"I a count of this country! I the possessor of such broad estates!" the young chief cried with joy, hardly believing so magnificent a gift possible. "But the goods of this abbey are immense! Its lands and forests extend more than two leagues in a circle!"
"So much the better, my lad! You and your men will settle down here. Handsome female slaves are sure to abound on the place. You will raise a good breed of soldiers. Moreover this abbey is bound, due to its situation, to become an important military post. I shall grant to the abbot of this convent some more land ... if any is left. And that is not all, Berthoald; I entertain as much affection for [you] as I place confidence in you. I make the gift to you out of affection; now, as to my confidence. I shall give you a strong proof of it by establishing you here and charging you with so important a duty ... that, in the end, it will be I who remain your debtor...."
"Why do you halt, Charles?" asked Berthoald noticing the chief of the Franks reflect instead of continuing.
After a few seconds of silence, Charles resumed: "During the century and a half and more that we have reigned in fact, we the stewards of the palace ... of what earthly use have the kings been, the descendants of Clovis?"
"Have I not heard you say a hundred times that those do-nothings spend their time drinking, eating, playing, hunting, sleeping in the arms of their concubines, going to church and building churches in atonement for some crime committed in the fury of their drunkenness?"
"Such has been the life of those 'do-nothing' kings—well named such. We the stewards of the palace govern in fact. At every assembly of the Field of May, we pulled one of our royal mannikins out of his residence of Compiegne, of Kersey-on-the-Oise, or of Braine. We had him set up in a gilded chariot drawn by four oxen according to the old Germanic custom, and, with a crown upon his head, a scepter in his hand, purple on his back, his face ornamented with a long artificial beard, if he had no beard, so as to impart to him a certain degree of majesty, the image was promenaded around the Field of May, and received the pledge of homage from the dukes, counts and bishops, gathered at the assembly from all parts of Gaul.... The comedy over, the idol was thrust back into its box until the next year. But what useful purpose can these mummeries serve? He only should be king who governs and fights. Consequently, as I have no taste for what is superfluous, I have suppressed the royalty.... I confiscated the King."
"You deserve to be praised for that, Charles; the Frankish kings descended from Clovis, have inspired me with hatred and contempt—"
"But whence the hate?"
Berthoald blushed and puckered up his brows: "I have always hated idleness and cruelty."
"The last one of these kings, Thierry IV, dead now eighteen months, left a son behind ... a child of about nine years.... I had him deported to this abbey—"