the other by the two powers, and still more, perhaps, the similarity of their maxims as to the unity of the empire, established between the Papacy and the Carlovingians strong ties of gratitude and policy; and, accordingly, when the Carlovingian dynasty was in danger, the court of Rome was grieved and troubled; it was hard for her to see the fall of a dynasty for which she had done so much and which had done so much for her. Far, then, from aiding the accession of the new dynasty, she showed herself favorable to the old, and tried to save it without herself becoming too deeply compromised. Such was, from 985 to 996, the attitude of Pope John XVI., at the crisis which placed Hugh Capet upon the throne. In spite of this policy on the part of the Papacy, the French Church took the initiative in the event, and supported the new king; the Archbishop of Rheims affirmed the right of the people to accomplish a change of dynasty, and anointed Hugh Capet and his son Robert. The accession of the Capetians was a work independent of all foreign influence, and strictly national, in Church as well as in State.
The authority of Adalberon was of great weight in the matter. As archbishop he was full of zeal, and at the same time of wisdom in ecclesiastical administration. Engaging in politics, he showed boldness in attempting a great change in the state, and ability in carrying it out without precipitation as well as without hesitation. He had for his secretary and teacher a simple priest of Auvergne, who exercised over this enterprise an influence more continuous and still more effectual than that of his archbishop. Gerbert, born at Aurillac, and brought up in the monastery of St. Geraud, had, when he was summoned to the directorate of the school of Rheims, already made a trip to Spain, visited Rome, and won the esteem of Pope John XIII. and of the Emperor Otho II., and had thus had a close view of the great personages and great questions, ecclesiastical and secular, of his time. On his establishment at Rheims, he pursued a double course with a double end: he was fond of study, science, and the investigation of truth, but he had also a taste for the sphere of politics and of the world; he excelled in the art of instructing, but also in the art of pleasing; and the address of the courtier was in him united with the learning of the doctor. His was a mind lofty, broad, searching, prolific, open to conviction, and yet inclined to give way, either from calculation or attraction, to contrary ideas, but certain to recur, under favorable circumstances, to its original purpose. There was in him almost as much changeableness as zeal for the cause he embraced. He espoused and energetically supported the elevation of a new dynasty and the independence of the Roman Church. He was very active in the cause of Hugh Capet; but he was more than once on the point of going over to King Lothaire or to the pretender Charles of Lorraine. He was in his time, even more resolutely than Bossuet in the seventeenth century, the defender and practiser of what have since been called the liberties of the Gallican Church, and in 992 he became, on this ground, Archbishop of Rheims; but, after having been interdicted, in 995, by Pope John XVI., from the exercise of his episcopal functions in France, he obtained, in 998, from Pope Gregory V., the archbishopric of Ravenna in Italy, and the favor of Otho III. was not unconnected, in 999, with his elevation to the Holy See, which he occupied for four years, with the title of Sylvester II., whilst putting in practice, but with moderation and dignity, maxims very different from those which he had supported, fifteen years before, as a French bishop. He became, at this later period of his life, so much the more estranged from France in that he was embroiled with Hugh Capet’s son and successor, King Robert, whose quondam preceptor he had been and of whose marriage with Queen Bertha, widow of Eudes, count of Blois, he had honestly disapproved.
In 995, just when he had been interdicted by Pope John X VI. from his functions as Archbishop of Rheims, Gerbert wrote to the abbot and brethren of the monastery of St. Geraud, where he had been brought up, “And now farewell to your holy community; farewell to those whom I knew in old times, or who were connected with me by blood, if there still survive any whose names, if not their features, have remained upon my memory. Not that I have forgotten them through pride; but I am broken down, and—if it must be said—changed by the ferocity of barbarians; what I learned in my boyhood I forgot in my youth; what I desired in my youth, I despised in my old age. Such are the fruits thou hast borne for me, O pleasure! Such are the joys afforded by the honors of the world! Believe my experience of it: the higher the great are outwardly raised by glory, the more cruel is their inward anguish!”
Length of life brings, in the soul of the ambitious, days of hearty undeception; but it does not discourage them from their course of ambition. Gerbert was, amongst the ambitious, at the same time one of the most exalted in point of intellect and one of the most persistent as well as restless in attachment to the affairs of the world.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES.
From 996 to 1108, the first three successors of Hugh Capet, his son Robert, his grandson Henry I., and his great-grandson Philip I., sat upon the throne of France; and during this long space of one hundred and twelve years the kingdom of France had not, sooth to say, any history. Parcelled out, by virtue of the feudal system, between a multitude of princes, independent, isolated, and scarcely sovereigns in their own dominions, keeping up anything like frequent intercourse only with their neighbors, and loosely united, by certain rules or customs of vassalage, to him amongst them who bore the title of king, the France of the eleventh century existed in little more than name: Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Poitou, Anjou, Flanders, and Nivernais were the real states and peoples, each with its own distinct life and history. One single event, the Crusade, united, towards the end of the century, those scattered sovereigns and peoples in one common idea and one combined action. Up to that point, then, let us conform to the real state of the case, and faithfully trace out the features of the epoch, without attempting to introduce a connection and a combination which did not exist; and let us pass briefly in review the isolated events and personages which are still worthy of remembrance, and which have remained historic without having belonged exactly to a national history. Amongst events of this kind, one, the conquest of England, in 1066, by William the Bastard, duke of Normandy, was so striking, and exercised so much influence over the destinies of France, that, in the incoherent and disconnected picture of this eleventh century, particular attention must first be drawn to the consequences, as regarded France, of that great Norman enterprise.
After the sagacious Hugh Capet, the first three Capetians, Robert, Henry I., and Philip I., were very mediocre individuals, in character as well as intellect; and their personal insignificance was one of the causes that produced the emptiness of French history under their sway. Robert lacked neither physical advantages nor moral virtues: “He had a lofty figure,” says his biographer Helgaud, archbishop of Bourgcs, “hair smooth and well arranged, a modest eye, a pleasant and gentle mouth, a tolerably furnished beard, and high shoulders. He was versed in all the sciences, philosopher enough and an excellent musician, and so devoted to sacred literature that he never passed a day without reading the Psalter and praying to the Most High God together with St. David.” He composed several hymns which were adopted by the Church, and, during a pilgrimage he made to Rome, he deposited upon the altar of St. Peter his own Latin poems set to music. “He often went to the church of St. Denis, clad in his royal robes and with his crown on his head; and he there conducted the singing at matins, mass, and vespers, chanting with the monks and himself calling upon them to sing. When he sat in the consistory, he voluntarily styled himself the bishops’ client.” Two centuries later, St. Louis proved that the virtues of the saint are not incompatible with the qualities of the king; but the former cannot form a substitute for the latter, and the qualities of king were to seek in Robert. He was neither warrior nor politician; there is no sign that he ever gathered about him, to discuss affairs of state, the laic barons together with the bishops, and when he interfered in the wars of the great feudal lords, notably in Burgundy and Flanders, it was with but little energy and to but little purpose. He was hardly more potent in his family than in his kingdom. It has already been mentioned that, in spite of his preceptor Gerbert’s advice, he had espoused Bertha, widow of Eudes, count of Blois, and he loved her dearly; but the marriage was assailed by the Church,