Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 1.djvu/134

 76 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS v find him di-spatched to receive and welcome the sovereign pontiff who came tn imploiv liis fatlirr's aid against the barbarians that threatened Rome. From the usual habits of the Franks, it is also probable that he accompanied Pepin in his campaigns at an early age ; but the first time that we really see him in the field, is on the renewal of the war with the rebel- lious Duke of Aquitaine. Upon the death of Pepin, 768, Charle- magne and his younger brother, Carloman, succeeded to equal portions of one of the most powerful European kingdoms, bound- ed by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Mediter- ranean, and the ocean. But this would hardly have enabled the monarchs, even had they been united, to resist successfully the incursions of the barbarous tribes on the German frontiers of France, which had com- menced with the first establishment of the Prankish dominion in Gaul ; and which was kept alive by the constant pouring out of fresh hordes from the overpopulated North. The situation of Charlemagne was rendered yet more perilous by the passive enmity of his brother, and the rebellion of Hunald, the turbulent Duke of Aqui- taine. But fortunately, Charlemagne had a genius equal to the difficulties of his situation ; though his brother refused to aid him, he defeated Hunald ; and no less illustrious by his clemency than by his valor and military skill, he forgave the vanquished rebel. Desiderius, the king of Lombardy, had made large encroachments upon the states of the Roman pontiff, whose cause was taken up by Charlemagne. This led to feuds, which Bertha, the mother of the Prankish king, endeavored to appease by bringing about a union between her son and the daughter of the Lombard. But Charlemagne soon took a disgust to the wife thus imposed upon him, and repudiated her, that he might marry Hildegarde, the daughter of a noble family in Suabia. In 771 Carloman died, and Charlemagne was elected to the vacant throne, to the exclusion of his nephews, whose extreme youth, indeed, made them incapable of wearing the crown in such troubled times. Gilberga, the widow of Carloman, immediately fled, and sought an asylum with Desiderius, the common place of refuge for all who were hostile to the Prankish monarch. But the attention of Charlemagne was called off to a more immediate danger from the Saxons, of whom the Prisons were either a branch or the perpetual allies. Had the tribes of which this people were composed been united under one head, instead of being governed by various independent chiefs, the result would probably have been fatal to France. Such a day, however, might come ; a second Attila might