The Merovingian kings were buried here. After the founding of Saint Denis the royal remains were removed to that abbey church.
The north bank church of Saint Vincent also received the name of Saint Germain, but this was to honor Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, the friend of Sainte Geneviève. This early edifice also was destroyed, but was rebuilt by Robert the Pious, and the later building held the bell which rang for the massacre of Saint Bartholomew a thousand years later.
These churches and monasteries were the means of preserving whatever of learning persisted through this period of return to primitive living. Every one of them was a center of information, and every one of them taught freely what it knew of agriculture and of the homely arts. Further the Church was thoroughly democratic. A bishop’s miter lay in every student’s portfolio, as a marshal’s baton hid in the knapsack of each one of Napoleon’s soldiers.
SAINT GERMAIN DES PRÉS.
Of larger government, however, the bishops had small knowledge, and Paris, left to their guidance while the kings roamed abroad, lost her high prestige. She did not regain it under the next dynasty.
CHAPTER III
CARLOVINGIAN PARIS
WHILE the nominal kings were losing their powers through inaction, activity was developing a race of strong rulers in the Mayors of the Palace—originally the royal stewards. Pépin d’Héristal (who died in 714) is accounted the founder of the family which was to oust the Sluggard Kings from the throne that they disgraced. Pépin’s son, Charles Martel—the Hammer—(715-741) stayed the advance of the Saracens in the fiercely fought battle at Tours where he earned not only his nickname but the gratitude of the Christian world, threatened by the Mohammedan invasion. Charles’s son, Pépin le Bref (752-768), thought that the time had come when the achievements of the Mayors of the Palace should receive recognition—when the king in fact should be the king in name. He appealed to Pope Zachary to sanction his taking the title. The pope was glad of the support of the Franks, and approved. Childéric III became the last of the Merovingian line when he was shorn of the long locks which symbolized his regal strength, and Pépin, anointed king in his stead, became the first of those monarchs who have been called Carolingians or Carlovingians from the name of his son, Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus, Charles the Great.)