They tolerated and tacitly admitted it, on account, no doubt, of the services rendered by Charlemagne to the papacy.

But Charlemagne had ardent and influential admirers outside the pale of popes and emperors; he was the great man and the popular hero of the Germanic race in Western Europe.

His saintship was welcomed with acclamation in a great part of Germany, where it had always been religiously kept up.

Prom the earliest date of the University of Paris, he had been the patron there of all students of the German race.

In France, nevertheless, his position as a saint was still obscure and doubtful, when Louis XI., towards the end of the fifteenth century, by some motive now difficult to unravel, but probably in order to take from his enemy, Charles the Rash, Duke of Burgundy, who was in possession of the fairest provinces of Charlemagne's empire, the exclusive privilege of so great a memory, ordained that there should be rendered to the illustrious emperor the honors due to the saints; and he appointed the 28th of January for his feast-day, with a threat of the penalty of death against all who should refuse conformity with the order.
Neither the command nor the threat of Louis XI.