940-941 936-942 test for the City of the Rock. Hugh-le-Grand and Count Herbert, albeit deprived of Guillaume Longue-épée's assistance, summoned their forces and advanced towards Laon, doubting whether they would be able to reduce the Stronghold by force, yet still reckoning upon their friends within the City. Distinguished partizans were these friends, Arnoul, Count of St. Quentin in the Vermandois, and Landric, his brother. But the sharpsighted Louis gained information of the plot, and expelled the colluders. The vigilant and active King collected a considerable body of troops, and advanced to the "Pays Porcien.' Hugh-le-Grand and Count Herbert were not less vigilant and active. Quitting the siege of Laon, by a sudden movement they came up to Louis, surprised him, and dispersed his army. The King was obliged to fly for his life:-had they caught him, we should now be writing the concluding paragraph of his history. Nevertheless, the Confederates had received a check; and Louis, having found a temporary refuge in the castle of Hautmond, returned to Laon and to Gerberga, nothing daunted. The defeat he sustained in the Pays Porcien became the commencement of a more prosperous æra in his reign. Pope Stephen IX. § 19. The potency of the veneration cominterferes manded by St. Peter's Chair, subsisting undimiKing's be- nished, despite of the Supreme Pontiff's vices or misfortunes, is a secular phenomenon recurring on the half. in every successive æra of Ecclesiastical history. 936-942 A memorable example of this inherent energy is afforded by Stephen, sometimes reckoned as the 941-942 Eighth, though more correctly as the Ninth, who now filled the Papal throne. A German by birth, an obscure and mean man, of whom, previously to his Pontificate, we know nothing, though such was his character that the unanimous suffrages of the Roman people elevated him to the Primacy of Christendom. Stephen became very obnoxious to Count Alberic, and the other tyrannical Lords of Rome. They dared not deprive Stephen of life; but the course whereby they satisfied their malignity was scarcely, if at all, less atrocious than murder. Stephen was assaulted by the congenial retainers of the Nobles, who hacked and slashed his face most cruelly, his countenance being rendered so ghastly, that he never afterwards appeared in public, lest the hideous spectacle should distress the beholders. Yet, notwithstanding his seclusion from the general converse of mankind, Stephen resolutely exerted all the functions appertaining to his exalted mission. The oppressions he sustained, had in no wise diminished his earnestness for the protection of others. Acting according to the principles of the Church, as she enounced in antient Councils, Stephen solemnly admonished the Princes of France to obey their lawful King, and sheath the sword. In France, 936-942 the sentence was duly promulgated by the Papal Legate, certainly encreasing the moral strength 941-942 of the royal cause: falterers were confirmed in their allegiance; and the open declaration of a right principle never fails to produce some good, however faintly and tardily evolved. Continua tionary laume Longueépée passes royal party. § 20. Herbert was bent upon continuing his tion of the rough wooing of Laon: but Guillaume Longuewar: Guil- épée's absence seems to have perplexed him, therefore he and Duke Hugh again beleaguered over to the the City, probably retaining the lingering hope that some secret well-wisher would turn the key from within. Queen Gerberga continued at Laon, as the only place where she could be protected. Expectations were entertained that she would become a mother. Hugh and Herbert suddenly raised the siege. Gerberga may possibly have thanked them in her heart, supposing that commiseration for a poor burthened woman had induced the compassionate warriors to desist ;but no such chivalry: they repaired to Guillaume Longue-épée, and then returned and recommenced hostilities. Louis, adapting himself to circumstances, shifted his ground, and encountered his adversaries with their own weapons, exploding their mine by a countermine. Guillaume Longueépée could not be trusted by any party, and yet no party could venture to neglect GuillaumeLongue-épée. Twice within the brief period since 941-942 of Guil Longue the accession of Louis, had the Duke of Normandy 936-942 betrayed his lawful Sovereign, and twice the Capetians, and now, for the third time, making the fifth in this class of defections, did the pitiable son of Rollo prepare again to desert his confederates. A series of transactions ensued, of which the results are very patent, though the course of events is involved in extreme obscurity. Nego- Intrigues tiations and intrigues ensued which never were laume revealed: kept so close that not a syllable of épée. them is recorded;—and their purport can only be surmised from the actions of the principal personages. These, imperfectly observed, inaccurately related from memory, or casually and meagrely noted down on the tablets of contemporaries who participated in the troubles, defy all attempts to reduce them into a consistent narrative. I am not aware of any portion of mediæval history which, being fairly within ken, offers equal perplexities; and the difficulty of treating the subject is increased by the absence of any intelligible principle; except so far, that, setting aside every other consideration, each consulted his own interest: and Guillaume Longue-épée, quietly and slily drawing away from his own friends, became a recognized adherent of the King. 941 Birth of § 21. The Capetians finally abandoned their attempts upon Laon, and Gerberga being happily left in tranquillity, a male child was born to her son of King Lothaire, Louis and as the wife of Louis, the event most desirable for Gerberga. 936-942 sustaining the moral influence of the Crown. When Louis returned from beyond the sea he was 941-942 the only recognized representative of the Carlovingian line. In his person, had he died without issue, the lineage of Louis-le-débonnaire would have become extinct. Nor would there have been any individual who could assert any claim to the throne by right of Carlovingian blood, unless the Vermandois family, the representatives of Pepin King of Lombardy, had been rehabilitated in the national opinion as the descendants of the great Emperor. It is not improbable but that Herbert calculated upon the chances which the demise of Louis without an heir might afford. Nay, even more. What if Hugh-le-Grand, the representative of King Robert, were, in such a contingency, to assert that the reasonings which, erewhile, restrained him from accepting the Crown upon the demise of Raoul, were no longer applicable to the exigences of the State, and that he was free to ascend the throne? The boundary deduced from the principle of political necessity is of indefinite vastness; and Hugh-le-Grand might have argued with convincing plausibility, that the claim of blinded Bernard's lineage, the Lombard line, had been absolutely foreclosed, and that the Kingdom was therefore thrown open to any new man or new family. Thus, without contradicting the spirit of his former professions, he might accept the oft |