CHARLEMAGNE IN THE SCHOOL OF THE PALACE.
He then repaired to Rome and entered the city in triumph. As he came to St. Peter’s he stooped to kiss the steps in memory of the illustrious men that had trodden it before him. The Pope there received him in great ceremony, and the choir chanted, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”
He now became the most powerful monarch in the world. He gained great victories over the Moors in Spain, and it was in one of the mountain passes there that the chivalrous young Roland, of heroic song, perished. His lands stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean.
In the year 800 he went to Rome. It was Christmas Day. He entered the basilica of St. Peter’s to attend Mass. He approached the altar, and bowed to pray. The Pope secretly uplifted the crown of the world and placed it upon his head.
The people shouted, “Long live Charles Augustus, crowned of God, Emperor of the Romans!”
From this time Charlemagne was the Kaiser, or Cæsar, of the Holy Roman Empire on the Tiber and the Rhine.
The Rhine was loved by Charlemagne. He lived much on its borders, and he was buried near it, in a church that he had founded, at Aix-la-Chapelle.
“I’d dwell where Charlemagne looked down,
And, turning to his peers,
Exclaimed: ‘Behold, for this fair land
I’ve prayed and fought for years.’
Then all the Rhine towers shook to hear
The earthquake of their cheers.