loman rebels against
his father Charles the Bald, the father burns out the eyes of his son
Carloman; Bavaria invades the Emperor Lothair his brother, Lothair
quits the Empire, he is assailed and wounded to the heart by his own
conscience, for his rebellion against his father, and for his other
cruelties, and dies in a monastery. Charles the Bald, the uncle,
oppresseth his nephews the sons of Lothair, he usurpeth the Empire to
the prejudice of Louis of Bavaria his elder brother; Bavaria's armies
and his son Carloman are beaten, he dies of grief, and the usurper
Charles is poisoned by Zedechias a Jew, his physician, his son Louis
le Begue dies of the same drink. Begue had Charles the Simple and two
bastards, Louis and Carloman; they rebel against their brother, but
the eldest breaks his neck, the younger is slain by a wild boar; the
son of Bavaria had the same ill destiny, and brake his neck by a fall
out of a window in sporting with his companions. Charles the Gross
becomes lord of all that the sons of Debonnaire held in Germany;
wherewith not contented, he invades Charles the Simple: but
being-forsaken of his nobility, of his wife, and of his understanding,
he dies a distracted beggar. Charles the Simple is held in wardship by
Eudes, Mayor of the Palace, then by Robert the brother of Eudes: and
lastly, being taken by the Earl of Vermandois; he is forced to die in
the prison of Peron, Louis the son of Charles the Simple breaks his
neck in chasing a wolf, and of the two sons of this Louis, the one
dies of poison, the other dies in the prison of Orleans; after whom
Hugh Capet, of another race, and a stranger to the French, makes
himself king.

These miserable ends had the issues of Debonnaire, who after he had
once apparelled injustice with authority, his sons and successors took
up the fashion, and wore that garment so long without other provision,
as when the same was torn from their shoulders, every man despised
them as miserable and naked beggars. The wretched success they had
(saith a learned Frenchman) shows, "que en ceste mort il y avait plus
du fait des homines que de Pieu, ou de la justice": "that in the death
of that Prince, to wit, of Bernard the son of Pepin, the true heir of
Charlemagne, men had more meddling than either God or justice had."

But to come nearer home; it is certain that Francis the First, one of
the worthiest kings (except for that fact) that ever Frenchmen had,
did never enjoy himself, after