A Decade of Deception and Defiance

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866 edition. Excerpt: ...in 783, and until the revolution of I793 her tomb was still to be seen in the vaults of Saint-Denis. It bore this beautiful inscription: Berta mater Caroli Magni. Eginhart speaks of the respectful deference which the hero of the West generally paid to the virtues of his mother. All historians coincide in regard to the time of her coronation and her death; but in regard to the name of her father, some difference of opinion prevails. According to the Annals of Metz, she was the daughter of Caribert, Count of Laon; but unfortunately for this hypothesis, the city of Laon was not at that time governed by a count. Some trace her origin to the court of Constantinople, and others to the kingdom of Germany. You will perceive that our poet has embraced this last opinion. In the romance, Flores, king of Hun- gary, is father of Bertha of the Great Feet. This Flores himself and his wife Blanche fleurs are the hero and heroine of another celebrated poem of the Middle Ages, and their adventures, badly enough analyzed in one of the numbers of the Bibliot/zegue des Romans, seem to have been put into rhyme before those of Queen Bertha their daughter. Thus, it appears that Bertha can boast her statuaries as well as her poets; but whilst the former have given to her countenance a marked and striking character, the latter, by recording her touching misfortunes, have only followed the beaten path, and added another delicate flower to that poetic wreath, which was woven in the heroic ages of our history. The poem of Bertha is one of the series of Romances of the Twelve Peers. It belongs to the number of those great epic compositions, whose origin is incontestably linked to the cradle of the modern languages, and whose...