o be
discovered among the literature of Europe in the Dark Ages. Metz was the
capital of this kingdom-province. Fredegonda, the queen of Chilperic of
Neustria, had a deadly blood-feud with her sister-in-law of Austrasia,
and in the event put her rival to death by having her torn asunder
by wild horses (A.D. 613). Later Austrasia became incorporated with
Franconia, which in 843 was included in the kingdom of Louis the German.

The Great Race of Charlemagne

The race of the Carolingians, whose greatest monarch was the famous
Charlemagne, or Karl der Grosse, sprang from a family of usurpers known
as the 'Mayors of the Palace,' who had snatched the crown from the rois
faineants, the last weakly shoots of the mighty line of Merovig. He was
the elder son of Pepin the Short, and succeeded, on the death of his
father in A.D. 768, to a kingdom which extended from the Low Countries
to the borders of Spain. His whole life was one prolonged war undertaken
against the forces of paganism, the Moors of Spain who harassed his
borders to the south, and the restless Saxon tribes dwelling between
the Rhine, Weser, and Elbe. Innumerable are the legends and romances
concerning this great, wise, and politic monarch and statesman,
who, surrounding himself with warriors of prowess whom he called his
paladins, unquestionably kept the light of Christianity and civilization
burning in Western Europe. He was, however, quite as great a legislator
as a warrior, and founded schools and hospitals in every part of his
kingdom. He died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 814, and was buried there.[1]

[Footnote 1: For numerous critical articles upon Charlemagne and
the epics or chansons des gestes connected with him see the author's
Dictionary of Medieval Romance.]

The 'Song of the Saxons'

One of the most stirring of the romances which tell of the wars of
Charlemagne in the Rhine country is the Song of the Saxons, fifth in
number of the Romans des Douze Pairs de France, and composed by Jean
Bodel, a poet of Artois, who flourished toward the middle of the
thirteenth century. Charles, sitting at table in Laon one Whitsuntide
with fourteen kings, receives news of an invasion of the Saxons, who
have taken Cologne, killed many Frankish nobles, and laid waste the
country. A racy epitome of the events which follow has been given
by Ludlow in his Popular Epics of the Middle Ages (1865) as follows:
"Charles invades Saxony, and reaches the banks of 'Rune the Deep,'
bey