The Bald Charles II., the fourth king of the Carlovingian dynasty, born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 823, died in a village at the foot of Mont Cenis in October, 877. The son of Louis le Debonnaire by his second wife, Judith of Bavaria, his birth gave rise to serious troubles between his father and his elder brothers. War followed, in which the old Louis le Debonnaire was harshly dealt with by his sons; and his death, June 20, 840, found Charles holding nearly the whole western part of the empire. His claim being, however, disputed by his eldest brother Lothaire, who had assumed the imperial dignity, Charles, to maintain his rights, formed with his second brother Louis, king of Bavaria, an aggressive alliance against the emperor, and defeated him in a desperate battle fought June 25, 841, at Fon-tenay or Fontanet, in Burgundy. The victory, however, weakened their resources to such an extent as to prevent them from following it up. Charles and Louis renewed their alliance in a solemn meeting at Strasburg, Charles taking an oath in the German language, and Louis in the vernacular of the people of Gaul. The words of this oath, which have been preserved, are the first monument of the Romance language, from which the French has sprung.

The union of Charles and Louis brought Lothaire to terms; and the treaty of Verdun in 843 secured to the former the tenure of his kingdom, that is, the whole of Gaul W. of the Meuse, the Saone, and the Rhone, which henceforth was to be called France, and part of Spain N. of the Ebro. But the submission of all the provinces of this kingdom was far from being complete, and Charles had frequently to resort to arms against the people of Brittany and Aquitaine. Under his reign the Normans, who had previously desolated the coasts of Gaul, invaded the country by ascending the rivers, burning and plundering the villages and the cities. Paris itself had to sutler by their ravages, Charles being unable to afford protection against them. On the death of his nephew, the emperor Louis II., in 875, Charles seized upon the imperial crown; but his power seems to have been rather diminished by this assumption of a new title. A few months later he was compelled to sign a decree by which the tenure of the counties was declared hereditary, which decree was the foundation of the feudal system in France. This was the last important act of his otherwise inglorious reign.