With the swiftness of a late season storm upon a calm sea, careful contrivances and plots went awry.  Eberhard had indeed thrown his lot in with the alliance of Lothair the Younger and the Cardinal Benedict, who, upon accepting the Papal Mitre, promptly condemned the pretender Popess with great zeal and accusatory embellishment of the most sordid and base.  Charles the Bald would wait several more years before realizing his appointment as the Holy Roman Emperor, a title which would also adorn young Berengar in time, although with each succession the post would further wane from the reverence of Charlemagne.

  The gold Æthelwulf bestowed upon Rome had absolved him of his adulterous ways in the eyes of God, but had given him a grant to continue in his own eyes, a view which seemed clea...

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