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Rh defend itself with difficulty in Rome against Crescentius, it was in no position to take up Arnulf's cause vigorously. The support of the Empire could not but be weak and intermittent; up to 996 Otto III and his mother, Theophano, had more than they could do in Germany to maintain their own authority.

When Hugh Capet died, 24 October 996, nothing had been decided. Supported by some, intrigued against by others, the Capetian monarchy lived from hand to mouth. Uncertain of the morrow, the most astute steered a devious course, refusing to commit themselves heartily to either side. Even Gerbert, whose cause seemed to be bound up with the king's, since he owed his episcopate only to Arnulf's deprivation, took every means of courting the favour of the imperial and papal party. He had made a point of hurrying to each of the synods held by the papal legate in the course of 995 and 996 to decide in Arnulf's case, pretending that he had been passed over immediately after the death of Adalbero "on account of his attachment to the See of St. Peter," and entreating the legate for the sake of the Church's well-being, not to listen to his detractors, whose ill-will, he said, was in reality directed against the Pope. Then he had undertaken a journey to Rome to justify himself personally to the Pope, taking the opportunity, moreover, to join the suite of young Otto III who had just had himself crowned there, and succeeding so well in winning his good graces as to become his secretary.

Hugh Capet had hardly closed his eyes when a fresh complication arose. King Robert had fallen in love with the widow of Odo I of Chartres, the Countess Bertha, and had resolved to make her his wife. But Bertha was his cousin, and he had, besides, been sponsor to one of her children, thus the priests and the Pope, who was also consulted, firmly opposed a union which they looked upon as doubly "incestuous." Robert took no notice of their prohibitions, and found a complaisant prelate, Archibald, Archbishop of Tours, to solemnise his marriage, towards the end of 996. This created a scandal. With the support of Otto III, Pope Gregory V, who had in vain convoked the French bishops to Pavia at the beginning of 997, suspended all who had had any share in the Council of Saint-Basle, and summoned the king and all the bishops who had abetted his marriage to appear before him on pain of excommunication.

Alarmed at the effect of this double threat, Robert opened negotiations. Gerbert, naturally, would be the first sacrificed, and, losing courage, he fled to the court of Otto III. The Pope, far from inclining to any compromise, made it plain to the Capetian envoy, the Abbot of St-Benoît-sur-Loire, that he was determined to have recourse to the strongest measures. The unlucky Robert hoped that he might soften this rigour by yielding on the question of the archbishopric of Rheims. As Gerbert had fled, Arnulf was simply and merely restored to his see (January or February 998).