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PREFACE.

EGINHART relates, in his Annals*, that, when Charlemagne had achieved the conquest of those provinces which, lying between the frontier of France and the Ebro, were anciently distinguished by the appellation of the Marches of Spain (Marca Hispanica), the Basques or Gascons who inhabited the Pyrenees, a race of wild mountaineers, nominally subject to the French empire, but in reality unused to any species of subordination, being irritated by the disorders which his soldiers had committed on their passage, lay in wait for his return, and, after suffering the Emperor himself and the main body of his army to repass the frontier unmolested, sud

* Anno 778. Duchesne, tom. ii. p. 97.

denly fell on his rear-guard, and, by the advantage of situation, overwhelmed it with fragments of rocks and missile weapons, so that not a man escaped. Among the officers of distinction who perished on this occasion, the same historian has recorded the names of Eghart, an officer of the imperial household called Regiæ Mensæ præpositus, Anselm Count of the Palace, and Roland (Rutlandus) Governor of the Marches or Frontier of Britanny. It is remarkable that this is the only occasion on which the last name, so celebrated in romance, is found to occur in anything like a genuine historical document.

On the same authority we are informed that, in the year 824, the Emperor Louis le Debonnaire sent a considerable force under the command of the Counts or Dukes of Gascony, Ebles and Aznar, to repress the incursions of the Moorish King of Cordova on the imperial frontier. These generals executed their commission with promptitude and firmness; but, on their return through the passes of the Pyrenees,

were led, by the perfidious mountaineers whom they had taken for their conductors, into an ambuscade prepared for them by the Saracens, routed, and cut to pieces, and their two chiefs sent captive to Cordova.

It seems probable that these two historical relations, in themselves distinct, but confounded together by tradition, formed the basis of all the succeeding fictions respecting the battle of Roncesvalles *.

Of these fictions, the famous Chronicle at

* The Sieur Pierre de Marca (in his Histoire de Bearn, folio, 1660, p. 153,) speaking of the first of the events here referred to, says, "De cette defaite, dont la gloire pour le courage, ou la honte pour la rebellion, doit estre rapportée aux habitans des vallées de ce quartier, à sçavoir à ceux de Soule, de Basse Navarre, et de Bastan, la vanité Espagnole a pris occasion de s'attribuer le triomphe des Douze Pairs de France, qui ne furent point en nature de plus de trois siècles après. Ce qui a esté fomenté par les inventions fabuleuses du supposé Turpin de Rheims, ausquelles Roderic de Tolede s'est laissé tellement surprendre, qu'il a voulu encheoir par dessous tous, escrivant que Charlemagne ne fit aucune conquête, sinon en la Catalogne, et qu'il fut batu

tributed to Turpin Archbishop of Rheims, the supposed contemporary and friend of Charlemagne, has usually been considered as the foundation; but it seems more probable that other ancient legends, no longer extant, might share with it at least the honours of parentage. If the Spanish origin, which some antiquaries have assigned to that singular monument of invention, rests on no better foundation than the fact cited at the conclusion of the note

above, it is very little to be depended upon,

et repoussé voulant passer en Navarre par Ronces

vaux."

The same author, who is deserving of great esteem as a diligent antiquary, says it should be put out of all question that this famous Chronicle of Turpin was forged in Spain, "où les esprits estoient portés à supposer des ouvrages sous le nom des anciens..... Suivant cette inclination, ils composoient le Roman de Turpin à l'avantage de leur nation." And to this he adds, as confirmation of his opinion, that a copy of the work in question is related to have come from Spain into the possession of Geoffroy Prior of Limoges in the year 1200, "dont les lettres estoient usées, et dont le recit s'accordoit avec les chansons des Farceurs."

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