“Carolo Magno.”

Nothing is more contemptible than to see, exposed to view, the bastard graces that surround this great Carlovingian name; angels resembling distorted Cupids, palm-branches like colored feathers, garlands of flowers, and knots of ribbons, are placed under the dome of Otho III., and upon the tomb of Charlemagne.

The only thing here that evinces respect to the shade of that great man is an immense lamp, twelve feet in diameter, with forty-eight burners; which was presented, in the twelfth century, by Barbarossa.  It is of brass, gilt with gold, has the form of a crown, and is suspended from the ceiling above the marble stone by an iron chain about seventy feet in length.

It is evident that some other monument had been erected to Charlemagne.  There is nothing to convince us that this marble, bordered with brass, is of antiquity.  As to the letters, “Carolo Magno,” they are not of a late date than 1730.

Charlemagne is no longer under this stone.  In 1166 Frederick Barbarossa—­whose gift, magnificent tho it was, does by no means compensate for this sacrilege—­caused the remains of that great emperor to be untombed.  The Church claimed the imperial skeleton, and, separating the bones, made each a holy relic.  In the adjoining sacristy, a vicar shows the people—­for three francs seventy-five centimes—­the fixt price—­“the arm of Charlemagne”—­that arm which held for a time the reins of the world.  Venerable relic! which has the following inscription, written by some scribe of the twelfth century: 

“Arm of the Sainted Charles the Great.”

After that I saw the skull of Charlemagne, that cranium which may be said to have been the mold of Europe, and which a beadle had the effrontery to strike with his finger.

All were kept in a wooden armory, with a few angels, similar to those I have just mentioned, on the top.  Such is the tomb of the man whose memory has outlived ten ages, and who, by his greatness, has shed the rays of immortality around his name.  “Sainted, Great,” belong to him—­two of the most august epithets which this earth could bestow upon a human being.

There is one thing astonishing—­that is, the largeness of the skull and arm.  Charlemagne was, in fact, colossal with respect to size of body as well as extraordinary mental endowments.  The son of Pepin-le-Bref was in body, as in mind, gigantic; of great corporeal strength, and of astounding intellect.

An inspection of this armory has a strange effect upon the antiquary.  Besides the skull and arm, it contains the heart of Charlemagne; the cross which the emperor had round his neck in his tomb; a handsome ostensorium, of the Renaissance, given by Charles the Fifth, and spoiled, in the last century, by tasteless ornaments; fourteen richly sculptured gold plates, which once ornamented the arm-chair of the emperor; an ostensorium, given by Philippe the Second; the cord which bound our Savior; the sponge that was used upon the cross; the girdle of the Holy Virgin, and that of the Redeemer.