Policy so hostile to them on the part of the prelate of Rheims excited the inveterate enmity of the Carlovingian princes; and, at length, Louis marched to reduce Rheims with an army that Adalbero could not for the moment resist, for he gave hostages to answer for his conduct before an assembly that was to be convened. The prelate did this, apparently, in connivance with Hugh Capet, between whom and Adalbero there was in all probability an early agreement to aim at the setting aside of the Carlovingians, and the division between the German emperor and Hugh Capet of the countries between France and Lorraine. The great obstacle to the completion of such a scheme, young king Louis, was at this very time carried off.[g] As the result of a fall from a horse “he was seized with a great pain in his liver and a burning fever; much blood flowed from his nose and throat”; he died May 21st, 987. Such is the simple account of the contemporary, Richer.[k] But if Adhémar de Chabannes[l] and other more recent chroniclers are to be believed Louis died “the same death as his father, of a poisoned draught given by his wife.” This more dramatic tradition has prevailed with the greatest number. The multitude were not willing to believe that so famous a dynasty could have come to an end by a burning fever or a commonplace accident. Both father and son died most opportunely for Hugh Capet, and what we know of the moral tone of that century allows us to suspect anything: but the testimony of Richer lends all the more weight to Hugh’s justification, since the monk of Rheims is a partisan of the ancient dynasty and not of the Capets.[h]