Louis the Stammerer and of his second wife Adelaide. On the
deposition of Charles the Fat in 887 he was excluded from the throne by
his youth; but during the reign of Odo, who had succeeded Charles, he
succeeded in gaining the recognition of a certain number of notables and
in securing his coronation at Reims on the 28th of January 893. He now
obtained the alliance of the emperor, and forced Odo to cede part of
Neustria. In 898, by the death of his rival (Jan. 1), he obtained
possession of the whole kingdom. His most important act was the treaty
of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte with the Normans in 911. Some of them were
baptized; the territory which was afterwards known as the duchy of
Normandy was ceded to them; but the story of the marriage of their chief
Rollo with a sister of the king, related by the chronicler Dudo of Saint
Quentin, is very doubtful. The same year Charles, on the invitation of
the barons, took possession of the kingdom of Lotharingia. In 920 the
barons, jealous of the growth of the royal authority and discontented
with the favour shown by the king to his counsellor Hagano, rebelled,
and in 922 elected Robert, brother of King Odo, in place of Charles.
Robert was killed in the battle of Soissons, but the victory remained
with his party, who elected Rudolph, duke of Burgundy, king. In his
extremity Charles trusted himself to Herbert, count of Vermandois, who
deceived him, and threw him into confinement at Chateau-Thierry and
afterwards at Peronne. In the latter town he died on the 7th of October
929. In 907 he had married Frederona, sister of Bovo, bishop of Chalons.
After her death he married Eadgyfu (Odgiva), daughter of Edward the
Elder, king of the English, who was the mother of Louis IV.

See A. Eckel, _Charles le Simple_ (Paris, 1899).

CHARLES IV. (1294-1328), king of France, called THE FAIR, was the third
and youngest son of Philip IV. and Jeanne of Navarre. In 1316 he was
created count of La Marche, and succeeded his brother Philip V. as king
of France and Navarre early in 1322. He followed the policy of his
predecessors in enforcing the royal authority over the nobles, but the
machinery of a centralized government strong enough to hold nobility in
check increased the royal expenditure, to meet which Charles had
recourse to doubtful financial expedients. At the beginning of his reign
he ordered a recast of the coinage, with serious results to commerce;
civil officials were deprived of offices