pleasure and solemnity what was, under these circumstances, the cause of
God; and having been unable, either by word of mouth or by letters sealed
with the seal of the king's majesty, to bring back the tyrant to his
duty, he assembled his troops, and led into revolted Auvergne a numerous
army of Frenchmen. He had now become exceeding fat, and could scarce
support the heavy mass of his body. Any one else, however humble, would
have had neither the will nor the power to ride a-horseback; but he,
against the advice of all his friends, listened only to the voice of
courage, braved the fiery suns of June and August, which were the dread
of the youngest knights, and made a scoff of those who could not bear the
heat, although many a time, during the passage of narrow and difficult
swampy places, he was constrained to get himself held on by those about
him." After an obstinate struggle, and at the intervention of William
VII., Duke of Aquitaine, the Count of Auvergne's suzerain, "Louis fixed a
special day for regulating and deciding, in parliament, at Orleans, and
in the duke's presence, between the bishop and the count, the points to
which the Auvergnats had hitherto refused to subscribe. Then
triumphantly leading back his army, he returned victoriously to France."
He had asserted his power, and increased his ascendency, without any
pretension to territorial aggrandizement.

[Illustration: Louis the Fat on an Expedition----69]

Into his relations with his two powerful neighbors, the King of England,
Duke of Normandy, and the Emperor of Germany, Louis the Fat introduced
the same watchfulness, the same firmness, and, at need, the same warlike
energy, whilst observing the same moderation, and the same policy of
holding aloof from all turbulent or indiscreet ambition, adjusting his
pretensions to his power, and being more concerned to govern his kingdom
efficiently than to add to it by conquest. Twice, in 1109 and in 1118,