mpiegne, and for the third
time put Louis in possession of the imperial title and power. He
displayed no violence in his use of it; but he was growing more and more
irresolute and weak, when, in 838, the second of his rebellious sons,
Pepin, king of Aquitaine, died suddenly. Louis, ever under the sway of
Judith, speedily convoked at Worms, in 839, once more and for the last
time, a general assembly, whereat, leaving his son Louis of Bavaria
reduced to his kingdom in Eastern Europe, he divided the rest of his
dominions into two nearly equal parts, separated by the course of the
Meuse and the Rhone. Between these two parts he left the choice to
Lothair, who took the eastern portion, promising at the same time to
guarantee the western portion to his younger brother Charles. Louis the
Germanic protested against this partition, and took up arms to resist
it. His father, the Emperor, set himself in motion toward the Rhine, to
reduce him to submission; but, on arriving close to Mayence, he caught a
violent fever, and died on the 20th of June, 840, at the castle
Ingelheim, on a little island in the river. His last acts were a fresh
proof of his goodness toward even his rebellious sons and of his
solicitude for his last-born. He sent to Louis the Germanic his pardon,
and to Lothair the golden crown and sword, at the same time bidding him
fulfil his father's wishes on behalf of Charles and Judith.

There is no telling whether, in the credulousness of his good nature,
Louis had, at his dying hour, any great confidence in the appeal he made
to his son Lothair, and in the impression which would be produced on his
other son, Louis of Bavaria, by the pardon bestowed. The prayers of the
dying are of little avail against violent passions and barbaric manners.
Scarcely was Louis the Debonair dead, when Lothair was already
conspiring against young Charles, and was in secret alliance, for his
despoilment, with Pepin II, the late King of Aquitaine's son, who had
taken up arms for the purpose of seizing his father's kingdom, in the
possession of which his grandfather Louis had not been pleased to
confirm him. Charles suddenly learned that his mother Judith was on the
point of being besieged in Poitiers by the Aquitanians; and, in spite of
the friendly protestations sent to him by Lothair, it was not long
before he discovered the plot formed against him. He was not wanting in
shrewdness or energy; and, having first provided for his mother's
s