Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. HIS REIGN AND LABOURS. HE empire over which Pepin had borne sway, and to which Charlemagne ultimately succeeded,— for in this place we need say nought of the brief and eventless co-reign of his brother Carloman,—was very extensive. It consisted of three states,—viz., (1.) Austrasia, or the Eastern Empire, comprising within itself the northeast of Gaul and the south of Germany, so much, at least, as lies between the Tyrol and the Thuringerwald, the Rhine, and the Inn. (2.) Neustria, or the Western Empire, which included the north-west of Gaul, between the Waal and the Loire. (3.) Burgundy, or the Southern Empire, in which were comprehended Provence and parts of Aquitania, Switzerland, and Alsace. In other words, it extended from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, and from the English Channel to the Noric Alps. The monarch of such a territory could not but be, in the then unsettled state of the European powers, important as an ally, formidable as an enemy, and worthy of jealous watching as either. Northern Europe was, as yet, only the cradle of valiant emigrant races, unconsolidated under any form of government except that of military His Accession to the Throne. 17 leaders. The south-west peninsula was peopled by a tribe of Visigoths, who zealously held out against the farther progress of the Saracens, whose religious ardour had carried them into Spain. Italy was, as it has too long unfortunately been, a divided country; the Longobards possessed the upper part, the Romans the middle, and the Greeks the lower portion and Sicily. Rome itself was in a state of semi-anarchy, the Pope, the senate, and the people being at variance with each other, at the same time that Charlemagne held the rank of a Roman patrician, wielded the war-legions of France, and was linked ...