the Simple. The latter, only eight years old in 887, was now thirteen. There were still nearly two years to wait for his majority which, in the Carolingian family, was fixed at fifteen, but the Archbishop of Rheims boldly pointed out "that at least he had reached an age when he could adopt the opinions of those who gave him good counsels." A plot was set on foot, and on 28 January 893, while Odo was on an expedition to Aquitaine, Charles was crowned in the basilica of Saint Remi at Rheims.
Without loss of time, Fulk wrote to the Pope and to Arnulf to put them in possession of the circumstances and to justify the course he had taken. Arnulf was not hard to convince, when once his own pre-eminence was recognised by the new king. But he avoided compromising himself by embracing too zealously the cause of either of the candidates, and thought it better policy to pose as the sovereign arbiter of their disputes. Before long, moreover, Charles, having reached the end of his resources and being gradually forsaken by the majority of his partisans, was reduced to negotiate, first on an equal footing, then as a repentant rebel. At the beginning of 897, Odo agreed to pardon him, and Charles having presented himself to acknowledge him as king and lord, "he gave him a part of the kingdom, and promised him even more." These few enigmatic words convey all the information we have as to the position created for Charles. What followed shewed at least the meaning of his rival's promise. Odo having soon afterwards fallen sick at La Fère, on the Oise, and feeling his end near, begged the lords who were about him to recognise Charles as their king.
After his death, which took place on 1 January 898, the son of Louis the Stammerer was in fact acclaimed on all hands; even Odo's own brother, Robert, who had succeeded as Count of Paris, Anjou, Blois, and Touraine, and ruled the whole of the March of Neustria, declared for him.
It thus appeared that after what was practically an interregnum peace might return to the French kingdom. But Charles was devoid of the skill to conciliate his new subjects. His conduct, despite his surname, the Simple, does not seem to have lacked energy or determination; his faults were rather, it would seem, those of imprudence and presumption.
The great event of his reign was the definitive establishment of the Northmen in France, or rather, the placing of their settlement along the lower Seine on a regular footing. One of their chiefs, the famous Rollo, having been repulsed before Paris and again before Chartres, Charles profited by the opportunity to enter into negotiations with him. An interview took place in 911 at St-Clair-sur-Epte, on the highroad from Paris to Rouen. Rollo made his submission, consented to accept Christianity, and received as a fief the counties of Rouen, Lisieux and Evreux with the country lying between the rivers Epte and Bresle and
