:
'Hearken, thou Lambert, bishop of Arras, who art here in place of the
Apostolic Pontiff; and let the archbishops and bishops here present
hearken unto me. I, Philip, king of the French, do promise not to go
back to my sin, and to break off wholly the criminal intercourse I have
heretofore kept up with Bertrade. I do promise that henceforth I will
have with her no intercourse or companionship, save in the presence of
persons beyond suspicion. I will observe, faithfully and without turning
aside, these promises, in the sense set forth in the letters of the Pope,
and as ye understand. So help me God and these holy Gospels!' Bertrade,
at the moment of her release from excommunication, took in person the
same oath on the holy Gospels."

According to the statement of the learned Benedictines who studiously
examined into this incident, it is doubtful whether Philip I. broke off
all intercourse with Bertrade. "Two years after his absolution, on the
10th of October, 1106, he arrived at Angers, on a Wednesday," says a
contemporary chronicler, "accompanied by the queen named Bertrade, and
was there received by Count Foulques and by all the Angevines, cleric and
laic, with great honors. The day after his arrival, on Thursday, the
monks of St. Nicholas, introduced by the queen, presented themselves
before the king, and humbly prayed him, in concert with the queen, to
countenance, for the salvation of his soul and of the queen and his
relatives and friends, all acquisitions made by them in his dominions, or
that they might hereafter make, by gift or purchase, and to be pleased to
place his seal on their titles to property. And the king granted their
request."

The most complete amongst the chroniclers of the time, Orderic Vital,
says, touching this meeting at Angers of Bertrade's two husbands, "This
clever woman had, by her skilful management, so perfectly reconciled
these two rivals, that she made them a splendid feast, got them both to
sit at the same table, had their beds prepared, the ensuing night, in the
same chamber, and ministered to them according to their pleasure." The
most judicious of the historians and statesmen of the twelfth century,
the Abby Suger, that faithful minister of Louis the Fat, who cannot be
suspected of favoring Bertrade, expresses himself about her in these
terms: "This sprightly and rarely accomplished woman, well versed in the
art, familiar to her sex, of holding captive the husbands they h