Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 5: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland, Part 1
Austria -- Description and travel; Germany -- Description and travel; Switzerland -- Description and travel
It is evident that some other monument had been erected to Charlemagne.
There is nothing to convince us that this marble, bordered with brass,
is of antiquity. As to the letters, "Carolo Magno," they are not of a
late date than 1730.
Charlemagne is no longer under this stone. In 1166 Frederick
Barbarossa--whose gift, magnificent tho it was, does by no means
compensate for this sacrilege--caused the remains of that great emperor
to be untombed. The Church claimed the imperial skeleton, and,
separating the bones, made each a holy relic. In the adjoining
sacristy, a vicar shows the people--for three francs seventy-five
centimes--the fixt price--"the arm of Charlemagne"--that arm which held
for a time the reins of the world. Venerable relic! which has the
following inscription, written by some scribe of the twelfth century:
"Arm of the Sainted Charles the Great."
After that I saw the skull of Charlemagne, that cranium which may be
said to have been the mold of Europe, and which a beadle had the
effrontery to strike with his finger.
All were kept in a wooden armory, with a few angels, similar to those I
have just mentioned, on the top. Such is the tomb of the man whose
memory has outlived ten ages, and who, by his greatness, has shed the
rays of immortality around his name. "Sainted, Great," belong to
him--two of the most august epithets which this earth could bestow upon
a human being.
There is one thing astonishing--that is, the largeness of the skull and
arm. Charlemagne was, in fact, colossal with respect to size of body as
well as extraordinary mental endowments. The son of Pepin-le-Bref was in
body, as in mind, gigantic; of great corporeal strength, and of
astounding intellect.
An inspection of this armory has a strange effect upon the antiquary.
Besides the skull and arm, it contains the heart of Charlemagne; the
cross which the emperor had round his neck in his tomb; a handsome
ostensorium, of the Renaissance, given by Charles the Fifth, and
spoiled, in the last century, by tasteless ornaments; fourteen richly
sculptured gold plates, which once ornamented the arm-chair of the
emperor; an ostensorium, given by Philippe the Second; the cord which
bound our Savior; the sponge that was used upon the cross; the girdle of
the Holy Virgin, and that of the Redeemer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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