one without them; they set
their mark plainly upon history, which realizes a portion of their ideas
and wishes; but they are far from doing all they meditate, and they know
not all they do. They are at one and the same time instruments and free
agents in a general design which is infinitely above their ken, and
which, even if a glimpse of it be caught, remains inscrutable to them--
the design of God towards mankind. When great men understand that such
is their position and accept it, they show sense, and they work to some
purpose. When they do not recognize the limits of their free agency, and
the veil which hides from their eyes the future they are laboring for,
they become the dupes, and frequently the victims, of a blind pride,
which events, in the long run, always end by exposing and punishing.

Amongst men of his rank, Charlemagne has had this singular good fortune,
that his error, his misguided attempt at imperialism, perished with him,
whilst his salutary achievement, the territorial security of Christian
Europe, has been durable, to the great honor, as well as great profit, of
European civilization.

CHAPTER XII.----DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS.

From the death of Charlemagne to the accession of Hugh Capet,--that is,
from 814 to 987,--thirteen kings sat upon the throne of France. What
then became, under their reign and in the course of those hundred and
seventy-three years, of the two great facts which swayed the mind and
occupied the life of Charlemagne? What became, that is, of the solid
territorial foundation of the kingdom of Christian France, through
efficient repression of foreign invasion, and of the unity of that vast
empire wherein Charlemagne had attempted and hoped to resuscitate the
Roman empire?

The fate of those two facts is the very history of France under the
Carlovingian dynasty; it is the only portion of the events of that epoch
which still deserves attention nowadays, for it is the only one which has
exercised any great and lasting influence on the general history of
France.

Attempts at foreign invasion of France were renewed very often, and in
many parts of Gallo-Frankish territory, during the whole duration of the
Carlovingian dynasty, and, even though they failed, they caused the
population of the kingdom to suffer from cruel ravages. Charlemagne,
even after his successes against the different barbaric invaders, had
foreseen the evils which would be inflicted on Fr