Verdun, ravaging the country as he went. But those who took up his cause were few in number. Envoys from the Abbot Hugh, from Boso, and Theodoric, Count of Autun, who were at the head of affairs in the Western Kingdom, had no great difficulty in persuading the king of Germany to abandon his enterprise in return for a promise of the cession of that part of Lorraine which by the Treaty of Meersen fell to the share of Charles the Bald. In the month of September the coronation of the two sons of Louis the Stammerer by his marriage with Ansgarde, took place quietly at Ferrières. But Ansgarde had been afterwards repudiated by her husband, who had taken a second wife named Adelaide, the mother of his son Charles the Simple. The legitimacy of Louis III and Carloman was not universally admitted, discontent still existed, and before the end of 879 the Frankish kingdom was threatened by a new danger, Boso, at the instance of his wife, Ermengarde, who, by birth the daughter of an emperor, was dissatisfied with her position as the wife of a duke, took advantage of the weakness of the kings to re-establish for his own benefit the former kingdom of Charles of Provence (that is, the counties of Lyons and Vienne with Provence) and to have himself proclaimed king of it at an assembly of bishops held at Mantaille, near Vienne. A little later he was solemnly crowned by the Archbishop, Aurelian, at Lyons (autumn of 879).
In the spring of 880 Conrad and Joscelin again called in Louis of Saxony. This second attempt had no better success than the first, and Louis was obliged to return to his own dominions after having concluded with his cousins the Treaty of Ribemont, which again confirmed him in possession of the former kingdom of Lothar II. His tenure of it, however, was somewhat insecure, since the Lyons and Vienne districts were under Boso's control. The Archbishop of Besançon appears to have recognised the usurper. In the north, Hugh, an illegitimate son of Lothar II, had taken up arms and was also endeavouring to make himself independent. Confronted with these dangers, and also with incessant attacks by the Danish pirates, the Carolingian kings felt the necessity for union. By a treaty agreed to at Amiens in the beginning of 880, Louis III was to have Francia and Neustria, Carloman taking Aquitaine and Burgundy, with the task of making head against Boso. None the less, the two kings were agreed in desiring an interview at Gondreville with one of their cousins from Germany, and taking concerted measures against the rebels. It was Charles the Fat, the ruler of Alemannia, who, on his return from Italy whither he had gone to secure his proclamation as king by an assembly of magnates held at Ravenna, met Louis III and Carloman at this last fraternal colloquium in June 880. The three sovereigns began by joining forces against Hugh of Lorraine, whose brother-in-law, Count Theobald, was defeated and compelled to take refuge in Provence. The allies then directed their efforts against the latter country. The Count of
