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King Robert. The papal party refused to recognize the jurisdiction of
the court which had deposed Arnoul, and which still kept him imprisoned
at Orleans, and a special legate was sent to France to protest against
this action at the very time of Robert's marriage to Bertha. The legate
raised his voice in protest against the incestuous and sinful marriage.
Thinking to appease him, Robert released Arnoul and restored him to his
archbishopric; but to do this he had to depose Gerbert, and by so doing
he made an enemy of one of the most active and able men in the Church,
famous as a theologian, and afterward to become Pope Silvester II.

For a time, however, Bertha and Robert, who loved each other devotedly
and lived in a simple piety quite in contrast to the licentious habits
of the period, were left unmolested. The bribe to Rome was sufficient
for the moment to purchase for them innocent happiness. Robert was most
singularly devout, and was ranked almost as a saint by the
ecclesiastical chroniclers who preserve his story for us. Though a
handsome and well-formed man, and not altogether unfit for martial
exercises, he delighted in pastimes rather befitting a monkish scholar
than a soldier. He was gentle and kind to those about him, especially
the poor and the unfortunate, and was devoted to music. He himself
composed a number of Latin hymns for the Church, some of which are still
retained, notably the sequence to the Holy Spirit, _Adsit nobis gratia_,
and he set many others to tunes of his own composing. He was innocently
vain of his powers as a musician and singer, and on a pilgrimage to Rome
in after years, 1016, he deposited on the altar of Saint Peter his Latin
poems set to music. The very graces and virtues for which his
contemporaries praise Robert are the ones that make him manifestly out
of place as King of France in the year 1000, and the misery of his
domestic career is only more pitiful than the disorder which reigned in
his kingdom. That one of the most pious kings of France should
nevertheless have begun his career in opposition to the Church is very
remarkable.

While Bertha and Robert were enjoying their brief respite from
persecution, the papacy itself was struggling for existence.. At last
the Emperor Otho fought his way into Rome, seized the leader of the
popular party, John Crescentius, "Senator and Consul of Rome," and
pitched him over the walls of the castle of Saint Angelo. The unhappy
Pope, John XV