d to shine on the people
shut up within the city a day more gloomy than any kind of night. And
then appeared Charles himself, that man of steel, with his head encased
in a helmet of steel, his hands garnished with gauntlets of steel, his
heart of steel and his shoulders of marble protected by a cuirass of
steel, and his left hand armed with a lance of steel which he held aloft
in the air, for as to his right hand, he kept that continually on the
hilt of his invincible sword. The outside of his thighs, which the rest,
for their greater ease in mounting on horseback, were wont to leave
unshackled even by straps, he wore encircled by plates of steel. What
shall I say concerning his boots? All the army were wont to have them
invariably of steel; on his buckler there was naught to be seen but
steel; his horse was of the color and the strength of steel.

"All those who went before the monarch, all those who marched by his
side, all those who followed after, even the whole mass of the army,
had armor of the like sort, so far as the means of each permitted. The
fields and the highways were covered with steel; the points of steel
reflected the rays of the sun; and this steel, so hard, was borne by
people with hearts still harder. The flash of steel spread terror
throughout the streets of the city. 'What steel! alack, what steel!'
Such were the bewildered cries the citizens raised. The firmness of
manhood and of youth gave way at sight of the steel; and the steel
paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I, poor tale-teller,
mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a long description,
Ogger perceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier, 'Here is what
you so anxiously sought,' and whilst uttering these words he fell down
almost lifeless."

If our sober chronicler of the ninth century could thus let his
imagination wander in speaking of the great king, what wonder that the
romancers of a later age took Charlemagne and his Paladins as fruitful
subjects for their wildly fanciful themes!

_PETER THE HERMIT._

In the last decade of the eleventh century there might have been seen,
wandering through every part of France and Germany, a man of singular
appearance. Small of stature, almost dwarfish in size, emaciated by
rigid austerities, angular and ungainly in form, clad in a woollen tunic
over which he wore a serge cloak that came down to his heels, his head
and feet bare, and mounted on an ass that seemed