The long reign was clearly drawing to a close. The Emperor’s physical powers began to fail, and the malady, which proved a fatal one, appeared in alarming symptoms. The Emperor knew of his condition, and had disciplined himself with the common forms of devotion for the approach of death. After a hunting expedition in the autumn of 813 he returned to Aix and soon after had an attack of fever. His ordinary remedies, dieting and the mineral waters of the city, failed to bring relief, and pleurisy set in. Charles died on the morning of the 28th of January, 814, after having received the communion from the hands of his arch-chaplain, Hildebold. His body, after embalmment, was enclosed in an ancient Roman sarcophagus, still existing in Aix, with ornaments in relief which depict the Rape of Proserpine. Above the entrance of the vault containing it was placed this inscription: “Here rests the body of Charles the Great, mighty and orthodox Emperor, who enlarged nobly the realm of the Franks, and for forty-six years governed it with success. He died a septuagenarian, in the year of Our Lord 814, in the 7th indiction on the fifth day before the Kalends of February.” People told how marvels had foreshadowed the Emperor’s dissolution, how for three days sun and moon were darkened, how the sky was filled by bright, unnatural flashes of light, how the roof of the Basilica at Aix was struck by a thunderbolt, and how the name of the Emperor, “Karolus Princeps,” engraved on a golden crown, suspended in the nave of the building, faded from sight. Later on, it was reported that the body of Charles had not been placed in a coffin, but that his tomb contained the body of the great ruler sitting upright on his throne, appearing just as he did in life, vested in the imperial robes, a diadem on his head, by his side a sword, his scepter in his hand, reposing with the book of the Gospels on his knees. Otto III was said to have entered the tomb and found the body so placed; but this supposed verification of the legend rests on a mistranslation of the text of an early chronicle. Folklore soon amplified the career of the great ruler. In the medieval “Gesta,” Charles appears as the brother of the Pope, the represser of disloyal vassals, a crusader and pilgrim to the Holy Land, a warrior of enormous stature, able with one stroke of his sword to cut in two an armed knight on his charger. In other legends he is presented as a famous wise man, the founder of the University of Paris. The Emperor in person did not resemble the glorified image of him handed down by legend. There was no beard extending to his waist, nor did he wear the magnificent imperial vestments, heavy with precious stones; nor are the other attributes of the imperial dignity seen in his conventional portraits authentic, such, for example, as the scepter, the globe surmounted by a cross, the baton terminating in a knob of incised silver.