It was his delight to keep up old national customs and to wear the Frankish dress with its linen tunic, cross-gartered leggings, and long mantle reaching to the feet. ‘What is the use of these rags?’ he once inquired contemptuously of his courtiers, pointing to their short cloaks--‘Will they cover me in bed, or shield me from the wind and rain when I ride abroad?’ [Illustration: The EMPIRE of CHARLEMAGNE] This criticism was characteristic of the King. Intent on a multitude of schemes for the extension or improvement of his lands, and so eager to realize them that he would start on fresh ones when still heavily encumbered with the old, he was yet, for all his enthusiasm, no vague dreamer but a level-headed man looking questions in the face and demanding a practical answer. [Sidenote: The Chanson de Roland] By the irony of fate it is the least practical and important task he undertook that has made his name world-famous; for the story of Charlemagne and his Paladins, told in that greatest of mediaeval epics, the _Chanson de Roland_, exceeds to-day in popularity even the exploits of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. This much is history--that Charlemagne, invited secretly by some discontented Emirs to invade Spain and attack the Caliph of Cordova, crossed the Pyrenees, and, after reducing several towns successfully, was forced to retreat. On his way back across the mountains his rearguard was cut off by Gascon mountaineers, and slaughtered almost to a man; while he and the rest of his army escaped with difficulty. On this meagre and rather inglorious foundation poets of the eleventh century based a cycle of romance. Charlemagne is the central figure, but round him are grouped numerous ‘Paladins’, or famous knights, including the inseparable friends Oliver and Roland, Warden of the Breton Marches. After numerous deeds of glory in the land of Spain, the King, it was said, was forced by treachery to turn back towards the French mountains, and had already passed the summits, when Roland, in charge of the rearguard, found himself entrapped in the Pass of Roncesvalles by a large force of Gascons. His horn was slung at his side but he disdained to summon help from those in the van, and drawing his good sword ‘Durenda’ laid about him valiantly.