nine years resisted the attempts of
Pepin to reduce him to submission. It was a sanguinary and desolating
war. The fairest districts of Auvergne, Limousin, and Berry, were laid
waste and burnt by Pepin; and in the Frankish territories Waifre
levied an equally terrible retribution. He was murdered at last by
some of his own subjects, at the instigation of the Frankish king.
This is the one instance of actual crime which we find recorded
against Pepin; and legend tells that its shadow rested heavily upon
his mind. Aquitaine was annexed to the kingdom.

It was Pepin's last achievement. He did not, as we might have expected
he would, die in harness on the battle-field, but of dropsy, at the
age of fifty-four. This event occurred in 768, at St. Denis. Long
before his death he had obtained the coronation of his two sons,
Charles and Carloman, jointly with his own, and directed his
territories to be divided between them.

To be the successful founder of a new dynasty demands a genius which
we may justly entitle heroic, expressive as that word is of strength
of character merely, without regard to moral worth. Pepin, however,
was not devoid of the latter, to a limited extent, and has left a
memory which, if not remarkable for virtue, is at least not disfigured
by vice.

CHARLEMAGNE

By SIR J. BERNARD BURKE

(742-814)

The birthplace of Charlemagne is unknown, but from various data we may
infer that he was born somewhere about the year 742, nearly seven
years before his father, Pepin the Short, assumed the title of king.
His mother was Bertha, daughter of Charibert, Count of Leon.

Of his boyhood we know as little as of his birth, but he seems at an
early age to have mingled in the real business of life, for when only
twelve years old we find him despatched to receive and welcome the
sovereign pontiff who came to implore his father's aid against the
barbarians that threatened Rome. From the usual habits of the Franks,
it is also probable that he accompanied Pepin in his campaigns at an
early age; but the first time that we really see him in the field, is
on the renewal of the war with the rebellious Duke of Aquitaine.

[Illustration: Charlemagne.]

Upon the death of Pepin, 768, Charlemagne and his younger brother,
Carloman, succeeded to equal portions of one of the most powerful
European kingdoms, bounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the
Mediterranean, and the ocean. But this would hardly have enabled the
monar