Read "The Greatest Story in the World, Period 2" by Horace G. Hutchinson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
We have seen that the kings of the date to which this greatest story / now has come, do not seem to have realised that if they partitioned / up their possessions among several sons the result was likely to be / that there would be disunion and righting. Charlemagne had three / sons, and would, it appears, have divided his Empire by his will / among them, but two of those sons died, so that the whole Empire came / into the hands of the survivor.
This survivor, however, had, in his turn, three sons, and at his / death the Empire was divided amongst the three. In this division we / see the beginnings of the present arrangement of the greater part of / Europe, for one son took a territory of which the boundaries were / nearly the same as those of modern France, another had what / corresponds more or less to Germany of to-day, and the third to / something very like modern Italy. The Italian brother, the eldest, / had the title of Emperor.