The Empire of Charlemagne could not last. Two obvious causes, among others, were enough to prevent it. No single government (save when temporarily energized by some extraordinary ruler) could control such enormous and widely separated regions, which included much of the present Germany and Austria, the greater part of Italy, France, and the Low Countries. Large portions of this Empire were almost trackless, and nowhere were there good roads and means of transportation. Then, as the second cause, within these diverse and ununited lands dwelt or moved many peoples differing from each other in blood and language, in conditions of life and degrees of civilization or barbarism. No power existed that could either hold them in subjection or make them into proper constituents of an Empire.[287] There were other, more particular, causes of dissolution: the Frankish custom of partitioning the realm brought war between Louis the Pious and his sons, and then among the latter; no scion of the Carolingian house was equal to the situation; under the ensuing turbulence, the royal power weakened, and local protection, or oppression, took its place; constant war exhausted the strength of the Empire, and particularly of Austrasia, while from without Norsemen, Slavs, and Saracens were attacking, invading, plundering everywhere. These marauders still were heathen, or obstinate followers of the Prophet; while Christianity was the bond of unity and empire. Charlemagne and his strong predecessors had been able thus to view and use the Church; but the weaker successors, beginning with Louis the Pious, too eager for the Church’s aid and condonation, found their subservience as a reed that broke and pierced the hand. These causes quickly brought about the Empire’s actual dissolution. On the other hand, a potent conception had been revived in western Europe. Louis the Pious, himself made emperor in Charlemagne’s lifetime, associated his eldest son with him as co-emperor, and made his two younger sons kings, hoping thus to preserve the Empire’s unity. If that unity forthwith became a name, it was a name to conjure with; and the corresponding imperial fact was to be again made actual by the first Saxon Otto, a man worthy to reach back across the years and clasp the hand of the great Charles. That intervening century and a half preceding the year 962 when Otto was crowned emperor, carried political and social changes. To the West, in the old Neustrian kingdom which was to form the nucleus of mediaeval France, the Carolingian line ran out in degenerates surnamed the Pious, the Bald, the Stammerer, the Simple, and the Fat. The Counts of Paris, Odo, Robert, Hugh the Great, and, finally, Hugh Capet, playing something like the old rôle of the palace mayors, were becoming the actual rulers, although not till 987 was the last-named Hugh formally elected and anointed king.