ists of the time, and under him Paris became the "market of the
peoples," and Venetian and Syrian merchants sought her shores.

[Footnote 30: St. Pierre was subsequently enriched by the possession
of the body of St. Maur, brought thither in the Norman troubles by
fugitive monks from Anjou, and the monastery is better known to
history under the name of St. Maur des Fosses. The entrails of our own
Henry V. were buried there. Rabelais, before its secularisation, was
one of its canons, and Catherine de' Medicis once possessed a chateau
on its site. Monastery and chateau no longer exist.]

In Gallo-Roman days few were the churches outside the cities, but in
the great emperor's time every villa[31] is said to have had its
chapel or oratory served by a priest. Charlemagne was a zealous patron
of such learning as the epoch afforded, and sought out scholars in
every land. English, Irish, Scotch, Italian, Goth, and Bavarian--all
were welcomed. The English scholar Alcuin, master of the Cloister
School at York, became his chief adviser and tutor. He would have
every child in his empire to know at least his paternoster, and every
abbot on election was required to endow the monastery with some books.
The choice of authors was not a wide one: the Old and New Testaments;
the writings of the Fathers, especially St. Augustine, the emperor's
favourite author; Josephus; the works of Bede; some Latin authors,
chiefly Virgil; scraps of Plato translated into Latin--a somewhat
exiguous and austere library, but one which reared a noble and valiant
line of scholars and statesmen to rule the minds and bridle the savage
lusts of the coming generations of men. Under Irish and Anglo-Saxon
influences the cramped, minute script of the Merovingian scribes grew
in beauty and lucidity; gold and silver and colour illuminated the
pages of their books. The golden age of the Roman peace seemed
dawning again in a new _Imperium Christianorum_.

[Footnote 31: The villa of those days was a vast domain, part
dwelling, part farm, part game preserve.]

Towards the end of his reign the old emperor was dining with his court
in a seaport town in the south of France, when news came that some
strange, black, piratical craft had dared to attack the harbour. They
were soon scattered, but the emperor was seen to rise from the table,
and go to a window, where he stood gazing fixedly at the retreating
pirates. Tears trickled down his cheeks and none dared to approach
him