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CHAP. Simple, a posthumous son of Louis the Stammerer, and waited the opportunity to proclaim him king, in order to oppose him to Eudes. Amongst the other misfortunes which befel the latter, was that of a dreadful famine in 889. One of the advantages of a Carlovingian prince was the possession of many habitations and domains attached to them, which successively maintained a court, and even supported an army. Eudes, whose power only extended to Laon and Compiegne, wanted these; and in order to maintain his followers in the famine, he moved southward, with a large army, to war and feed in the countries beyond the Loire.

Foulques in his absence brought forth Charles the Simple and proclaimed him king. And, as Richer the monk of Rheims describes it, all the Belgian race and territory adhered to Charles, whilst the Celtic remained true to Eudes. The latter maintained his ground more by compromise than by conquest. And on his death, in 898, his heir and brother Robert, found it most prudent to submit, and acknowledge Charles the Simple as his suzerain.

This brought no diminution of his power. Robert still governed the Duchies of Paris and Orleans. Owing to the absence of the Emperor Arnulph in Italy, to his struggles with the barbarians on his far and eastern frontier after his return, and, subsequently, to the distraction of Germany and the weakness of its princes subsequent to Arnulph's death, Charles the Simple succeeded in building up a kind of empire in the old Austrasian provinces. Robert of France, with the neighbouring Counts of Flanders, Vermandois, and Burgundy, far from opposing him, sought to make use of his name, and of the Church's aid, to put an end by conciliation to the hostility of the Normans. Rollo, their leader on the Seine, had sunk from the freebooter into the settled prince. He was master of Rouen, and

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tolerated its bishop and its clergy. These pointed out to the Normans the advantages of regular and peaceable possession; as the means to which, they proposed Rollo's acceptance of the investiture of the Duchy of Normandy for himself and his heirs from Charles the Simple. It was, no doubt, as a suzerain better able to play this part, that Robert and his brother dukes had acknowledged Charles the Simple. The monarch, accompanied by Robert, met Rollo on the river Epte, the Norman boundary, to come to an agreement. The freebooter, not contented with Normandy, wanted a neighbouring province to pillage, as well as his own duchy to live in. How else, he asked, should he subsist? The king and Robert offered Flanders. But Rollo preferred Brittany, and he was gratified in his desire. Rollo consented to do homage by proxy, when the well-known occurrence took place of the Norman soldier, whom the newly-made duke had appointed to perform the act of obeisance, raising Charles's foot so rudely as nearly to upset the monarch. Rollo was not the less metamorphosed from the sea-king into the Norman duke. He was afterwards solemnly baptized at Rouen, Robert of France acting as his godfather, and being a party to the solemn treaty, which enrolled the Duke of Normandy amongst that potent aristocracy which had divided amongst them the empire of Charlemagne.

Having made the use of Charles the Simple which they desired, and having obtained peace and security from the Normans, they proceeded to get rid of the Carlovingian and his supremacy. Charles was not contented to play the Roi Fainéant. He had a favourite, named Hagano, who taught him to pretend to real empire, and who even induced him to cross the Rhine in order to oppose Conrad. This prince had been elected King of Germany on the extinction of the Carlovingians of that country in 911, the same year in which the

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accord with Rollo had taken place. Such a revolution, accomplished in Germany, prompted Robert to reclaim the crown in France. He united the French and German interests against Charles. This prince's truest and warmest friend, Foulques, Archbishop of Rheims, was slain by some followers of the Count of Flanders, with whom he was at feud. Charles was thus compelled to invoke German aid to support him against the French dukes. But Conrad and his successor, Henry the Fowler, could give but temporary attention to the affairs of France. Charles therefore was driven from the imperial territory of Soissons, Laon, and Rheims, and Robert was crowned in the cathedral of the latter town (922), Herivée, its archbishop, being on his death-bed. In the following year, Charles having secured Norman aid, undertook an expedition to recover Soissons. He was encountered near that town by Robert, who, conspicuous by his white beard, received the thrust of a lance, and fell dead on the field, his son Hugh, and Heribert of Vermandois, at the same time, routing the forces of Charles, and putting him to flight.

The death of Robert defeated the aim at that time of raising the Duchy into the kingdom of France, by making it paramount over the imperial lands and provinces around Rheims. Young Hugh, son of Robert, could not at once assume his father's superiority amongst the French dukes; and all the advantages and conquests arising from the expulsion of Charles, fell to Heribert, Count of Vermandois, or of St. Quentin.

It was probably to counterbalance his power, that Hugh, instead of placing on his own head the crown of his father, preferred to confer it upon Raoul or Rodolph, Duke of Burgundy. This prince had married Hugh's sister Emma; and Glaber pretends that Hugh consulted Emma, asking her whether she would like to see her husband Rodolph, or her brother Hugh, crowned. Emma is said to have preferred the election of her hus

band; but Hugh consented to this for more politic CHAP.

reasons.

The most prominent and influential fact at this time was not so much the mutual hatred of the German and French races, which in truth came seldom in contact, as the jealousy and dislike of the intermediate race to both. The people of Burgundy, of Lorraine, which included Austrasia, and even of Champagne, equally repudiated the domination of the dukes of Saxony and the dukes of France; they were averse to the Henrys and Othos, as to the Roberts and the Hughs. The dislike was that of local interests against distant rule, which was augmented by the circumstance of the church having become most powerful in the intermediate region. Difference of tongue was superadded, and Hugh, the son and successor of Robert, had learned from recent experience the difficulty of extending his power or sovereignty eastward. The Normans had not, as was expected, been quieted by the regular grant to them of the territory on the Lower Seine. Charles the Simple himself had enticed them to war against Robert. Hugh, as Duke of France, might maintain peace with them, and with Lorraine; but the moment he assumed the crown, he assumed with it sovereign pretensions, menacing and provocatory to all around. Hugh therefore preferred placing the crown upon the head of his brother-in-law, Raoul or Rodolph of Burgundy, a prince of activity and superior attainments, childless moreover, and who from his position could best awe the men of Aquitaine and of Lorraine, should they menace hostility. Rodolph was therefore crowned; and he was no sooner consecrated, than he and Heribert quarrelled about the valuable church patronage of the imperial territory. It would be idle to attempt a narration of the wars and accommodations, fallings in and fallings off, of the halfdozen dukes and Charles the Simple. Heribert made this prince his captive, reproducing and threatening to

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reestablish him from time to time, as his unscrupulous policy and interests varied.

Charles the Simple died in 929: and Rodolph in 936, after having employed his arms and extended his power far more in the south than in the disputed regions of Champagne and Lorraine. Here he had triumphed for a time over Heribert. But the Belgian provinces showed themselves stubborn as ever, and presented the same obstacle to what Richer calls Celtic supremacy or conquest. Hugh of France again shrunk from taking up the crown, which the death of Rodolph seemed to leave to him. The power and the enmity of those around him were great as before; moreover, the dukes of Saxony, as kings of Germany, had largely risen in eminence by their victories. Martial virtues were those most prized in that age; and whilst the wars of France were petty and ineffectual, those of Henry and Otho against the Hungarians rivalled the victories of Charlemagne, and gave rights as well as pretensions to the resuscitation of his empire and his dignity. To preserve the country west of the Rhine from such formidable competition required a prince of Carlovingian descent; and therefore Hugh, with his brother magnates, invited Louis d'Outremer, son of Charles the Simple, to return from England, where he had taken refuge, and assume the crown of his ancestors.

The policy of Hugh is easily discerned, and its wisdom cannot be denied; yet the most contrary and unexpected results flowed from it. Young Louis d'Outremer in a very short time emancipated himself from the French dukes, and repairing to Laon and to Rheims, recommenced the old and imperial antagonism of his family to them. Whereupon these at once reversed their policy and flung themselves into the interests of the German emperor. Hugh espoused Otho's sister, and favoured that monarch's supremacy over eastern and Belgian France, in preference to that of young Louis.

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