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Rh to present to Charles the Bald letters from the Pope, exhorting him to respect his nephew's territory. From thence he went back to Lorraine, bringing with him Theutberga whom he restored to her husband. On 15 August he celebrated a solemn High Mass before the royal pair who were invested with the insignia of sovereignty, before he began his return journey to Rome, on which he was accompanied by Waldrada, who, in her turn, was to answer for her actions before the Pope. The legation had resulted in a triumph for Nicholas. In the presence of the Pope's clearly expressed requirements, peace had been restored between the kings, and Theutberga had regained her rank as queen. Thanks to his own firmness and skill, the Pope had acted as supreme arbiter; not only Lothar, but Charles the Bald and Louis the German had been obliged to bow before him.

Nevertheless, in the succeeding years, it would appear that Lothar conceived some hope of being able to re-open the divorce question and attain his desired object. Waldrada had hardly arrived at Pavia, when without the formality of a farewell, she succeeded in eluding the legate and in returning to Lorraine, where she remained, in spite of the excommunication launched against her by Nicholas I. Besides this, Charles the Bald's attitude towards his nephew became somewhat less uncompromising, doubtless on account of the temporary disgrace of Hincmar, the most faithful champion of the cause of the indissolubility of marriage. The king of the Western Franks even had a meeting with Lothar at Ortivineas, perhaps Orvignes near Bar-le-Duc, when the two princes agreed to take up the divorce question afresh by sending an embassy to Rome under the direction of Egilo, the metropolitan of Sens. But the Pope refused point-blank to fall in with their views, and replied by addressing the bitterest reproaches to Charles, and above all to Lothar, whom he forbade ever to dream of renewing his relations with Waldrada. The death of Nicholas I (13 November 867) gave a new aspect to affairs. His successor, Hadrian II, was a man of much less firmness and consistency, almost of a timorous disposition, and much under the influence of Louis II, that is, of Lothar's brother and ally. Thus, while refusing to receive Theutberga, whom Lothar had thought of compelling to accuse herself before the Pope, and while congratulating Hincmar on his attitude throughout the affair, and again proclaiming the principle of the indissolubility of marriage, the new Pope soon relieved Waldrada from her sentence of excommunication. Lothar resolved to go and plead his cause in person at Rome. Hadrian consented to his taking this step, which Nicholas I had always refused to sanction. The only consideration which could arouse Lothar's uneasiness was the attitude of his uncles. The latter, indeed, despite a recent letter from the Pope taking up the position of the defender of the integrity of the kingdoms, had just come to an agreement at St Arnulf's of Metz, that "in case God should bestow on them the kingdoms of