United States or Palau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Perhaps it was not altogether surprising that he had almost forgotten him; he had never seen him since the days of his youth, that time of life which, with a certain show of justice, has been termed the age of ingratitude; for, in point of fact, the astronomer was none other than Professor Palmyrin Rosette, Servadac's old science-master at the Lycee Charlemagne.

But are we also to see in this great man the creator of the exarchate, that citadel of the empire in Italy which was to endure, though almost all else perished, till Charlemagne appeared and the empire itself suddenly re-arose, armed at all points and ready for battle?

It had appeared to revive under Charlemagne; but the ravages of the Normans occasioned it to sink again into oblivion till the reign of Lewis the Young, father of Philip Augustus. Under the latter, the schools of Paris became celebrated; they were resorted to, not only from the distant provinces, but from foreign countries.

At Middleburg the Emperor embarked on board the Charlemagne to visit the mouth of the Scheldt and the port and island of Flushing. During this excursion we were assailed by a terrible tempest, three anchors were broken in succession; we met with other accidents, and encountered great dangers.

Foreign armies, called in by the various contending factions, ravaged its-fair territory, butchered its peasantry, and changed its fertile plains to a wilderness. The unhappy creature who wore the crown of Charlemagne and of Hugh Capet, was but the tool in the hands of the most profligate and designing of his own subjects, and of foreigners.

In A.D. 789 Charlemagne attempted to suppress stone-worship, and to destroy the stones themselves. In Spain, where, as in France, megalithic monuments are common, the councils of Toledo in A.D. 681 and 682 condemned the "Worshippers of Stones." Moreover there are many cases in which a monument itself bears traces of having been the centre of a cult in early or medieval times.

Was it possible for him to stay there alone when the whole of France had risen? In the Chanson d'Aspremont, which is one of our most captivating chansons de geste, Charlemagne is leaving for Italy with his army, and passes by Laon. In the donjon five children, one of whom is his nephew Roland, are imprisoned under the care of Turpin.

Of the sixty-five Capitularies classed under different heads, thirteen only are previous to the 25th of December, 800, the date of his coronation as emperor at Rome; fifty-two are comprised between the years 801 and 804. The energy of Charlemagne as a warrior and a politician having thus been exhibited, it remains to say a few words about his intellectual energy.

Both suffered politically by the repudiation of a wife; but Charlemagne, under adequate provocation, and with no final result of evil; Bonaparte under heavy aggravations of ingratitude and indiscretion.

And this was the origin of poorhouses a true Protestant creation. The O'Clery family was an ancient and honored one in Ireland. Princes, chieftains, and warriors of the name were renowned before Charlemagne or Alfred ascended the throne, or before any of the petty princes of the heptarchy ruled over the barbarous Saxons.