proof against sorrow; and he testified a desire to abdicate and turn
monk. But he was dissuaded from his purpose; for it was easy to
influence his resolutions. A little later, he was advised to marry
again, and he yielded. Several princesses were introduced; and he chose
Judith of Bavaria, daughter of Count Welf (Guelf), a family already
powerful and in later times celebrated. Judith was young, beautiful,
witty, ambitious, and skilled in the art of making the gift of pleasing
subserve the passion for ruling. Louis, during his expedition into
Brittany, had just witnessed the fatal result of a woman's empire over
her husband; he was destined himself to offer a more striking and more
long-lived example of it. In 823, he had, by his new empress Judith, a
son, whom he called Charles, and who was hereafter to be known as
Charles the Bald. This son became his mother's ruling, if not exclusive,
passion, and the source of his father's woes. His birth could not fail
to cause ill-temper and mistrust in Louis' three sons by Hermengarde,
who were already kings. They had but a short time previously received
the first proof of their father's weakness. In 822, Louis, repenting of
his severity toward his nephew, Bernard of Italy, whose eyes he had
caused to be put out as a punishment for rebellion, and who had died in
consequence, considered himself bound to perform at Attigny, in the
church and before the people, a solemn act of penance; which was
creditable to his honesty and piety, but the details left upon the minds
of the beholders an impression unfavorable to the Emperor's dignity and
authority. In 829, during an assembly held at Worms, he, yielding to his
wife's entreaties, and doubtless also to his own yearnings toward his
youngest son, set at naught the solemn act whereby, in 817, he had
shared his dominions among his three elder sons; and took away from two
of them, in Burgundy and Alemannia, some of the territories he had
assigned to them, and gave them to the boy Charles for his share.
Lothair, Pépin, and Louis thereupon revolted. Court rivalries were added