"But in January, 814, he was taken ill," says Eginhard, "of a violent
fever, which kept him to his bed. Recurring forthwith to the remedy he
ordinarily employed against fever, he abstained from all nourishment,
persuaded that this diet would suffice to drive away or at the least
assuage the malady; but added to the fever came that pain in the side
which the Greeks call _pleurisy_; nevertheless the Emperor persisted in
his abstinence, supporting his body only by drinks taken at long
intervals; and on the seventh day after that he had taken to his bed,
having received the holy communion," he expired about 9 A.M., on
Saturday, the 28th of January, 814, in his seventy-first year.
"After performance of ablutions and funeral duties, the corpse was
carried away and buried, amid the profound mourning of all the people,
in the church he had himself had built; and above his tomb there was put
up a gilded arcade with his image and this superscription: 'In this tomb
reposeth the body of Charles, great and orthodox Emperor, who did
gloriously extend the kingdom of the Franks, and did govern it happily
for forty-seven years.
Pages:
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746