Judith was young, beautiful, witty, ambitious, and skilled in the art of making the gift of pleasing subserve the passion for ruling.

Louis, during his expedition into Brittany, had just witnessed the fatal result of a woman's empire over her husband; he was destined himself to offer a more striking and more long-lived example of it.

In 823, he had, by his new empress Judith, a son, whom he called Charles, and who was hereafter to be known as Charles the Bald.

This son became his mother's ruling, if not exclusive, passion, and the source of his father's woes.

His birth could not fail to cause ill-temper and mistrust in Louis's three sons by Hermengarde, who were already kings.
They had but a short time previously received the first proof of their father's weakness.