then to the other[1], mediated between them and compelled both parties to realise the weight of his power, the wide scope of his authority, the value of his mediation. In the summer of 940 he entered France to punish Louis for his interference in Lorraine and drove him into Burgundy: but the expedition had daunted neither the spirit nor the enterprise of Louis, who, as soon as Otto was back in Germany, again set out for Lorraine. Otto once more turned westward, but as it was late in the year the kings effected a truce and parted without fighting. For two years Louis was pursued by his relentless adversaries; at last, however, in 942, possibly as a result of the visit of the legate of Pope Stephen VIII who commanded the princes to recognise Louis as their king on pain of excommunication, a solemn assembly took place and a general peace was concluded at a place uncertain but conjectured to be Vise[2] on the Meuse, a few miles north of Liège. A similar obscurity exists with regard to the terms, but it is clear that Louis on his side engaged to desist from interfering in the affairs of Lorraine, while Otto for his part agreed to refrain from assisting the French lords against their king.
This settlement was but transitory, and two years later Otto was again drawn into the affairs of the Western Kingdom. But the position was altered: two of Louis' dangerous opponents, William of Normandy and Herbert of Vermandois, were now dead; for a moment the king and the Count of Paris were on terms of friendship. Then a trivial difference and an accident brought about another change, and Louis was a prisoner in the hands of his powerful feudatory. This was in 944. Hugh, with his valuable prisoner in safe keeping at Laon, sought an interview with Otto. The latter, however, perhaps anxious to abide by the compact of 942, perhaps from a genuine feeling of pity for the luckless king, declined to accept Hugh's overtures and espoused the royal cause. The menace of Otto's displeasure saved Louis: after nearly a year's confinement, he was liberated, but only at the heavy price of losing his one sure stronghold, the fortress of Laon. Louis was free, but without shelter, almost without friends. Gerberga, his queen, made a pressing appeal to her brother. Otto's French campaign in the late summer of 946 met with very limited success. Laon, Rheims, and Senlis were all in turn besieged, but Rheims alone was captured. The two kings then made a plundering raid into Normandy; they even, according to one account, laid siege to Rouen. But in this enterprise they were alike unsuccessful, and Otto made his way back to Germany.
- ↑ Both the antagonists had equal claims, on the ground of kinship, to Otto's friendship; each had married a sister of Otto, Hugh the Great married Hedwig and Louis IV Gerberga, widow of Gilbert of Lorraine.
- ↑ See Lauer, Les Annales de Flodoard, p. 85, n. 5, and Louis d'Outremer, p. 83, n. 3. Vouziers on the Aisne has also been conjectured. Cf. Giesebrecht, Kaiserzeit, p. 274.
