Louis I (German Ludwiij, Latin Ludovictis), called " Le Debonnaire," and also '' t/ie Pious,^' youngest son of Charlemagne, was born at Casseneuil A.D. 778. The great empire of the West had just been recreated by the heroic efforts of Charles, therefore honored with the title of "the Great;" but it was not absolutely the love of war and conquest, and the honor of his name, that had actuated Charles; he rather sought to accom- plish what the great Ostrogoth Theodoric (q. v.) had contemplated, but failed to eiTect, viz., the union of the Christian Germanic nations into one empire. Charle- magne, it must be remembered, was eminently "a cham- pion of the Church," and, believing that the conversion of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes could be ac- complished only by their subjection, he came to dream of a union of them all under one imperial head, and gratefully he accepted the result in his own coronation as "Charles Augustus" by pope Leo HI, A.D. 800. See Charlk.magnk. But Charlemagne still believed in the independence of the imperial crown from the papal chair, and manifestly evinced this by one of his latest acts. As early as 806 he had made provision for his successors by apportioning to his three sons different parts of his possessions. To Pepin he gave Italy, to Louis, Aquitaine, and to Charles tlic remainder, consist- ing chietly of German countries ; but when, by the de- cease of two of these, he saw that upon Louis only would centre all the responsibility of an imjjerial crown, he called him to his side in 813, when feeling his own end approaching, and at Aix-la-Chapelle, on a Sunday, when in the cathedral together, caused Louis to place the golden crown upon his head, and. thus crowned, present- ed his son as the future king of all the Franks, with- out tirst awaiting the anointment of the pope. Not go independent was our Louis, who, in the year follow-
ing the event jnst recorded, by the death of Charle- magne, became sole emperor of the West and king of France. Thus far the race of the Carlovingians had produced consecutively four great men — a rare occur- rence in histor)'. With Louis I opened a new ara; for, though his personal appearance was by no means insig- nificant, being of a prepossessing countenance and of a strong frame, and so well practiced in archerj^ and the wielding of the lance that none about liim equalled him, " he was weak in mind and will, and his surname ' the Pious' implies not only that he was religious, but prin- cipally that he was so easy tempered that it required much to displease him." Or, as Milman puts it: "In his gentler and less resolute character religion wrought with an abasing and enfeebling rather than ennobling influence" {Latin Christianity, ii, 514). A ruler of this description was not likely to hold in union the vast em- pire of Charlemagne. His first troubles arose with Ber- nard, son of Pepin, whom Charlemagne, on the decease of his eldest son, had made king of the Italian posses- sions. Bernard's ambition soared higher. He was not content with Italy; lie desired the mastery over the whole of the^mperial lands, and ungratefully conspired against his uncle. He was unsuccessful, liowever; was seized by the imperial troops, and condemned to death. Louis was determined to mitigate the lot of Bernard, but state interests compelled him to inflict the severe punishment of depriving his nephew of eyesight, which was the caus&shortly after, no doubt, of his death. This conspiracy, as well as sundry other occurrences, made Louis feel the necessity of provisions for the succession, and, finally deciding in favor of the principle of primo- geniture, his son Lothaire was appointed successor. Be- sides Lothaire, Louis had two sons, Pepin and Louis. To the former of these two he gave Aquitania; to the lat- ter Bavaria, Bohemia, and Carinthia. L'nfortunately, however, for the peace of the family, Louis lost his faith- ful companion, the mother of these children, shortly after this partition of his possessions, and, marrying a second wife, became the father of a fourth son, Charles, whose mother, Judith, cor.spired in his behalf for a por- tion of the imperial crown. This resulted in 830 in a revolt of Lothaire against his father, on the plea of the bad conduct of the step-mother. At a diet, how- ever, which was held at Aix-la-Chapelle, the father and son were reconciled. Kot so happily ended a second revolt in 833, when Louis, forsaken by liis followers, was obliged to give himself up to his son Lothaire, who took him as prisoner to Soissons, sent the empress Judith to Tortona, and confined her infant son Charles, afterwards Charles the Bald, the olyect of the jealousy of his half- brothers, in a monastery. A meeting of bishops was held at Compiegne, at which the archbishop of Bheims presided, and the unfortunate Louis, being arraigned be- fore it, was found guilty of the murder of his nephew Bernard, and of sundry other offences. He was deposed, condemned to do public ]ienance in sackcloth, and was kept in confinement. This misusage of the emperor enraged the youngest son, Louis of Bavaria (840-876), " an energetic prince, of lofty stature and noble figure, with a fiery eye and a penetrating mind," and. after se- curing the assistance of his other brother, Pepin, in the following j'ear, he obliged Lothaire to deliver uji their father, who, after having been formally absolved by the bishops, was reinstated on the imperial throne. Not made wiser by past experience, Louis, listening to the selfish coinisel of his wife, Judith, now assigned to his fourth son, Charles, tlic kingdom of Xeustria, or Eastern France, including Paris, and, after Pepin's death, Aqui- tania also. Lothaire possessed all Italy, with Provence, . Lyons, Suabia, Austrasia, and Saxony. But Louis of Bavaria, who had done most for his father, was favored least, and therefore set up his claim for all Germany as far as the lihine, and, being refused, determined to make war agaiijst liis father, and invaded Suabia. The emperor Louis marched against him, and al«o assembled a diet at Worms to judge his rebellious son. Mean-