The Historians' History of the World 07

Whilst speaking, he held the record of his sins in his hands; he then returned it to the ecclesiastics, who laid it upon the altar. He himself divested himself of his weapons and arms and assumed the dress of a penitent. A dark, cheerless scene, symbolising the triumph of the ecclesiastical party over secular interests. How could a prince stand up against a court of justice such as this?

In order to take complete possession of the empire, Lothair repaired to Aachen, where an attempt was again made to induce Louis to enter a monastery. His answer was decisive; he declared it impossible for him to take the vow so long as he was not free. His disposition is well known; he was docile and yielding, but he doggedly clung to the quintessence of his rights; he possessed the faculty of finding valid excuses, in order to save himself from taking a final step. From the deepest abasement he once more rose triumphant.

LOUIS RETURNS TO POWER

[834 A.D.]

The vicissitudes of these times furnish a most extraordinary spectacle. The most vital issues at stake; the possession and the government of the empire; the rights of clergy and laity, and the future of the realm in both regards. But those persons principally and actively concerned, the father and his sons, do not display any fixed purpose; they move in opposite directions—the emperor Louis, resolute in the assertion of his rights in general, but at every moment ready to give way in minor details; Lothair, not unmindful of filial duty, but tempted by the unexpected success of his revolt to aspire to despotic power; Ludwig, surnamed the German, as on previous occasions, so also now, not without sympathy for his father, yet all the time scheming how best to maintain and increase the inheritance of which he had taken possession; Pepin, in whose favour the whole movement had been undertaken, not minded to await the course of events, or to renounce direct participation in the sovereign power: he continued to date his documents according to the years of his father’s reign, whilst his brother Ludwig was satisfied with mentioning his father in his documents as the augustus and imperator.

In situations such as these, events become more powerful than men; that is to say, general movements become more powerful than individual intentions. At first it became evident that the two younger brothers were not minded to submit to the elder’s dictation; they demanded from him better treatment for their father. Lothair intimated to his brothers that it was through them that their father had lost his authority; that he himself was not to be blamed for exercising the rights of seniority; and that his keeping his father, whose misfortunes deeply touched him, a prisoner, was a course of action justified by the judgment of the episcopate. All the formal reasons which were urged by him were not however able to dispel the impression that the father’s power had actually been usurped by the son. The whole civilised world became uneasy and disquieted at the sight; and when Pepin and Ludwig began warlike preparations, which could only be intended against Lothair, they were able to count upon the support of the magnates and the people. Not minded to be surprised in Aachen, Lothair collected his forces at Paris (the Roman Lutetia Parisiorum

), a city which even at that time was the centre of all political and intellectual movements in the West Frankish Empire, and where the first revolt against Louis had been prepared and organised. But even while on his way thither Lothair perceived himself to be threatened by the opposition on the part of one or another magnate; and becoming aware that he would not be able to stand his ground in Paris against the hosts of enemies who were advancing upon him from all sides, and convinced that only in Burgundy would he find a secure citadel, he proceeded thither with his faithful adherents, leaving his father behind him in the monastery of St. Denis.

But meanwhile divergent opinions had spread abroad in Paris. As Louis scrupled to follow the invitation to resume the imperial sway, so long as he was under the ban of the church, it was an act of the highest significance that all the bishops who were present in the capital repaired to St. Denis to pronounce his absolution. They restored him his arms and the imperial insignia.