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Rh as having transgressed the commands of the Church and violated the oaths that he had sworn; of homicide, as having caused the death of Bernard; and of perjury, as having broken the pact instituted to preserve the peace of the Empire and the Church. The document containing the text of this confession was then laid upon the altar, while the Emperor, stripped of his baldric, the emblem of the warrior (knight or miles), and clothed in the garb of a penitent, was removed under close supervision first to Soissons, then to the neighbourhood of Compiègne, and finally to Aix where the new Emperor was to spend the winter.

But by the end of 833, dissension was beginning to make itself felt among the victors. Louis's half-brothers, Hugh and Drogo, who had fled to Louis the German, were exhorting him to come over to the party of his father and of Judith, whose sister, Emma, he had married in 827. Louis the German's first step was to intercede with Lothar to obtain a mitigation of the treatment meted out to the imprisoned Emperor. The attempt failed, and only produced a widening of the breach between the two brothers. A reaction of feeling began in favour of the captive sovereign. The famous theologian Raban Maur, Abbot of Fulda and later Archbishop of Mayence (847-56), published an apologia on his behalf, in answer to a treatise in which Agobard of Lyons had just refurbished the old calumnies which had been widely circulated against Judith. Louis the German made overtures to Pepin, who was no more disposed than himself to recognise any disproportionate authority in Lothar, and before long the two kings agreed to summon their followers to march to the help of their father. Lothar, not feeling himself safe in Austrasia, went to Saint-Denis where he had called upon his host to assemble. But the nobles of his party deserted him in his turn. He was compelled to set Louis the Pious and young Charles at liberty and to retreat upon Vienne on the Rhone, while the bishops and magnates present at Saint-Denis decreed the restoration of Louis to his former dignity, reinvesting him with his crown and his weapons, the insignia of his authority. In charters and documents he now reassumes the imperial style: Hludowicus, divina repropiciante clementia, imperator augustus.

On leaving Saint-Denis Louis repaired to Quierzy, where he was joined by Pepin and Louis the German. Judith, who had been withdrawn from her prison by the magnates devoted to the Emperor, also returned to Gaul. Meanwhile Lothar was preparing to carry on the struggle. Lambert and Matfrid, his most zealous supporters, had raised an army in his name on the March of Brittany, and defeated and killed the counts sent against them by the Emperor. Lothar, who had rallied his partisans, came to join them in the neighbourhood of Orleans. There he awaited the arrival of the Emperor, who was still in company with his other two sons. As on similar occasions, no battle was fought. Lothar, realising the inadequacy of his forces, made his submission and