Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/108

 88 THE DECLINE AND FALL phetic spirit beheld tlie vision of their future greatness. They alone were excepted from the general prohibition : Hugo king of France was the lineal descendant of Charlemagne ; '^'^ and his daughter Bertha inherited the prerogatives of her family and nation. The voice of truth and malice insensibly betrayed the fi'aud or error of the Imperial court. The patrimonial estate of Hugo was reduced from the monarchy of France to the simple county of Aries ; though it Avas not denied that, in the confusion of the times, he had usurped the sovereignty of Provence and invaded the kingdom of Italy. His father was a private noble : and, if Bertha derived her female descent from the Carlovingian line, ever}" step was polluted with illegitimacy or vice. The grand- mother of Hugo was the famous Valdrada, the concubine, rather than the wife, of the second Lothair ; whose adultery, divorce, and second nuptials had provoked against him the thunders of the Vatican. His mother, as she was styled, the great Bertha, was successively the wife of the count of Aries and the marquis of Tuscany : France and Italy were scandalized by her gallantries ; and, till the age of threescore, her lovei-s, of every degree, were the zealous servants of her ambition. The example of maternal incontinence was copied by the king of Italy ; and the three favourite concubines of Hugo were decorated with the classic names of Venus, Juno, and Semele."^ The daughter of Venus was granted to the solicitations of the Byzantine court ; her name of Bertha was changed to that of Eudoxia ; and she was wedded, or rather betrothed, to young Romanus, the future heir of the empire of the East. The consummation of this foreign alliance was sus- pended by the tender age of the two parties ; and, at the end of five [Death of ycars, the union Avas dissolved by the death of the virgin spouse. The second wife of the emperor Ilomanus was a maiden of ple- beian, but of Roman birth ; and their two daughters, Theophano and Anne, were given in marriage to the princes of the earth, othoiof The eldest was bestowed, as tiie pledge of peace, on the eldest A^D™!?^' son of the great Otho, who had solicited this alliance with arms ''■'* Constantine Porpbyrogenitus (de Administrat. Imp. c. 26) exhibits a pedigree and life of the illustrious king Hugo (Trepi^AcTrrou pij-yo? OiiyuTOs). A more correct idea may be formed from the Criticism of Pagi, the Annals of Muratori, and the Abridgment of St. Marc, A.D. 925-946. '■'J After the mention of the three goddesses, Liutprand very naturally adds, et quoniLim non rex solus iis abutebatur, earum nati ex incertis patribus originem (lucunt (Hist. 1. iv. c. 6 [= c. 14]) ; for the marriage of the younger Bertha see Hist. 1. V. c. 5 [= c. 14] ; for the incontinence of the elder, diileis exercitio liymenrei, 1. ii. c. IS [=c. 55]; for the virtues and vices of Hugo, 1. iii. c. 5 [= c. 19]. Yet it must not be forTOt that tliebishon of Cremona was n lover of scandal. Bertha. A.D MS]