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Updated: May 3, 2025
"There," said Ottmar, "you were going in exact opposition to Lothair's principle that true genius never goes under."
It was impossible, even for the master of this collection, to suppress the delight and the surprise with which he beheld the scene. We must remember, in his excuse, that he beheld it for the first time. The armory led to a large and lofty octagonal chamber, highly decorated, in the centre of which was the tomb of Lothair's grandfather. He had raised it in his lifetime.
Innocent invested him by a ring with the allodial or freehold lands of the Countess in return for an annual tribute and on the understanding that at Lothair's death they should revert to the Papacy. Lothair took no oath of fealty for them, but such oath was exacted from his son-in-law, Henry the Proud of Bavaria, to whom the inheritance was made over on the same conditions.
Whilst Lothair had been reading, Ottmar had laughed a great deal, but towards the close he had become grave and silent. "I must admit," he said, "that in this little tale or 'prank' for I don't know what else to call it of Lothair's there predominates an attempt, often more or less successful, at a certain sort of amusing naïveté, very appropriate to the character of the German Devil.
Deeper and richer, and richer and deeper, it seemed to become, as it wound with exquisite facility through a symphony of delicious sound, until it ended in a passionate burst, which made Lothair's heart beat so tumultuously that for a moment he thought he should be overpowered. "I never heard any thing so fine in my life," said Lothair to the French philosopher.
The guests of the evening saloon, when they witnessed the high ceremony of Lothair's manner, which was natural to him, when he entered, and the welcome of Theodora, could hardly believe that a few hours only had elapsed since their separation. And what was the manner of Theodora to him when they were alone? Precisely as before.
Aldegonde acknowledged the genius of the occasion. He was grave, graceful, and dignified, and, addressing Lothair by his title, he said, "that he hoped he would meet in life that happiness which he felt confident he deserved." Theodora said nothing, though her lips seemed once to move; but she retained for a moment Lothair's hand, and the expression of her countenance touched his innermost heart.
He was so absorbed by his new feelings that he shrunk from society with a certain degree of aversion. He felt it quite out of his power to fulfil his engagement. He sent an excuse. It was Lothair's first excuse. In short, he "threw over" the Montairys, to whom he was so much attached, whom he so much admired, and whose society he had hitherto so highly prized.
Henry V had never recognised the donation of the Countess to the Papacy, and consequently, as a lapsed fief and part of the late Emperor's possessions, the lands could be claimed by his Hohenstaufen heirs. This perhaps accounts for Lothair's readiness to accept the conditions imposed by the Pope.
Lothair's election, then, was a triumph for the Papacy, and the Church party could not let pass so good an opportunity of revising the relations of State and Church in Germany. They had maintained from the first that the Concordat of Worms was a personal arrangement between Calixtus II and Henry V. But the exact nature of Lothair's promise on election is a matter of great dispute.
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