“His gait was firm, all the habit of his body manly: his voice clear, but scarce corresponding to his stature: his health good, except that during the last four years of his life he was often attacked by fever, and at the last he limped with one foot. Moreover he guided himself much more by his own fancy than by the counsel of his physicians, whom he almost hated because they tried to persuade him to give up roast meats, to which he was accustomed, and to take to boiled.[69] He kept up diligently his exercises of riding and hunting, wherein he followed the usage of his nation, for scarcely any other race equals the Franks herein. He delighted, too, in the steam of nature-heated baths, being a frequent and skilful swimmer, so that hardly any one excelled him in this exercise. This was his reason for building his palace at Aquisgranum where he spent the latter years of his life up to his death. And not only did he invite his sons to the bath, but also his friends and the nobles, sometimes even a crowd of henchmen and bodyguards, so that at times as many as a hundred men or more would be bathing there together.”
“He was temperate in food and drink, especially the latter, since he held drunkenness in any man, but most of all in himself and his friends, in the highest abhorrence. He was not so well able to abstain from food, and used often to complain that the fasts [of the Church] were hurtful to his body. He very seldom gave banquets, and those only on the chief festivals, but then he invited a very large number of guests. His daily supper was served with four courses only, except the roast, which the huntsmen used to bring in on spits, and which he partook of more willingly than of any other food. During supper he listened either to music or to the reading of some book, generally histories and accounts of the things done by the ancients. He delighted also in the writings of St. Augustine, especially that one which is entitled De Civitate Dei. He was so chary of drinking wine or liquor of any kind, that he seldom drank more than three times at supper. In summer, after his midday meal, he would take some fruit and would drink once, and then laying aside his raiment and his shoes, just as he was wont to do at night, he would rest for two or three hours. At night his sleep used to be interrupted, not only by awaking but by rising from his bed four or five times in one night. When he was having his shoes or his clothes put on he used not only to admit his friends, but even if the Count of the Palace informed him of some law suit which could not be settled without his order, he would direct the litigants to be at once introduced into his presence, and would hear the cause and pronounce sentence exactly as if he were sitting on the judgment seat. And not only so but he would also at the same time tell each official or servant of the palace what duty he had to perform that day.”
He was full even to overflowing in his eloquence and could express all his ideas with very great clearness. And not being satisfied with his native language alone, he also gave much attention to the learning of foreign tongues, among which was Latin, which he learned so perfectly that he was accustomed to pray indifferently in that language or in his own. Greek, however, he learned to understand better than to pronounce. He was in truth so eloquent, that he seemed like a professional rhetorician. In learning grammar he attended the lectures of Peter of Pisa, an old man and a deacon; in other studies he had for his teacher another deacon, Albinus, surnamed Alcuin, from Britain, a man of Saxon race and extremely learned in all subjects, with whom he gave a great deal of time and toil to the study of rhetoric and dialectic, and pre-eminently to that of astronomy. He learned the art of computation, and with wise earnestness most carefully investigated the courses of the stars. He tried also to write, and for this purpose used to carry about with him tablets and manuscripts [to copy] which were placed under the pillows of his bed in order that he might at odd times accustom his fingers to the shaping of the letters; but the attempt was made too late in life and was not successful.
“He was a devout and zealous upholder of the Christian religion, with which he had been imbued from infancy. He regularly attended the church which he had built at Aquisgranum morning and evening, and also in the hours of the night and at the time of sacrifice, as far as his health permitted; and he took great pains that all the rites celebrated therein should be performed with the greatest decorum, constantly admonishing the ministers of the church that they should not allow anything dirty or unbecoming to be brought thither or to remain within it. He provided so large a supply of holy vessels of gold and silver and of priestly vestments, that in celebrating the sacrifices there was no necessity even for the doorkeepers, who were of the lowest grade of ecclesiastics, to minister in their private dress. He took great pains to reform the style of reading and singing, in both of which he was highly accomplished, though he did not himself read in public nor sing, save in a low voice and with the rest of the congregation.”
“He was very earnest in the maintenance of the poor and in almsgiving, so that not only in his own country and kingdom did he thus labor, but also beyond sea. To Syria, to Egypt, to Africa, to Jerusalem, to Carthage, wherever he heard that there were Christians living in poverty, he was wont to send money as a proof of his sympathy, and for this reason especially did he seek the friendship of transmarine kings, in order that some refreshment and relief might come to the Christians under their rule. But before all other sacred and venerable places he reverenced the church of St. Peter at Rome, and in its treasure chamber great store of wealth, in gold, silver, and precious stones was piled up by him. Many gifts, past counting, were sent by him to the popes, and through the whole of his reign no object was dearer to his heart than that the city of Rome by his care and toil should enjoy its old pre-eminence, and that the church of St. Peter should not only by his aid be safely guarded, but also by his resources should be adorned and enriched beyond all other churches. Yet though he esteemed that city so highly, in all the forty-seven years of his reign he went but four times thither to pay his vows and offer up his supplications.”
Amid such interests and such friendships the later years of Charles’s life glided away, comparatively little disturbed by the clash of arms, since his two elder sons Charles and Pippin, brave and capable men both of them, now relieved him of most of the drudgery of war. It is hinted that there were some occasions of variance between the two brothers, but it is not certain that Pippin the Hunchback is not the person here alluded to as at enmity with the younger Charles; and the difference, whatever it may have been, is said to have been removed by the mediation of St. Goar, whose cell on the banks of the Rhine was visited by the two princes.
In 806, at the Villa Theodonis, Charles, in the presence of a great assembly of his nobles, made a formal division of his dominions between his three sons. Pippin was to have Italy, or as it was called, Langobardia, with Bavaria and Germany south of the Danube, also the subject realms of the Avars and southern Sclaves. Louis was to have Aquitaine, Provence, and the greater part of Burgundy. All the rest, that is Neustria, Austrasia, the remainder of Burgundy, and Germany north of the Danube was to go to Charles, who was probably to have some sort of pre-eminence over his brothers, though nothing was expressly said as to the imperial title. The division was so ordered that each brother had access to the dominions of the other two, and both Charles and Louis were earnestly enjoined to go to the help of Pippin—then apparently the most exposed to hostile attack—if he should require their help in Italy. Elaborate arrangements were also made as to the succession, in case of the death of any of the brothers.
Unhappily all these dispositions proved futile. The year 810, in which Godofrid of Denmark died, and also Haroun’s elephant Abu-l-Abbas, was in other ways a sore year for Charles. On 6th June his eldest daughter Hrotrud, once the affianced bride of the Eastern Cæsar, died, unmarried but leaving an illegitimate son, Louis, who afterwards became Abbot of St. Denis. Ere Charles had time to recover from this blow came the tidings that Pippin, the young King of Italy, had died on 8th July, possibly (but this is only a conjecture) of some malady contracted during his campaign of many months among the lagunes of Venice.
So, though Pippin left a son, the lad Bernhard, who, if things went well with him, might hope to inherit his father’s kingdom, already a breach was made in Charles’s arrangements for the succession to his dominions. But a yet heavier blow fell upon him next year (4th December, 811), when his eldest son Charles, that one of all his children who most resembled him in aptitude for war and government, in strength of body and manly beauty, was torn from him by death. Now, of all his sons, there was only left that pathetically devout and incapable figure who is known to posterity as Louis the Pious or Louis the Debonnair, but whose piety and whose good nature were alike to prove disastrous when he should be called upon to guide with his nerveless hands the fiery steeds which had drawn his father’s car of empire.[70]
However, there was no other heir available. In September, 813, a generalis conventus was held at Aachen, at which, after taking the advice of his nobles, Charles placed the imperial crown on the head of Louis, and ordered him to be called Imperator and Augustus, thereby designating him as his successor, but not, as it should seem, admitting him to a present participation in his power. With that keen insight into character which Charles undoubtedly possessed, he must have perceived the weakness of his son’s disposition, and fears for the future of the empire which he had built up with so much toil and difficulty probably saddened his last days.