See Gaillard, tom.ii.p.506, 507, 508,) howsoever adverse to the claims of the popes.

For the series of the Carlovingians, see the historians of France, Italy, and Germany; Pfeffel, Schmidt, Velly, Muratori, and even Voltaire, whose pictures are sometimes just, and always pleasing.] Otho [117] was of the noble race of the dukes of Saxony; and if he truly descended from Witikind, the adversary and proselyte of Charlemagne, the posterity of a vanquished people was exalted to reign over their conquerors.

His father, Henry the Fowler, was elected, by the suffrage of the nation, to save and institute the kingdom of Germany.

Its limits [118] were enlarged on every side by his son, the first and greatest of the Othos.

A portion of Gaul, to the west of the Rhine, along the banks of the Meuse and the Moselle, was assigned to the Germans, by whose blood and language it has been tinged since the time of Caesar and Tacitus.
Between the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Alps, the successors of Otho acquired a vain supremacy over the broken kingdoms of Burgundy and Arles.