In the year 811, the emperor, feeling that the end was not far off, had given elaborate orders as to the disposal of his personal property, consisting of gold, silver, and precious stones. The details, though curious, need not be quoted here. It is sufficient to say that only one-twelfth of the whole was to be divided among his children and grand-children. About two-thirds were to be divided among the ecclesiastics of twenty-one chief cities in his dominions. The remainder was for his servants and the poor. It is interesting to observe that the division of the property was to be completed “after his death or voluntary renunciation of the things of this world.” There was therefore a possibility that the first Emperor Charles might have anticipated the fifth in retiring from a palace into a convent. Also we note with interest a square silver table containing a plan of the city of Constantinople, which was to be sent as a gift to St. Peter’s at Rome; a round one containing a similar plan of Rome, which was to be sent to the Archbishop of Ravenna; and a third, “far surpassing the others in weight of metal and beauty of workmanship, which consisted of three spheres linked together, and which embraced a plan of the whole world with delicate and minute delineation,” and which was to be sold for the benefit of the residuary legatees and the poor. At last the time came for all these dispositions to take effect. After the great assembly in which the imperial diadem was placed on the head of Louis of Aquitaine (Sept. 813), Charles, though in feeble health, went on one of his usual hunting expeditions in the neighborhood of Aachen. The autumn was thus passed, and at the beginning of November he returned to the palace to winter there. In January (814) he was attacked by a severe fever and took to his bed. According to his usual custom he thought to subdue the fever by fasting, but pleurisy was added to the fever, and in his reduced state he had no power to grapple with the disease. After partaking of the Communion he departed this life at nine in the morning of the 28th of January, 814. He was then in the seventy-second year of his age, and the forty-seventh of his reign. On the day of his death he was buried in his own church of St. Mary’s amidst the lamentations of his people. On a gilded arch above his tomb was inscribed this epitaph: “Under this tombstone is laid the body of Charles, the great and orthodox Emperor, who gloriously enlarged the kingdom of the Franks and reigned prosperously for 47 years (_sic_). He died, a septuagenarian, in the year of our Lord 814, in the 7th Indiction on the 5th day before the Kalends of February.”[71] Before many years had passed, the adjective _Magnus_ was universally affixed by popular usage to the name _Carolus_: and 351 years after his death he received the honor of canonization from the Roman Church. CHAPTER XIII. RESULTS.