21. Charles was taken completely by surprise. What the consequences would be to Germany and to the papacy, how fatal to both, neither he nor Leo could see. So Charlemagne became King of Italy and Emperor of the West—the successor of the Cæsars of Rome.
22. When Charles felt that his end was approaching, he summoned all his nobles to Aix into the church he had there erected. There, on the altar, lay a golden crown. Charles made his son Ludwig, or Louis, stand before him, and, in the audience of his great men, gave him his last exhortation: to fear God and to love his people as his own children, to do right and to execute justice, and to walk in integrity before God and man. With streaming eyes Louis promised to fulfill his father's command. "Then," said Charles, "take this crown, and place it on your own head, and never forget the promise you have made this day."
Sabine, Baring-Gould. "The Story of Germany."
Putnam's "Stories of the Nations" Series.
WESTERN RECORD.
XXXVII.-THE NORSEMEN.
1. The Gulf Stream flows so near to the southern coast of Norway, and to the Orkneys and Western Islands, that their climate is much less severe than might be supposed. Yet no one can help wondering why they were formerly so much more populous than now, and why the people who came westward even so long ago as the great Aryan migration, did not persist in turning aside to the more fertile countries that lay farther southward. In spite of all their disadvantages, the Scandinavian peninsula, and the sterile islands of the northern seas, were inhabitated by men and women whose enterprise and intelligence ranked them above their neighbors.