Very much the same is the account given by the _Liber Pontificalis_[38]. ‘After these things, the day of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ arriving, they were all again gathered together in the aforesaid basilica of the blessed Apostle Peter. And then the venerable and beneficent pontiff with his own hands crowned him with a most precious crown. Then all the faithful Romans, seeing the great care and love he had towards the holy Roman Church and its Vicar, unanimously with loud voice cried out, by the will of God and the blessed Peter, key-bearer of the kingdom of the heavens, “To Charles, the most pious Augustus crowned of God, great and pacific Emperor of the Romans, life and victory.” Before the sacred tomb of the blessed Apostle Peter, invoking many saints[39], thrice was it said; and he was constituted by all Emperor of the Romans. In the same place the most holy priest and pontiff anointed with holy oil Charles, his most noble son, as king, on that same day of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The forms by which Charlemagne was crowned have not survived and we have only such short descriptions as these as to what took place, and a comparison in other cases of such descriptions with the rites actually used warns us how precarious it is to rely too much on the accounts even of eyewitnesses. In the two accounts given above it will be noticed that the _Chronicle of Moissac_ seems to desire to keep up the old fiction of a constitutional election when it speaks of the coronation as taking place ‘with the counsel of all the bishops and priests, and the Senate of the Franks and also of the Romans’; and also some sort of recognition by the people seems to be implied by the statement of the _Liber Pontificalis_ that Charlemagne ‘was constituted by all Emperor of the Romans.’ Einhard[40], in his _Life of Charles_, expressly states that Charles had no idea beforehand of the intention of the Pope to crown him as Emperor, and that if he had known he would not have entered St Peter’s on that eventful Christmas Day. But the words of the _Chronicle of Moissac_ certainly imply that it was a prearranged thing, and if Charlemagne was really taken by surprise, it was probably the method of the coronation, at the hands of the Pope, which constituted the surprise. The occurrence of the Laudes need not present any difficulties to the view that the whole affair was unexpected, for as we have seen they were a familiar part of great public functions, and it is possible that the people were led on such occasions by official cantors, as we know was the practice at Constantinople.