Louis II the Stammerer

Louis II, called the Stammerer from a speech impediment noted by contemporaries, succeeded his father Charles the Bald as king of West Francia in 877. The son of Charles and his first wife Ermentrude of Orléans, he had previously served as king of Aquitaine under his father's authority from 867, an apprenticeship that gave him experience of the southern part of the realm.

His accession exposed the weakness of royal authority in the late ninth century. To secure recognition from the West Frankish magnates, Louis was obliged to confirm and distribute lands, offices, and honors on a large scale, a concession that contemporaries noted and that further reduced the resources available to the crown. He was crowned at Compiègne in December 877 by Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, and received a second coronation from Pope John VIII at Troyes in September 878, when the pope traveled north seeking Frankish support for Italy.

Louis married twice. His first wife, Ansgarde of Burgundy, whom he had wed in his youth without his father's approval, bore him two sons, Louis III and Carloman II; the marriage was later set aside, and doubts raised about its validity would be used against the legitimacy of both sons. His second wife, Adelaide of Paris, was pregnant when the king died, and the child born months later, the future Charles the Simple, would eventually continue the dynasty in the west.

The reign lasted less than two years. Louis died at Compiègne in April 879 while preparing a campaign, and the kingdom was divided between Louis III and Carloman II, who ruled jointly until their early deaths. The brevity of his rule, the contested status of his marriages, and the partition that followed contributed to the instability that allowed first Charles the Fat and then the Robertian Odo of Paris to occupy the West Frankish throne before Louis's posthumous son came of age.