjecture; but the unanimous silence of the Latins may teach us to
suspect, that the report was invented by the enemies of Irene, to charge
her with the guilt of betraying the church and state to the strangers
of the West. [121] The French ambassadors were the spectators, and
had nearly been the victims, of the conspiracy of Nicephorus, and the
national hatred. Constantinople was exasperated by the treason and
sacrilege of ancient Rome: a proverb, "That the Franks were good friends
and bad neighbors," was in every one's mouth; but it w