and the Dukes of Franconia and Lotharingia perished in the pursuit. Henry fled to Louis, king of the West Franks, whose only concern, however, was to win back Lotharingia from the eastern kingdom. At last Henry returned and made his submission to his brother; but before long he joined with the Archbishop of Mainz in a plot to murder the king. This nefarious design was equally unsuccessful, and Henry, under the influence of his pious mother, sought for the forgiveness of his injured brother. At the Christmas feast of 941 a reconciliation was effected. The troubles for the season were over. [Sidenote: The reorganisation of the duchies.] Otto now sought to establish his power over the nations by setting up members of his own family in the vacant duchies. Franconia he kept henceforth in his own hands, wearing the Frankish dress and ostentatiously following the Frankish fashions. Over Lotharingia he finally set a great Frankish noble, Conrad the Red, whom he married to his own daughter, Liutgarde. The reconciled Henry was made Duke of Bavaria, and married to Judith, the daughter of the old Duke Arnulf. Swabia was intrusted to Otto’s eldest son, Ludolf, who in the same way was secured a local position by a match with the daughter of the last duke. But the new dukes had not the power of their predecessors. Otto carefully retained the highest prerogatives in his own hands, and, by the systematic appointment of Counts Palatine to watch over the interests of the crown, revived under another name that central control of the local administration which had, at an earlier period, been secured by the Carolingian _missi dominici_. [Sidenote: Its failure. The Second Civil War, 953.]