Charlemagne had gathered around him a royal circle of scholars and clerics who were filling in the early gaps in his education (he had received much more military training than book-learning from his father, and had never learned to write); they not only discussed with him the finer points of theology, philosophy, and grammar, but they called him King David, after the Old Testament monarch who was hand-picked by God to lead the chosen people. Under the guidance of his personal tutor Alcuin, a British churchman whom Charlemagne had recruited to teach his sons, the king of the Franks developed a stronger and stronger sense of mission. His conquests were, in his own eyes, forceful evangelism: bringing the Gospel to stubborn unbelievers who needed to be saved not just from their sins but from their own unwillingness to hear.
Jules Laure (Genoble, 1806 - Paris, 1861) was a French painter.
[Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon - Oil on canvas]