History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 5 by Edward Gibbon
page 72 of 922 (07%)
page 72 of 922 (07%)
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restoration of the Western empire.
[Footnote 95: By Mably, (Observations sur l'Histoire de France,) Voltaire, (Histoire Generale,) Robertson, (History of Charles V.,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 18.) In the year 1782, M. Gaillard published his Histoire de Charlemagne, (in 4 vols. in 12mo.,) which I have freely and profitably used. The author is a man of sense and humanity; and his work is labored with industry and elegance. But I have likewise examined the original monuments of the reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, in the 5th volume of the Historians of France.] [Footnote 96: The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven years after the death of Charlemagne, shows him in purgatory, with a vulture, who is perpetually gnawing the guilty member, while the rest of his body, the emblem of his virtues, is sound and perfect, (see Gaillard tom. ii. p. 317 - 360.)] [Footnote 97: The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the probum and suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without excepting his own wife, (c. xix. p. 98 - 100, cum Notis Schmincke.) The husband must have been too strong for the historian.] [Footnote *: This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly observes, "seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage of Eginhard." Hallam's Middle Ages, vol.i. p. 16. - M. [Footnote 98: Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain |
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