The same Subject continued.
BUT what chiefly contributed to weaken the monarchy, was the extravagance of this prince in alienating the crown demesnes. And here it is that we ought to listen to the account of Nitard, one of our most judicious historions, a grandson of Charlemaign, strongly attached to Lewis the Debonnaire, and who wrote his history by order of Charles the Bald.
He says, “that one Adelhard for some time gained such an ascendant over the emperor, that this prince conformed to his will in every thing; that at the instigation of this favourite, he had granted the the crown lands to every body that asked them, by which means the state was ruined.” Thus he did the same mischief throughout the empire, as I observed he had done in Aquitaine; the former, Charlemaign redressed, but the latter, was past all remedy.
The state was reduced to the same debility in which Charles Martel found it upon his accession to the mayoralty; and so desperate were its circumstances, that no exertion of authority was any longer capable of saving it.
The treasury was so exhausted, that in the reign of Charles the Bald, no one could continue in his employments, nor be safe in his person, without paying for it, When they had it in their power to destroy the Normans, they took money to let them escape: and the first advice which Hincmar gives to Lewis the Stammerer, is to ask of the assembly of the nation, a sufficient allowance to defray the expences of his houshold.