lifetime.”  These Normans escaped him.  They conquered and they founded kingdoms.  But they did not replunge Europe in darkness.  A barrier had been made against their inundation.  The Saxon conquest was that barrier.  Moreover, the Normans were the noblest race of barbarians which then roamed through the forests of Germany, or skirted the shores of Scandinavia.  They had grand natural traits of character.  They were poetic, brave, and adventurous.  They were superior to the Saxons and the Franks.  When converted, they were the great allies of the Pope, and early became civilized.  To them we trace the noblest development of Gothic architecture.  They became great scholars and statesmen.  They were more refined by nature than the Saxons, and avoided their gluttonous habits.  In after times they composed the flower of European chivalry.  It was providential that they were not subdued,—­that they became the leading race in Northern Europe.  To them we trace the mercantile greatness of England, for they were born sailors.  They never lost their natural heroism, or love of power.

The next important conquest of Charlemagne was that of the Avares,—­ a tribe of the Huns, of Slavonic origin.  They are represented as very hideous barbarians, and only thought of plunder.  They never sought to reconstruct.  There seemed to be no end of their invasions from the time of Attila.  They were more formidable for their numbers and destructive ravages than for their military skill.  There was a time, however, when they threatened the combined forces of Germany and Rome; but Europe was delivered by the battle of Poictiers,—­the bloodiest battle on record,—­when they seemed to be annihilated.  But they sprang up again, in new invasions, in the ninth century.  Had they conquered, civilization would have been crushed out.  But Charlemagne was successful against them, and from that time to this they were shut out from western Europe.  They would be formidable now, for the Russians are the descendants of these people, were it not for the barrier raised against them by the Germans.  The necessities of Europe still require the vast military strength and organization of Germany, not to fight France, but to awe Russia.  Napoleon predicted that Europe would become either French or Cossack; but there is little probability of Russian aggressions in Europe, so long as Russia is held in check by Germany.

Charlemagne had now delivered France and Germany from external enemies.  He then turned his arms against the Saracens of Spain.  This was the great mistake of his life.  Yet every one makes mistakes, however great his genius.  Alexander made the mistake of pushing his arms into India; and Napoleon made a great blunder in invading Russia.  Even Caesar died at the right time for his military fame, for he was on the point of attempting the conquest of Parthia, where, like Crassus, he would probably have perished, or have lost his army.  Needless conquests