The learned have disputed hotly whether this portrait is intended for that of Charlemagne, or of Charles the Bald, his grandson. Whether this manuscript, which, in all respects, except beauty in the figure-subjects, I look upon as the finest I have ever seen, was executed in the days of the former or latter monarch, is of no very great moment, as its leading features would harmonize very well with accredited reliques of either. It still contains no less than 339 pages, and is one blaze of illumination from the first page to the last.[54] The large initial letters are quite Saxon in form; the borders, of which there are endless and beautiful varieties, are more strictly classic in character than is usual in Caroline manuscripts; and the pictures are in an indeterminate style, between Greek, Latin, and that original Frankish, which subsequently absorbed in Western Europe all previous tradition, and grew into the peculiar type of French 12th century work--the progenitor of the pure Gothic of the 13th. Ample materials happily exist for tracing the gradual development of this Frankish element; at first through the works of the immediate descendants of Charlemagne, and subsequently through various liturgical works, collected from suppressed abbeys, and preserved for the most part in the Imperial library at Paris. Of these, some of the most important are, the Bible of Louis le Debonnaire, executed in the eighth year of his reign; the Gospels of the same monarch; and the Sacramentaire de Metz,--all produced for sons of Charlemagne. The first-named is of the barbaric style, on which Alcuin and others improved; the second contains some very curious symbolic initial letters; and the third, a good deal of originality, both in ornaments and figures.