the weather, which was sufficiently remarkable to supply the theme of a poem of a hundred stanzas from the pen of Wipo, the Emperor decided to make a winter campaign into Burgundy. He marched on Basle and proceeded to Payerne, where he was formally elected and crowned by his partisans; but the indescribable sufferings of his troops from the cold prevented his further progress, and he withdrew to Zurich.
In the spring, before resuming operations in Burgundy, he entered into negotiations with the French King Henry I, which resulted in a meeting of the two at Deville on the Meuse. What actually took place there is not recorded, but it seems clear that an alliance against Odo was formed between them. Again the affairs of Poland prevented Conrad from completing his task, and on his return thence he found that his adversary had penetrated the German frontier and plundered the districts of Lorraine in the neighbourhood of Toul. Conrad retaliated with a raid into Count Odo's territory and brought him to submission; the latter renounced his claims, agreed to evacuate the occupied districts, and to make reparation for the damage caused by his incursion into Lorraine. The matter was not however so easily settled; not only did Odo not evacuate the occupied parts of Burgundy nor make satisfaction for the harm he had perpetrated in Lorraine, but he even had the audacity to repeat his performance in that country. Conrad determined on a decisive effort; Burgundy was attacked on two sides. His Italian allies, Marquess Boniface of Tuscany and Archbishop Aribert of Milan, under the guidance of Count Humbert of Maurienne, led their troops across the Great St Bernard, and following the Rhone Valley, made their junction with the Emperor, operating from the north, at Geneva. Little resistance was encountered by either army. At Geneva Conrad was again solemnly recognised as king and received the submission of the greater number of Odo's adherents. The town of Morat alone held out defiantly; attacked by the German and Italian forces in conjunction, it was taken by assault and demolished. With it were destroyed the last hopes of Conrad's adversaries; they submitted, and Burgundy, furnishing the Emperor with his fourth crown, became an undisputed and integral part of the imperial dominions. If Burgundy was never a source of much strength or financial profit to the Empire, its inclusion was by no means without its value. Its geographical position as a barrier between France and Italy, and as commanding the western passes of the Alps, made it an acquisition of the first importance. In the last year of his reign Conrad visited his new kingdom. A solemn and well-attended gathering of ecclesiastical and secular nobles assembled at Soleure, and for three days deliberated over the means of establishing peace and organised government in a land, which for many a year had known nothing but lawlessness and anarchy,
