polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death he placed her in the rank of the four perfect women--with the sister of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of his daughters. “Was she not old?” said Ayesha, with the insolence of a blooming beauty; “has not God given you a better in her place?” “No, by God,” said Mahomet, with an effusion of honest gratitude, “there never can be a better! she believed in me when men despised me; she relieved my wants when I was poor and persecuted by the world.” CHARLEMAGNE. BY SIR JAMES STEPHEN. [Otherwise known as Charles I, or Charles the Great, Emperor of the West and King of France, born 742 A.D., died 814. Grandson of Charles Martel and son of Pepin, who, under the titular rank of Mayor of the Palace and Duke of Austrasia, had exercised the substantial functions of French sovereignty during the closing days of the Merovingian kings. Charlemagne was the true founder of the Carlovingian dynasty, and was by conquest the ruler over much of what is now Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy. He is one of the colossal figures in early European history. But even his genius, though gifted with the finest traits of the soldier, administrator, and law-maker, could not delay that tremendous revolution of society, which intervened between the collapse of the old Roman system and the establishment of feudalism. The most important events of his reign were the subjugation and conversion of the Saxons and the re-establishment of the Western Empire.] The political maxims which Charlemagne acquired by tradition and inheritance had, to a certain extent, become obsolete when he himself succeeded to the power of his ancestors and to the crown of his father, Pepin. It was then no longer necessary to practice those hereditary arts with a [Illustration: CHARLEMAGNE.] view to the great prize to which they had so long been subservient. But the maxims by which the Carlovingian scepter had been won were not less necessary in order to defend and to retain it. They afford the key to more than half the history of the great conqueror from whom that dynasty derives its name. The cardinal points to which throughout his long and glorious reign his mind was directed with an inflexible tenacity of purpose, were precisely those toward which his forefathers had bent their attention. They were to conciliate the attachment of his German subjects by studiously maintaining their old German institutions; to anticipate instead of awaiting the invasions of the barbarous nations by whom he was surrounded; to court the alliance and support of all other secular potentates of the East and West; and to strengthen his own power by the most intimate relations with the Church.