dress to reconcile her two husbands; and in 1106 she
and Philip actually went to visit Foulques, in Angers, where all three
hobnobbed most amicably, sitting at the same table, or occupying seats
of honor in the church, with Philip seated by Bertrade's side and
Foulques on a stool at her feet. One can hardly credit a statement like
this, but there seems to have been no limit to Bertrade's effrontery,
and the complete subjection of Foulques is recorded in the Latin life of
Louis the Fat: "Although he was banished outright from her bed, she so
mollified him that... often sitting on a stool at her feet, he submitted
in all things to her will."

Foulques, though he sat at the feet of his wife and the king's paramour,
and though he ceased to make active claim to his share of Bertrade, has
recorded his and his wife's infamy for us. One of his charters, for
example, is dated thus: "This donation was made in the year one thousand
and ninety-five after the incarnation of Our Lord, Urban being Pope, and
France befouled by the adultery of the infamous King Philip." But this
was in the salad days of his wrath, before Bertrade had induced him to
sit on a stool at her feet and submit to her will in all things.

In the year 1108, Philip, feeling his sins and his diseases lie heavy
upon him, determined to take an allopathic dose of repentance to purify
himself from the first before the second carried him off. He addressed
special prayers to Saint Benedict, ordered that his wicked body should
not be buried in the royal tombs at Saint-Denis, and clothed himself in
the habit of a Benedictine monk. Thus he expired, having existed--not
reigned--as king for forty-eight years, and was succeeded immediately by
Louis the Fat, who was crowned within five days after the death of his
father.

This haste was not altogether without excuse, for Bertrade was still
alive, and not wasting her time in prayers to Saint Benedict. Taking
advantage of the disturbed state of the kingdom, she managed to form a
coalition, headed by her brother, Amauri de Montfort, and by the
successor of her Angevin husband, to dethrone Louis and put in his place
her own son, Philip, Count of Mantes. But Louis was too active to be
caught as the conspirators had planned. He summoned Philip to appear
before the court of peers of the duchy of France, and, on his refusal,
seized upon the strongholds of his enemies before they were prepared,
and deprived Philip of his county of Man