Note 46 — Chapter VII · REVOLTS AND CONSPIRACIES.

“The details of the plot are said to have embraced the assassination of the king and his three royal sons, and the subsequent proclamation of Pippin as king. This was the bait which the conspirators held out to him....

“The secret was well kept. Pippin shammed sickness and for a while stayed away from court; the plot was fairly under way and dangerously near a successful termination, when by the inexplicable carelessness of the conspirators the whole of their impious scheme became known.

“They met in the church of St. Peter at Ratisbon and discussed all the details of the plot in the hearing of a cleric who from some cause or other had found his way into the church. Perhaps he came to sleep there; the conspirators found him hiding under the altar, and, strange to tell, contented themselves with his solemn promise on oath that he would not divulge the ominous secret. But the oath sat lightly on his conscience, and the moment after the conspirators had left he ran half-dressed at the dead of night to the royal palace and gave the alarm.

“No one could stay his progress on his way to the royal bed-chamber; he passed through seven doors and at last stood before it and so frightened the ladies in attendance upon the queen that they shut it in his face; they tried to stifle their laughter at his appearance with their dresses [sic.] But the king had heard the noise and asked what it meant. They said that a half-clad, scraped, silly, and raving scamp demanded to see the king, and made an unmannerly noise. Charles sent for him and made him tell all he knew. ‘Before the third hour of the day,’ writes the Monk, ‘all the chief conspirators, not expecting anything of the kind, were either on the way to exile or punishment. The dwarfish, hunch-backed Pippin received a good beating, was shaved, and sent for a little while to the monastery of St. Gall to do penance.’”—Mombert, p. 219.