Such was the empire of Charlemagne.  Among annalists and historians, some, treating him as a mere conqueror and despot, have ignored his merits and his glory; others, that they might admire him without scruple, have made of him a founder of free institutions, a constitutional monarch.  Both are equally mistaken:  Charlemagne was, indeed, a conqueror and a despot; but by his conquests and his personal power he, so long as he was by, that is, for six-and-forty years, saved Gallo-Frankish society from barbaric invasion without and anarchy within.  That is the characteristic of his government and his title to glory.

What he was in his wars and his general relations with his nation has just been seen; he shall now be exhibited in all his administrative activity and his intellectual life, as a legislator and as a friend to the human mind.  The same man will be recognized in every case; he will grow in greatness, without changing, as he appears under his various aspects.

There are often joined together, under the title of Capitularies (capitula—­small chapters, articles) a mass of acts, very different in point of dates and objects, which are attributed indiscriminately to Charlemagne.  This is a mistake.  The Capitularies are the laws or legislative measures of the Frankish kings, Merovingian as well as Carlovingian.  Those of the Merovingians are few in number, and of slight importance, and among those of the Carlovingians, which amount to 152, 65 only are due to Charlemagne.  When an attempt is made to classify these last according to their object, it is impossible not to be struck with their incoherent variety; and several of them are such as we should nowadays be surprised to meet with in a code or in a special law.  Among Charlemagne’s 65 Capitularies, which contain I,151 articles, may be counted 87 of moral, 293 of political, 130 of penal, no of civil, 85 of religious, 305 of canonical, 73 of domestic, and 12 of incidental legislation.  And it must not be supposed that all these articles are really acts of legislation, laws properly so called; we find among them the texts of ancient national laws revised and promulgated afresh; extracts from and additions to these same ancient laws, Salic, Lombard, and Bavarian; extracts from acts of councils; instructions given by Charlemagne to his envoys in the provinces; questions that he proposed to put to the bishops or counts when they came to the national assembly; answers given by Charlemagne to questions addressed to him by the bishops, counts, or commissioners (missi dominici); judgments, decrees, royal pardons, and simple notes that Charlemagne seems to have had written down for himself alone, to remind him of what he proposed to do; in a word, nearly all the various acts which could possibly have to be framed by an earnest, far-sighted, and active government.  Often, indeed, these Capitularies have no imperative or prohibitive character; they are simple counsels, purely moral precepts.  We read therein, for example: