After such combats, labors, and mighty thoughts, he dreamed of repose, like the poet Moses. Repose! There is none in this world for the illustrious dead. We waken them through mere curiosity.
At Charlemagne’s Tomb.
Charlemagne’s grandsons believed that they were heirs to his glory because for a moment they looked upon his skeleton or exposed his remains to view.
Otho first opened the sepulcher. Cornélius has depicted that fantastic scene in a celebrated fresco. Frederick Barbarossa followed Otho’s example. He stood alive before the corpse. On his stone throne, he contemplated the emperor, with huge hand grasping the scepter and the globe.
Then the dead Charlemagne was torn from his marble resting-place; his skull and the bones of his arms went to enrich the treasure of the cathedral crypt. The throne became sacred in the eyes of emperors, and Charlemagne—mutilated and dismembered—was partially restored to his marble vault.
Barbarossa was more fortunate; he was drowned in the Cydnus, and no one could profane his body.
Another emperor—Napoleon, in 1804—wanted in his turn to behold the fantom. Bareheaded and preceded by Duroc, the emperor contemplated the sacred bones.
“So this is he who was master of the world!”
And Napoleon, deeply moved, turned toward Canon Camus.
“Pray, Monsieur l’Abbé; pray for France, whose greatness Charlemagne founded.”