The chair was ornamented with gold, and Charlemagne was clad in his royal robes with his sparkling crown upon his head, and his royal sceptre in his hand, and the good sword Joyeuse, which had served him in so many famous battles, was girded to his side, while his pilgrim’s pouch was suspended from his girdle, and a copy of the Gospels was laid upon his knees. Thus was he seated on the throne chair, with his feet resting in the carved sarcophagus, as though the great emperor was not to be shut up in a coffin like common mortals, but even in death still sat upon his throne in royal state. Beneath the dome, on the stone which closed the entrance to the tomb, was carved the following epitaph in Latin:— “In this tomb reposeth the body of Charles, great and orthodox emperor, who did gloriously extend the kingdom of the Franks, and did govern it happily for forty-seven years. He died at the age of seventy years, in the year of the Lord, 814, in the seventh year of the Indication, on the fifth of the Kalends of February.” This crypt was opened two hundred years afterwards by the Emperor Otho III., when he found the remains of Charlemagne, as described above. A huge black flagstone now lies under the dome, bearing the inscription, “Carolo Magno,” and it is supposed to cover the entrance to the tomb of Charlemagne. Over it hangs a large golden candelabrum which the Emperor Barbarossa gave to burn above the grave. In the time of Barbarossa, the church enrolled the name of the great emperor in its Calendar as St. Charlemagne. No sovereign ever rendered greater service to the civilized world than Charlemagne, by stopping in the north and south the flood of barbarians and Arabs, Paganism and Islamism. This was his great success, and although he ultimately failed in founding a permanent empire which should exist in unity and absolute power after his death, though at one time he seemed to be Cæsar, Augustus, and Constantine combined, his death ended his empire; but he had opened the way for the Christian religion and human liberty to establish other and more lasting governments. The illustrious French writer, Guizot, thus sums up the life and achievements of Charlemagne. “Great men are at one and the same time instruments and free agents in a general design which is infinitely above their ken, and which, even if a glimpse of it be caught, remains inscrutable to them,—the design of God towards mankind. Charlemagne had this singular good fortune, that his misguided attempt at imperialism perished with him, whilst his salutary achievement, the territorial security of Christian Europe, has been durable to the great honor, as well as great profit, of European civilization.” ALFRED THE GREAT. 849-901 A.D. “An honest man’s the noblest work of God.” POPE.