The anathema had proved ineffectual in the East, but Nicholas had meantime begun to employ it with happier results in Europe. In spite of the Puritanism of Louis I., the loose tradition of Charlemagne's court lingered in France and Nicholas soon found it necessary to rebuke aristocratic sinners. I have mentioned that in 860 he threatened the Countess Ingeltrude with excommunication if she did not abandon her gay vagabondage and return to her husband, the Count of Burgundy. Her son Hucbert had claimed the attention of Benedict III., who tells us that this high-born young abbot went about France with a lively troop of actresses and courtesans, corrupted the most venerable nunneries, and filled monasteries with his hawks and dogs and licentious ladies.[152] Hucbert's sister, Theutberga, was wedded to Lothair of Lorraine, brother of the Emperor Louis, who accused her of incest with Hucbert before her marriage and proposed to divorce her and marry his fascinating mistress Waldrada. Whether she was guilty or not we cannot tell, as no proper trial was ever held. She claimed the hot-water ordeal, and her champion was unscathed. Then Lothair won the support of the chief prelates of his kingdom, and they obtained or extorted from her a confession of guilt. They committed her to a nunnery and, in 862, granted Lothair a divorce. Theutberga appealed to Rome, and Nicholas ordered that a general synod should meet at Metz. In his most lordly manner the Pope directed Charles the Bald and Louis of Germany (uncles of Lothair) to send bishops to this synod, but they left the field to their nephew and, as he bribed the Pope's legates, he secured a confirmation of the divorce (June, 863). Nicholas set his lips with more than their usual sternness when the archbishops of Cologne and Trèves arrived with this decision. Summoning his own bishops to a council, he bluntly described the Metz synod as "a brothel," annulled its decision, and excommunicated the two archbishops. In language more imperious than any that had yet issued from the Lateran, he declared that this was the decision of the Vicar of Christ, and any man--he seems to refer pointedly to the royal families--who ventured to dissent from this or any other Papal pronouncement would incur the direst anathemas.