found them garrisoned in the castle of Chèvremont near Liège; he laid siege to the fortress, but was compelled to relinquish it, for Louis was making headway in the neighbourhood of Verdun, where several bishops (perhaps those of Metz, Verdun, and Toul) had submitted themselves to his authority. Otto set out against him, and drove him back to his capital at Laon.
At this point in the campaign the scheming Duke of Franconia openly joined in the revolt. Otto besieged him in the strong fortress of Breisach on the Rhine. An attempt was made to come to terms: Frederick, Archbishop of Mayence, was employed to negotiate with Everard, but he went beyond his powers, conceding more than the king was prepared to yield and Otto refused to ratify the treaty. The effect was to throw the Archbishop into the ranks of the insurgents. He fled privily by night to Metz where he expected to fall in with Henry and Gilbert; but the latter had already started to join forces with Everard; whether Henry accompanied the dukes on the fatal expedition to the Rhine is uncertain; more probably, making Metz his headquarters, he remained behind to organise resistance in Lorraine. Everard and Gilbert made a plundering raid and returned westward, intending to recross the Rhine at Andernach. Part of their army had already crossed the river and the dukes were quietly eating their dinner before crossing themselves, when a body of Franconian troops led by Udo and Conrad Kurzpold, Franconian counts, whose lands had especially suffered from the raid, came up with them. Both the dukes fell in the fight that ensued. Everard was slain by the sword, Gilbert was drowned: according to one account he got into a boat already overloaded with fugitives and the boat capsized; according to another he leapt with his horse into the river and so met his end. By a mere stroke of luck the two leaders of the rebellion were disposed of in a skirmish hardly worthy of the name of battle at a moment when Otto's cause seemed desperate, and when, says Widukind, "there seemed no hope of his retaining rule over the Saxons, so widespread was the rebellion."
The effect was instantaneous. Breisach capitulated: Lorraine was restored to order. Of the remaining leaders, Frederick, after being refused admittance into his own town of Mayence, was captured and punished by a short term of imprisonment; Henry, on hearing the news which deprived him of all hopes of the crown, fled to his old stronghold of Chèvremont but found the gates closed against him; he made his way to France, but finding his cause to be hopelessly lost, yielded himself up to his brother's mercy. Otto with his habitual generosity and magnanimity forgave him everything and took him again into his favour. The royal authority was now firmly established. Henry made one more attempt to overthrow his brother, but it was too late and the conspiracy of 941 collapsed without recourse to arms. The intention had been to assassinate the king at the Easter festival at Quedlinburg: it
