But Lewis, unhappily for himself and for the empire, had already three half-grown sons when he succeeded to the empire, and was destined to see a fourth reach manhood ere he died. The custom of partition was now destined to have a fair trial and develop to its utmost extent. Lewis was at Doué, in his kingdom of Aquitaine, when he received the news of the death of his aged father. Making such speed as he could, he arrived at Aachen after a journey of thirty days, and took possession of the reins of power. Without sending for the Pope to assist at his coronation, he celebrated his accession by taking the imperial crown off the altar in the cathedral of his capital city, and placing it on his own head, while the assembled counts and bishops shouted _Vivat Imperator Ludovicus!_ The magnates also saluted him by the title of ‘the Pious,’ an appellation which he placed upon his coins, on whose other side appeared the legend, ‘_Renovatio Regni Francorum_.’ The ‘renewing’ of the kingdom found its first expression in the expulsion from office of the ministers who had administered affairs during the declining years of Charles the Great. Lewis came to Aachen with his own trusted servants at his back, and was determined not to put himself in the hands of his father’s favourites. There had been much in his father’s life and court which his own scrupulous conscience could not approve. As a man who led a singularly virtuous life himself, he could not abide the bishops and abbots who had connived at his father’s immoralities. [Sidenote: Accession of Lewis the Pious.] The Frankish court, though teeming with ecclesiastics, had not been a model of soberness or chastity, and the old emperor himself had not set the best of examples. Lewis was determined that this should cease. The moment that he was firmly seated on the throne the new monarch dismissed from his court his sisters, whose life had been nothing less than scandalous during his father’s later years. Their paramours were banished or imprisoned—one was even deprived of his eyes. His next step was to send away the three chief ministers of Charles the Great. The Chancellor Helisachar, Abbot of St. Maximin, was relegated to his monastery. The two brothers, count Wala and abbot Adalhard,[53] had harder measure dealt out to them. The emperor sent Adalhard to dwell in the lonely monastery of Hermoutier, on an island by the Loire-mouth. Count Wala was stripped of sword and armour, shorn, and immured as a monk in the cloister of Corbey. Footnote 53: They were Carlovingians of illegitimate descent, sons of Bernard, a bastard of Charles Martel.