In the sixth and seventh centuries we have many instances of persons being placed in a sitting position in their tombs, with the legs and body upright. This exceptional mode of interment was most frequently adopted, though not exclusively, by the barbarians; and the fact of Charlemagne having been so interred makes it peculiarly interesting. “Washed and laid out,” as we read in Legrand d’Aussy’s “Sépultures Nationales,” “arrayed in his imperial robes, at his side a sword with a golden pummel, on his head a golden crown, holding in his lap a New Testament written in letters of gold, he was seated upon a throne of gold. Before him were placed his golden sceptre and shield, which had been blessed by Pope Leo. The vault was filled with perfumes and many treasures (_thesauris multis_); it was closed, and even sealed down, and over it was erected a golden arcade, upon which was engraved the epitaph handed down to us by Eginhardt, and is the oldest extant of all those which tell of our earliest kings.” When the pagans adopted the custom of interment (Fig. 348), they laid by the side of the dead the insignia of his profession, and any objects which had been dear to him during his lifetime; to this they added various vases containing food and drink, to serve him as a _viaticum_ during his more or less prolonged journey to a better world. In the coffins of Christians, on the contrary--even from the earliest times--the funeral furniture appears to have been next to nothing: a phial containing some perfume, with one, two, or perhaps three vases, of wood, glass, or clay, filled with holy water. [Illustration: Fig. 348.--Gallo-Roman Tomb, representing the deceased laid upon a funeral bed, and surrounded by her weeping family and household.--Monument of the First or Second Century, found during excavations made in Paris. After a Plate in the “Statistique de Paris,” by M. Albert Lenoir.]