Apparently it was also a zeal for reform which inspired Louis at the first general placitum held at Aix in August 814 to decide on sending out to all parts of the kingdom missi charged with the duty of making inquiry into “the slightest actions of the counts and judges and even of the missi previously despatched from the palace, in order to reform what they found to have been unjustly done, and bring it into conformity with justice, to restore their patrimony to the oppressed, and freedom to those who had been unjustly reduced to servitude.” It was a like anxiety which impelled him next year for the protection of the native inhabitants of the Spanish March, molested as they were by the Frankish Counts, to take those measures which are to be found among the provisions of certain of his capitularies.
At this placitum of Aix appeared the young king of Italy, Bernard, who came to make oath of fealty to his uncle. The Emperor received him kindly, bestowed rich gifts on him, and sent him back to Italy, having confirmed him in his title of king while reserving to himself the imperial sovereignty, as is shewn by the fact that even in Italy all legislative acts emanate exclusively from the Emperor. He it is also who, during Bernard’s life, grants the confirmation of the privileges of the great Italian abbeys. At the same time Louis assigned as kingdoms to his two elder sons with much the same terms of dependence on himself two portions of the Frankish Empire which still retained a certain degree of autonomy, Bavaria to Lothar and Aquitaine to Pepin. Both were, however, too young to exercise real power. Louis therefore placed about each of them Frankish officials entrusted with the duty of governing the country in their names. As to the Emperor’s latest-born son, Louis, he was too young to be put in even nominal charge of a kingdom so that he remained under his father’s care.
In spite, however, of the “cleansing” of the imperial palace, Louis retained around him a certain number of his father’s old servants and advisers, such as Adalard the Count Palatine, and Hildebold, Archbishop of Cologne. Some also who had been among his most faithful counsellors in Aquitaine followed him to Francia. Bego, the husband of his daughter Alpaïs, one of the companions of his youth, seems to have become Count of Paris. Louis also retained as Chancellor Elisachar, the chief of his Aquitanian clerks, a learned man and a patron of letters, to whom perhaps may be owing the remarkable improvement traceable at this time in the drawing up of the imperial diplomas. But the man who seems to have played the chief part during the early years of the reign was the Goth Witiza, St Benedict of Aniane, the reformer of the Aquitanian monasteries. The Emperor had lost no time in summoning him to his side at Aix, and a large number of the diplomas issued at this time from the imperial chancery were granted at his request. Benedict had at first been installed as Abbot at Maursmünster in Alsace, but the Emperor, evidently feeling that he was still too far away, had
