vored to find safety in concealment. They did not,
however, escape their merited punishment. Being sooner or later taken,
some had their eyes put out, others were degraded from their rank,
none were condemned to death, but all to exile. Even these severe
examples did not prevent the rise of many petty revolts, the different
parts of which the Frankish kingdom was composed not being as yet
sufficiently amalgamated; but they were suppressed by the united
wisdom and vigor of the monarch.

The short interval of peace now allowed him, Charlemagne employed in
endeavoring to educate and civilize his people. He made a tour through
his dominions, spreading local and general improvement, reforming
laws, advancing knowledge, and building churches and monasteries,
Christianity being one of the chief means to which he trusted for the
attainment of his grand objects. In this he was no less successful
than he had before been in war. With the exception of the Eastern
Empire, France was now the most cultivated nation in Europe, even Rome
herself sending thither for skilful workmen, while commerce, roads,
and mechanics must have been much advanced, as we may infer from the
facility with which marble columns and immense stone crosses were
often carried through the whole extent of France upon carriages of
native construction. Luxury, too, with its attendant arts, had made
considerable strides. Vases of gold and silver richly carved, silver
tables brightly wrought, bracelets, rings, and table-cloths of fine
linen, might be seen in the houses of the nobles. The people must have
been dexterous in working iron, for their superiority in this respect
is evinced by the severe laws forbidding the exportation of arms.

The calm, thus wisely employed, did not last long. Charlemagne was
soon aroused from his peaceful occupations to put down a revolt of
Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, as well as a meditated attack upon Italy by
Adalgisus, the son of the deposed Lombard king, Desiderius, who was
assisted underhand by the Greek empress, Irene, and had besides formed
a secret alliance with the Duke of Beneventum. Tassilo, being seized,
was condemned to death by the great council. He appealed to the
clemency of the king, who, ever averse to shed blood, mitigated the
sentence into a lifelong seclusion from the world in a cloister.
Adalgisus was met by the Duke of Beneventum, not to assist him, as he
had expected, but to oppose him, for the duke had in good time