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34 army, cross the Loire and march against the rebels, ravaging the country as he went, devastated as it already was by the troops which Louis the Younger had brought from beyond the Rhine. The news of a colloquy between Lothar and his brother of Germany excited the distrust of Charles the Bald, and abruptly recalled him to the north of Gaul, where he came to Attigny to renew the alliance previously made with the Emperor. Then, with his army he again set out for Aquitaine. But what was of more service to him than these warlike demonstrations was the re-appearance, south of the Loire, of Pepin II, who had escaped from his prison. At the sight of their old prince, the Aquitanians very generally abandoned the cause of Louis the Younger, who found himself forced to return to Bavaria. But it does not appear that Charles the Bald looked upon Pepin's power as very firmly established, for next year he gave a king to the Aquitanians in the person of his own son Charles (the Younger) whom he caused to be solemnly anointed at Limoges.

A few weeks earlier, Lothar, after having arranged for the division of his lands among the three sons whom the Empress Ermengarde had borne him, retired to the Abbey of Prüm. Here it was that on the night of 28-29 September 855, his restless life reached its end.

The partition which the Emperor Lothar I had thus made of his territories divided into three truncated portions the long strip of country which by the treaty of 843 had fallen to him as the lot of the eldest son of Louis the Pious. To Louis II, the eldest of the dead man's sons, was given the imperial title, which he had borne since April 850, together with Italy. To the next, Lothar II, were bequeathed the districts from Frisia to the Alps and between the Rhine and the Scheldt which were to preserve his own name, for they were called Lotharii regnum, i.e. Lorraine. For the youngest son, Charles, a new kingdom was formed by the union of Provence proper with the duchy of Lyons (i.e. the Lyonnais and the Viennois). For the rest, the two elder were discontented with their share, and in an interview which they had with their younger brother at Orbe attempted to force him into retirement in order to take possession of his kingdom. Only the intervention of the Provençal magnates saved the young prince Charles, and Lothar II and Louis II were forced to carry out the last directions of their father. But the death of Lothar I, whose position both in theory and in fact had fitted him to act as in some sort a mediator between his two brothers, endangered the maintenance of peace and concord. Charles, who was a feeble epileptic, had no weight in the "Carolingian concert." It was only the kind of regency entrusted to Gerard, Count of Vienne, renowned in legendary epic as Girard of Roussillon, which secured the continued existence of the little kingdom of Provence. Louis II, whose attention was concentrated on the struggle with the Saracens, had to content himself with the part of "Emperor of the Italians, as the Frank annalists, not without a touch of contempt,