He was succeeded by his son Louis the Stammerer, the child of Ermentrude, daughter of a count of Orleans,whom he had married in 842, and who had died in 869.
Although Hincmar had been very hostile to Charles's expedition into Italy, he figured among his testamentary executors and helped to secure the submission of the nobles to Louis the Stammerer, whom he crowned at Compiegne (8th of December 877).
To Carloman, on his accession in 882, Hincmar addressed his De ordine palatii, partly based on a treatise (now lost) by Adalard, abbot of Corbie (c. 814), in which he set forth his system of government and his opinion of the duties of a sovereign, a subject he had already touched in his De regis persona et regio rninisterio, dedicated to Charles the Bald at an unknown date, and in his Instructio ad Ludovicum regem, addressed to Louis the Stammerer on his accession in 877.
The degeneration of the monarchy was clearly apparent on the death of Charles the Bald, when his son, Louis the Stammerer, was only assured of the throne, which had passed by Louis the right of birth under the Merovingians and been Stan,hereditary under the earlier Carolingians, through his election by nobles and bishops under the direction (877-879).
