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Rh obliged to recognise that he had no means of resisting the superior forces at his father's disposal. He therefore retreated. The imperial army slowly followed his line of march, and by the month of May had reached Augsburg. Here it was that Louis the German came to seek his father and make his submission to him, swearing never in future to renew his attempts at revolt.

Louis then turned towards Aquitaine. From Frankfort, where he was joined by Lothar, he convoked a new host to meet at Orleans on 1 September. Thence he crossed the Loire, and ravaging the country as he went, reached Limoges. He halted for some time to the north of this town, at the royal residence of Jonac in La Marche, where Pepin came to him and in his turn submitted himself to him. But, shewing more severity in his case than in that of Louis the German, the Emperor, with the alleged object of reforming his morals, caused him to be arrested and sent to Trèves. At the same time, disclosing his true purpose, he annexed Aquitaine to the dominions of young Charles, to whom the magnates present at the assembly at Jonac were required to swear fealty. Bernard of Septimania himself, whose influence excited alarm, was deprived of his honours and benefices, which were given to Berengar, Count of Toulouse. But the Aquitanians, always jealous of their independence, would not submit to be deprived of the prince whom they had come to look upon as their own. They succeeded in liberating him from the custody of his escort, and the Frankish troops, sent in pursuit by Louis, were unable to recapture him. The imperial army was obliged to turn northward, harassed by the Aquitanian insurgents, and, their winter march proved disastrous. When Louis at length reached Francia again, leaving Aquitaine in arms behind him (January 833), it was only to learn that his two other sons, Lothar and Louis the German, were again in rebellion against him.

Lothar and Louis no doubt dreaded lest they should meet with the same treatment as Pepin. Moreover they could not see without feelings of jealousy the share of young Charles in the paternal heritage so disproportionately augmented. Again, Lothar had found a new ally in the person of the Pope, Gregory IV (elected in 827). The latter, though hesitating at first, had ended by allowing himself to be caught by the prospect of bringing peace to the Empire, and of securing for the Papacy the position of a mediating power. He had therefore decided on accompanying Lothar when he crossed the Alps to join his brother of Germany, and had addressed a circular letter to the bishops of Gaul and Germany, asking them to order fasts and prayers for the success of his enterprise. This did not hinder the greater number of the prelates from rallying round Louis who was at Worms where his army was concentrating. Only a few steadfast partisans of Lothar, such as Agobard of Lyons, failed to obey the imperial summons. The two parties seem to have been in no haste to come to blows, and for several