CHARLEMAGNE IN COUNCIL.
Through districts of pasture lands, by cliffs that looked like castles, over clear streams and past populous villages our tourists made their way to the old city of the emperor of the West. It is situated in a valley, surrounded by heights. Its town hall was built on the ruins of the palace of Charlemagne.
The grand old cathedral has sixteen sides. In the middle of the interior, a stone with the inscription Carolo Magno marks the grave of Charlemagne.
CHARLEMAGNE AT THE HEAD OF HIS ARMY.
“Charlemagne, like Alfred of England,” said Master Lewis, “was a patron of learning; and he instituted in his own palace a school for his sons and servants. But he was a war-making king. He conducted in all fifty-three expeditions in Germany, Gaul, Italy, and Greece, and made himself the ruler of the greater part of Northern and Eastern Europe. He went to Rome in 800 A.D. and received a most gracious reception from the Pope, as in all his contests he had been a faithful servant of the Church.
“On Christmas day, 800 A.D. he went into St. Peter’s to attend mass. He took his place before the altar, and, as he bowed his head to pray, the Pope placed the crown of the Roman Empire upon it, and all the people shouted, ‘Long live Charles Augustus, crowned of God, the great Emperor of the Romans!’
“And so the king of the Franks became the emperor of the world.”
The relics which the cathedral exhibits from time to time at great public festivals are remarkable as illustrations of the influence of superstition. Among the so-called Grandes Reliques are the robe worn by the Virgin at the Nativity and the swaddling clothes in which the infant Saviour was wrapped. It would be almost irreverent to excite ridicule by giving a list of the articles associated with the crucifixion of Christ. Among the Petites Reliques are pieces of Aaron’s rod that budded. Upon these pretended relics the German emperors used to take the State oath at their coronations.