[5] Herbert then used his prisoner as an advantage in pressing his own ambitions, using the threat of releasing the king up until Charles' death in 929.

[5] At the death of Rudolph in 936, Hugh was in possession of nearly all of the region between the Loire and the Seine, corresponding to the ancient Neustria, with the exceptions of Anjou and of the territory ceded to the Normans in 911.

[8] Historians have wondered why the powerful Hugh the Great called the young Louis to throne instead of taking it himself, as his father had done fifteen years earlier.

In the first place, he had many rivals, especially Hugh, Duke of Burgundy (King Rudolph's brother), and Herbert II, Count of Vermandois, who probably would have challenged his election.

Richerus explains that Hugh the Great remembered his father who had died for his "pretentions" and this was the cause of his short and turbulent reign.

[12] In 939, King Louis attacked Hugh the Great and Duke William Longsword of Normandy, after which a truce was concluded, lasting until June.

[16] In 948 at a church council at Ingelheim the bishops, all but two being from Germany, condemned and excommunicated Hugh in absentia, and returned Archbishop Artauld to his See at Reims.

[17] In 953 Hugh finally relented and made peace with Louis IV, the church and his brother-in-law Otto the Great.

[18] In the same year, however, Duke Gilbert of Burgundy acknowledged himself his vassal and betrothed his daughter to Hugh's son Otto-Henry.