Note 79 — Chapter V · EMPIRE AND POLICY OF CHARLES.
Reading edition
Aix-la-Chapelle. See the lines in Pertz (M. G. H. ii.), beginning,—
'Urbs Aquensis, urbs regalis, Sedes regni principalis, Prima regum curia.'
This city is commonly called Aken in English books of the seventeenth century, and probably that ought to be taken as its proper English name. That name has, however, fallen so entirely into disuse that I do not venture to use it; and as the employment of the French name Aix-la-Chapelle seems inevitably to produce the belief that the place is and was, even in Charles's time, a French town, there is nothing for it but to fall back upon the comparatively unfamiliar German name.