were imitated," said he one day to
the emperor, "perchance one might see arise in France a new Athens, far
more glorious than the ancient--the Athens of Christ." Eginhard, who was
younger, received his scientific education in the school of the palace,
and was head of the public works to Charlemagne, before becoming his
biographer, and, at a later period, the intimate adviser of his son Louis
the Debonnair. Other scholars of the school of the palace, Angilbert,
Leidrade, Adalhard, Agobard, Theodulph, were abbots of St. Riquier or
Corbie, archbishops of Lyons, and bishops of Orleans. They had all
assumed, in the school itself, names illustrious in pagan antiquity;
Alcuin called himself Flaeens; Angilbert, Homer; Theodulph, Pindar.
Charlemagne himself had been pleased to take, in their society, a great
name of old, but he had borrowed from the history of the Hebrews--he
called himself David; and Eginhard, animated, no doubt, by the same
sentiments, was Bezaleel, that nephew of Moses to whom God had granted
the gift of knowing how to work skilfully in wood and all the materials
which served for the construction of the ark and the tabernacle. Either
in the lifetime of their royal patron, or after his death, all these
scholars became great dignitaries of the Church, or ended their lives in
monasteries of note; but, so long as they lived, they served Charlemagne
or his sons not only with the devotion of faithful advisers, but also as
followers proud of the master who had known how to do them honor by
making use of them.

It was without effort and by natural sympathy that Charlemagne had
inspired them with such sentiments; for he, too, really loved sciences,
literature, and such studies as were then possible, and he cultivated
them on his own account and for his own pleasure, as a sort of conquest.
It has been doubted whether he could write, and an expression of
Eginhard's might authorize such a doubt; but, according to other evidence
and even according to the passage in Eginhard, one is inclined to believe
merely that Charlemagne strove painfully, and without much success, to
write a good hand. He had learned Latin, and he understood Greek. He
caused to be commenced, and, perhaps, himself commenced the drawing up of
the first Germanic grammar. He ordered that the old barbaric poems, in
which the deeds and wars of the ancient kings were celebrated, should be
collected for posterity. He gave Germanic names to the twelve m