It was six o’clock in the evening, and after we had sung Vespers, our fast was at an end. I had a large round table placed in the refectory, only for us two, but with twelve chairs and twelve places laid. From the Bishop’s guest-room I had the largest armchair brought, and decorated it with leaves and flowers; it was that of the Emperor of blessed memory, who now rests in the cathedral at Aachen, the cathedral which I had the favour and honour of building. The other chairs I assigned to absent friends, first Alcuin, then the poet Angilbert-Homerus, the Irishman Clement, the Bavarian Leidrade, and others whom you knew, but have forgotten. What an evening, what a night, we passed by the open garden window! We spoke naturally of the Great Unforgettable, and lived his rich and varied life again in our thoughts. We followed him against the Longobards and Saracens, against the Hungarians and other Slavs. But we did not like to linger over his thirty years’ war against the Saxons, chiefly out of reverence for his memory, for he ought to have used only spiritual weapons in his campaign of conversion. Remember the Frankish King who sent our friend Anschar to the wild Swedes. He had no armed men, but only God’s Holy Word. Certainly he was robbed by thieves like St. Paul, but when once he had arrived he won the King and the nobles of the country by his gentle bearing and preaching. On the other hand, we lingered gladly in our conversation over the great Christmas Day of 800 A.D. in Rome, when the Western Roman Empire was restored, and the crown was bestowed on Germany. This had been prophesied by Tacitus, and Hermann in the Teutoburger Wald had shed his martyr’s blood for it. Rome and Germany! A spiritual and a worldly kingdom! Inscrutable are the ways of the Lord!