The problems facing Charles the Fat as he approached the crisis of his reign were not, it would seem, purely structural. The ‘supervisory’ nature of Carolingian government meant that it was indeed possible for one man to rule enormous tracts of territory by forming alliances with influential regional aristocrats. One man could not govern indefinitely, however. In order to understand the causes of the deposition of the emperor and the disintegration of the empire we must reconstruct the chain of events which led up to Arnulf's coup of November 887. These events interacted with aspects of the general political backdrop we have been describing to bring about the final crisis of Carolingian imperial rule. As so often in early medieval politics, the succession was the crucial issue. The fuse was lit in late 884 by the death of Carloman II, which left Charles to rule the whole empire alone and without the immediate prospect of a son to succeed him. From this point on, as Regino pointed out, events moved with bewildering speed to a surprising outcome: ‘It was a matter worthy of note, and in the varying evaluation of the outcomes of human affairs astonishing.’