Note 51 — PART II PRIVATE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLEMAGNE

Nothing in all the policy of Charles gives such an impression of enlightenment as the actions alluded to here. A collection of German sagas, and a grammar of the German language as it was in the year 800—what would not posterity give for these? The disappearance of the former is due to the policy of his son and successor Lewis the Pious, whose piety had little in common with the robust and broad views of his father. The biographer of Lewis tells us that Lewis “rejected the national poems, which he had learnt in his youth, and would not have them read or recited or taught.”