82 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS ants to the papacv ; but he escaped from their hands and brought his complaints before Charlemagne. The conspirators then attempted to justify the deed, by ac- cusing the Pope of atrocious crimes ; and the king calling to his aid certain of the Roman prelates, proceeded to sit in judgment on him. The prelates, however, declared that by all the canonical rules they could not judge their superior ; and Leo therefore was allowed, according to an old custom, to purge himself, by a solemn oath, of the crimes which had been laid to his charge. Many motives of policy at this time induced the Pope to set up an emperor of the West in opposition to the Eastern Empire. It was Christmas-day, when, with the rest of the Catholic world, Charlemagne presented himself in the church of St. Peter. At the desire of the Romans he was dressed in the long robe of the patrician, and unsuspicious, it is said, of the honor intended him, knelt at the high altar ; but, just as he was about to rise, Leo advanced, and suddenly placed upon his head the crown of the Western world, amidst the popular acclamations, ' Long life and victory to Charles Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific Emperor of the Romans ! " To end the long-existing feuds between the Western and Eastern Empires, Charlemagne now proposed to marry Irene, who, having deposed her son and put out his eyes, had usurped the throne of Constantinople. Irene herself was not unwilling to accept the offer ; but she was overruled by a faction, and a treaty of peace was substituted for a treaty of marriage. But while the negotia- tions were going on, Irene herself was deposed by the great treasurer, Niceph- orus, who even refused to grant her the smallest pittance, so that the degraded empress was obliged to support herself by the labors of the distaff. He was, however, glad to conclude a peace with Charlemagne. Though troubled from time to time by disputes among the neighboring bar- barians, the Prankish monarch might now be said to enjoy peace ; and while still in the possession of robust health, he resolved to prepare for death, by allotting among his children such portions of territory as he wished them to possess when he should be removed from the scene. Both his sons and the people willingly consented to the proposed arrangements, which, indeed, bore the stamp of his usual wisdom and justice. But the advanced age which he attained, brought with it the usual evils of protracted life. He saw his friends and children swept away before him. His son Louis alone remained to inherit his vast dominions. With this single drawback the remainder of his time was as prosperous as his earlier career had been ; till at length, being suddenly attacked with pleurisy, he expired, after a short illness, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty- seventh of his reign, January 28, 814.
