lo HISTORY OF FRANCE. [chap. made common cause with him. The borderland of Loth- arinp^ia had fluctuated backwards and forwards between the Eastern and Western kingdoms. Its people seem also to have preferred a German to a French king ; but a Karl- ing above all. So now they revolted against the Emperor Otto II., and called in Lothar, because of his Karling birth. AH the Rhine country up to Aachen was ravaged, and this was returned by a German raid up to the gates of Paris. The French proposed that there should be a single combat between Otto and Lothar to settle the dispute, but the Germans answered, We always heard that the French held their kings cheap, now we hear it from their own mouths." However, peace was made, and though Otto kept Upper Lorraine, he gave to Charles, the brother of Lothar, the duchy of Loiuer Lorraitie or Brabant. Lothar reigned thirteen years longer, and died in 986 ; his son Lewis V. only survived him a year, and in 987, by general consent, Hugh Capet was crowned king at Rheims, by Adalbcro, Archbishop of Rheims. From having been Duke of the Franks or of Western Francia, he thus became King of the Franks, Rex Fran- coJ'UJJi, and his duchy of France was added to the royal domain of the Kings of Laon. He was the third king of his line ; but now the crown stayed in his house for eight hundred years without change. From this time the name of the duchy of France spread itself, by the successive annexations of the Parisian kings, over all that part of Gaul which admitted their supremacy, and the name of Karolingia was forgotten. Rheims was always the coro- ' nation city, for the House of Paris claimed to be sue-* cessors of Clovis, as they termed Chlodwig, and numbered their Charleses and Lewises from the Karlings. In truth however they represented the newly-formed French nation ; their speech was Romance, and Paris the capital of the duchy became the capital of the kingdom. From this time the title of Rex Franconim, as borne by the Western kings, is best translated' by King of the French.
