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Rh dread of a new system founded on the ambitions of the lay aristocracy, who were ever ready to extort payment for their support out of the estates of the ecclesiastical magnates. Only Ganelon of Sens, forgetting that he owed his preferment to Charles's favour, had taken sides with the new sovereign, thus leaving his name to become in tradition that of the most notorious traitor of medieval epic. The bishops of the provinces of Rheims and Rouen being summoned by Louis to attend a council at Rheims, contrived under the skilful guidance of Hincmar to hinder the meeting from being held; protesting meanwhile their good intentions, but declaring it necessary to summon a general assembly of the episcopate, and demanding guarantees for the safety of Church property. The presence of Louis the German in the province of Rheims, where he came to spend the Christmas season, and to take up his winter quarters, made no difference in the Bishops' attitude.

However, Charles the Bald, with the help of the Abbot Hugh and Count Conrad, had rallied all the supporters that remained to him at Auxerre. On 9 January he suddenly left his retreat and marched against his brother. Many of the German lords had set out to return to their own country. The Western magnates, not seeing any sufficient advantage to be gained under the new government, shewed no more hesitation in deserting it than they had in accepting it. At Jouy, near Soissons, where the sudden appearance of his brother took Louis by surprise, the German found himself left with so small a proportion of his quondam followers that in his turn he was forced to retreat without striking a blow. By the spring of 859 Charles had regained his authority. Naturally, he made use of it to punish those who had betrayed him. Adalard lost his Abbey of Saint-Bertin which was given to the Abbot Hugh, and Odo lost his counties. What makes it plain that for the magnates the whole affair was simply a question of material gain, is that in the negotiations which Charles opened with Louis the point that he specially insisted on was that the latter, in exchange for the renewal of their alliance, should abandon to his discretion those magnates who had shared in the defection, in order that he might deprive them of their estates. The negotiations, moreover, proved long and thorny, despite the intervention of Lothar II. Synods and embassies, even an interview between the two sovereigns, in a boat midway across the Rhine, produced no results. It was not until the colloquy held at St Castor in Coblence on 1 June 860, in the presence of a large number of bishops, Hincmar being among them, that Louis and Charles succeeded in coming to terms. Charles the Bald promised to leave his magnates in possession of the fiefs which they had received from Louis the German, reserving his right to deprive them of those which he himself had previously bestowed on them. The oaths of peace and concord made in 851 at Meersen were again sworn to. Louis made a declaration to this effect in the German tongue, denouncing the severest penalties on all who should violate the agreement, a declaration