But what had become of Charlemagne's second grand design, the
resuscitation of the Roman Empire at the hands of the barbarians that
had conquered it and become Christians?

Let us leave Louis the Debonair his traditional name, although it is not
an exact rendering of that which was given him by his contemporaries.
They called him Louis the Pious. And so, indeed, he was, sincerely and
even scrupulously pious; but he was still more weak than pious, as weak
in heart and character as in mind; as destitute of ruling ideas as of
strength of will, fluctuating at the mercy of transitory impressions or
surrounding influences or positional embarrassments. The name of
_Debonnaire_ is suited to him; it expresses his moral worth and his
political incapacity both at once.

As king of Aquitaine in the time of Charlemagne, Louis made himself
esteemed and loved; his justice, his suavity, his probity, and his piety
were pleasing to the people, and his weaknesses disappeared under the
strong hand of his father. When he became emperor, he began his reign by
a reaction against the excesses, real or supposed, of the preceding
reign. Charlemagne's morals were far from regular, and he troubled
himself but little about the license prevailing in his family or his
palace. At a distance, he ruled with a tight and heavy hand. Louis
established at his court, for his sisters as well as his servants,
austere regulations. He restored to the subjugated Saxons certain of the
rights of which Charlemagne had deprived them. He sent out everywhere
his commissioners with orders to listen to complaints and redress
grievances, and to mitigate his father's rule, which was rigorous in its
application and yet insufficient to repress disturbance, notwithstanding
its preventive purpose and its watchful supervision.

Almost simultaneously with his accession, Louis committed an act more
serious and compromising. He had, by his wife Hermengarde, three sons,
Lothair, Pepin, and Louis, aged respectively nineteen, eleven, and
eight. In 817, Louis summoned at Aix-la-Chapelle the general assembly of
his dominions; and there, while declaring that "neither to those who
were wisely minded nor to himself did it appear expedient to break up,
for the love he bare his sons and by the will of man, the unity of the
empire, preserved by God himself," he had resolved to share with his
eldest son, Lothair, the imperial throne. Lothair was in fact crowned
emperor; and his two brothers