It was then enjoined by Nicholas, that Lothaire should give up the idea of a second marriage under pain of excommunication. A legate named Arsena came to compel the King of Lorraine to take back his first wife;⁸⁷ and to detach him more certainly from Valdrade, this courtezan, so she was styled by the Holy See, was borne off by the legate, who would have taken her to Rome if she had not made her escape by the way. ⁸⁵ Fleury. Eccles. Hist 1. 60. n. 33. ⁸⁶ De Dirortio Lotharii, vol. 1. Operum Hincmari. ⁸⁷ Annal. Meteits. ad ann. 866. Annal. Fold. ad. ann. 365, 886.—Concil. Gall. toi. iii. p. 879. The holy father who wished to convert, could therefore do no more than excommunicate her. But he received from Lothaire an humble epistle, in which this prince having declared that he had not seen Valdrade since she left Arsena, conjures the court of Rome not to give the kingdom of Lorraine to one of his rivals: a supplication that may seem to us in the present day as the excess, if not delirium, of weakness, but which was dictated to this king by the apprehension of being stripped of his states to enrich Charles the Bald, who in fact did hope to obtain them from the Holy See. Divers letters, written by Nicholas on this subject, contain a precious developement of his ideas of the royal powers, and of his own authority,: “You say,” he writes to the bishop of Metz, Adventius, “that “the apostle commands obedience to kings: but ex− “amine first whether those kings really be such, that “is, whether they act justly, conduct themselves “well, and govern their subjects properly; for other− “wise it is necessary to account them tyrants, and “as such to resist them. Be subject to them on “God’s account, as says the apostle, but not against “God.” Fleury⁸⁸ here observes, “that the pope makes the bishops judges, whether kings be so legitimately, or tyrants, while the Christian morality requires their obedience of the worst of masters: in fact, to what prince did the apostle exact fidelity from them? It was to Nero.” ⁸⁸ Hist. Eccles. 1.50. a. 35. Nicholas wrote to the bishops,⁸⁹ to know if Lothaire fulfilled his promises, and if they were satisfied with his behaviour to his first wife. He wrote to the King of Germany with new complaints of Lothaire⁹⁰ “We learn,” said he, “that he proposes “coming to Rome without our permission: prevent “his disobedience of us; and furthermore take care “to preserve to us, by secure methods, the revenues “of St. Peter, which we have not, for the two past “years, received from your states.”