The last of Charles’s literary courtiers who can be noticed here is Einhard or (as his name is commonly but less correctly written) Eginhard. This man, who was born near the time of Charles’s accession to the kingdom, and who survived him about thirty years, was the son of Einhard and Engilfrita, persons of good birth and station who dwelt in Franconia near the Odenwald. He was educated in the monastery of Fulda, and came as a young man to the Frankish court, where his nimbleness of mind, his learning and his skill in the administration of affairs so recommended him to Charles that for the remaining twenty years or more of his reign the little Franconian--he was a man of conspicuously short stature--was the great king’s inseparable companion. His skill in all manner of metal work earned for him in that name-giving circle of friends the name of Bezaleel, by which he is pleasantly alluded to in one of Alcuin’s letters. He was employed to superintend some of Charles’s great architectural works: notably the palace and basilica at Aachen, the palace at Ingelheim and the great bridge over the Rhine at Mainz. A twelfth-century chronicler connected his name unpleasantly with that of one of the daughters of Charles: but for this scandal there does not seem to be the slightest foundation. None of Charles’s daughters was named Emma, the name attributed to the alleged mistress, afterwards wife, of Einhard. His real wife appears to have been Emma, sister of Bernhard, Bishop of Worms. About the year 826 he and his wife parted by mutual consent and “gave themselves to religion.” He was ordained priest and retired to the monastery of Seligenstadt on the Main where he died about the year 840. Einhard had a share (how large is a subject of constant discussion), in the composition of the official Annals which are our most trustworthy authority for the history of his master’s reign. But we are far more indebted to him for his short tract _De Vita Caroli Magni_ from which several extracts have already been made. In this life there is an evident ambition on the part of the writer, who calls himself “a barbarian little skilled in Roman speech” to follow the example of the great classical authors. His imitation, especially, of the Life of Augustus by Suetonius, is almost servile, and provokes much laughter on the part of modern scholars; but however he may be derided, the fact remains that almost all our real, vivifying knowledge of Charles the Great is derived from Einhard, and that the _Vita Caroli_ is one of the most precious literary bequests of the early Middle Ages. Here are some features of the picture of his master by Einhard which have not been copied in the preceding pages:--