the distinction was an important one, since the rich noble or
the monarch who had disposed of an objectionable wife in this way, and
who had absolved himself by proper penances and by sufficient gifts to
the Church, might, and generally did, remarry.

It is with the story of a divorce or forced separation that we are
concerned in the case of Queen Bertha. Robert, the son of Hugues Caput,
and the first real king of the Capetian line, was a devoted friend of
Eudes, Count of Champagne and Blois, who proudly styles himself, in his
charters, _Comes Ditissimus_,--richest count of France,--and whom Robert
had honored with the title of count or seneschal of the royal palace.
This Eudes had a beautiful and virtuous wife, Bertha, daughter of King
Conrad the Pacific of Aries, and descended from the great Emperor Henry,
the Fowler. Robert, then married to a princess named Rosella, was
godfather to one of the children of Eudes and his fair cousin Bertha.
Both Princess Rosella and the Comes Ditissimus died. Bertha and Robert
already loved each other, it would seem, since neither mourned very
long. Within a few months they were married, in spite of the protests of
Hugues Capet, who would have liked a more powerful alliance for his son
and heir. Although Bertha and Robert were cousins, it was only in the
fourth degree. This actual relationship, though within the proscribed
degrees, would have been overlooked probably, as well as the spiritual
relationship established by Robert's having stood godfather to one of
Bertha's children, had it not been for the prince's ill luck in
incurring the enmity of certain powerful and active churchmen.
Archambaud, Archbishop of Tours, had issued a special dispensation, and
had blessed the marriage in the presence and with the consent of several
other bishops. But to understand fully the violent opposition which the
marriage encountered from the papal party we must go back to an episode
in the reign of Hugues Capet.

In the course of the last effort of Carl, the heir of the Carlovingian
line, to recover dominion, the Archbishop of Rheims had betrayed Hugues
Capet, and had agreed to introduce Carl's forces into Rheims. It was
proved that this man, Arnoul, or Arnulph, had surrendered the keys of
the city to the emissaries of Carl, and he himself confessed his guilt.
Accordingly, with the sanction of an ecclesiastical court, Arnoul was
deprived of his see, which was given to Gerbert, the tutor of the youn