[Footnote 20: _Editio princeps_ by Fr. Michel, 1837. Since that time it has been frequently reprinted, translated, and commented. Those who wish for an exact reproduction of the oldest MS. will find it given by Stengel (Heilbronn, 1878).] [Sidenote: _Their scheme of matter._] [Sidenote: _The character of Charlemagne._] That scheme is, in the majority of the _chansons_, curiously uniform. It has, since the earliest studies of them, been remarked as odd that Charlemagne, though almost omnipresent (except of course in the Crusading cycle and a few others), and though such a necessary figure that he is in some cases evidently confounded both with his ancestor Charles Martel and his successor Charles the Bald, plays a part that is very dubiously heroic. He is, indeed, presented with great pomp and circumstance as _li empereres a la barbe florie_, with a gorgeous court, a wide realm, a numerous and brilliant baronage. But his character is far from tenderly treated. In _Roland_ itself he appears so little that critics who are not acquainted with many other poems sometimes deny the characteristic we are now discussing. But elsewhere he is much less leniently handled. Indeed the plot of very many _chansons_ turns entirely on the ease with which he lends an ear to traitors (treason of various kinds plays an almost ubiquitous part, and the famous "trahis!" is heard in the very dawn of French literature), on his readiness to be biassed by bribes, and on the singular ferocity with which, on the slightest and most unsupported accusation, he is ready to doom any one, from his own family downwards, to block, stake, gallows, or living grave. This combination, indeed, of the irascible and the gullible tempers in the king defrays the plot of a very large number of the _chansons_, in which we see his best knights, and (except that they are as intolerant of injustice as he is prone to it) his most faithful servants, forced into rebellion against him, and almost overwhelmed by his own violence following on the machinations of their and his worst enemies. [Sidenote: _Other characters and characteristics._]