CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHARLEMAGNE AND THE RESTORATION OF THE EMPIRE IN THE WEST.
General Remarks.—In the foregoing chapter we traced the rise and decline of the power of the Saracens. We saw the Semitic East roused for a moment to a life of tremendous energy by the miracle of religious enthusiasm, and then beheld it sinking rapidly again into inaction and weakness, disappointing all its early promises. Manifestly the "Law" is not to go forth from Mecca. The Semitic race is not to lead the civilization of the world.
But returning again to the West, we discover among the Teutonic barbarians indications of such youthful energy and life, that we are at once persuaded that to them has been given the future. The Franks, who, with the aid of their confederates, withstood the advance of the Saracens upon the field of Tours, and saved Europe from subjection to the Koran, are the people that first attract our attention. It is among them that a man appears who makes the first grand attempt to restore the laws, the order, the institutions of the ancient Romans. Charlemagne, their king, is the imposing figure that moves amidst all the events of the times; indeed, is the one who makes the events, and renders the period in which he lived an epoch in universal history. The story of this era affords the key to very much of the subsequent history of Europe.
How Duke Pepin became King of the Franks.—Charles Martel, whose tremendous blows at Tours earned for him his significant surname (see p. 399), although the real head of the Frankish nation, was nominally only an officer of the Merovingian court. He died without ever having borne the title of king, notwithstanding he had exercised all the authority of that office.
