Out of
Germany, nothing of the claim, beyond precedence in rank, has ever been
allowed. This, no sovereign in Europe has contested with the emperors:
it is observable, that, as the French monarchs insisted on the
Carlovingian extraction of Hugh Capet, they affected to consider Henry
the Fowler the first prince of the Saxon dynasty, and all his successors
in the empire as usurpers. Lewis XIV. expresses himself in this manner
in some memoirs recently attributed to him.
III. 2.
_State of German Literature during the Franconian Dynasty._
[Sidenote: 1024-1138.]
Throughout this period, commerce was always upon the increase; and
literature, science and art, increased with it. The monuments of the
antient grandeur of the eternal city, began about this time to engage
the attention of the inhabitants of Germany, and to attract to Rome many
literary pilgrims. They returned home impressed with admiration of what
they had seen, and related the wonders to their countrymen. "The gods
themselves (they told their hearers) behold their images in Rome with
admiration, and wish to resemble them.
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