The Historians' History of the World 07

Charles the Fat was good-natured and indolent. His favourite project, the restoration of the empire as it stood under Charlemagne, he sought to realise by means of bribes and promises, treaties of peace, and other transactions, perfectly in conformity with his character, in which he ever unhesitatingly sacrificed honour to interest. The same means that had succeeded with the pope he imagined would prove equally successful in treating with the Northmen, who, after the death of Ludwig the Younger, renewed their depredations under Godefrid, and laid the Rhine country waste. The palace of Charlemagne at Aachen was converted by them into a stable. Bishop Wala fell bravely fighting at the head of an unequal force before the gates of Metz. The cities on the banks of the Rhine were burned to the ground, and the whole country between Liège, Cologne, and Mainz, laid desolate. At length Siegfrid, the brother of Godefrid, was induced to withdraw his ravaging hordes by the gift of two thousand pounds of gold, and for the additional sum of twelve thousand pounds of silver (to defray which Charles the Fat seized all the treasures of the churches) consented to a truce of twelve years. Godefrid was, moreover, formally invested with Friesland as a fief of the empire. The Northmen, however, notwithstanding these stipulations, continued their depredations, advanced as far as the Moselle, and destroyed the city of Trèves, but were suddenly attacked, in the forest of Ardennes, by the charcoalmen and peasants, and ten thousand of them cut to pieces [883 A.D.]. Charles now became anxious to free himself from his troublesome vassal in Friesland, and the Markgraf Henry, who guarded the frontier at Grabfeld against the Sorbs, brother to Poppo, duke of Thuringia, the confidant of the emperor, invited Godefrid to a meeting, at which he caused him to be treacherously murdered. Godefrid’s brother-in-law, the bastard Hugo, was also taken prisoner and deprived of sight. These acts of violence and treason were no sooner perpetrated than the Northmen, glowing with revenge, rushed like a torrent over the country and laid it waste on every side, forcing their way in immense hordes up the Rhine, the Maas, and the Seine. On the Rhine they were opposed by Adalbert, of the race of Babenberg (Bamberg).e

In the autumn of the year 885 a great Norse fleet, consisting of ships large and small, almost without number, and carrying an army of between thirty and forty thousand men, sailed up the Seine as far as Paris, even then a flourishing city. Under the leadership of Bishop Gauzlin and Count Eudes of Paris, the inhabitants hastily repaired the old fortifications and collected a little army of some hundreds, which was brought into the city to defend it. The Northmen encamped round about Paris and made their first attempt to storm the city in November, 885, by a violent assault which lasted two days. The Normans were obliged to withdraw to collect wood in the country round for the construction of new siege instruments. In January, 886, they made a fresh assault which lasted for three days, and were again repulsed by the garrison. The siege lasted into the summer of 886. The besieged were reduced to more desperate straits still by a flood which destroyed the Seine bridge, and thus caused the strong tower situated on its farther side to fall into the hands of the Northmen. After this Count Eudes stole through the cordon of the enemy to implore help of the emperor. Charles had hitherto calmly left the city to its fate; but now he summoned a diet and proclaimed a great advance upon Paris. When, in the August of 886, a mighty army marched upon Paris, all men expected that a great battle would be fought there under the eyes of the emperor. Charles, however, preferred to purchase the withdrawal of the enemy. The treaty which he concluded with the Northmen was an insult to the former might of France. The enemy declared that they could not withdraw during the winter season, and he therefore gave Burgundy to them for winter quarters, and undertook to pay them seven hundred pounds in gold in the following spring. And then the great German army marched home without having struck a blow. This act of disgraceful cowardice enraged the army and the nation, and deprived Charles of the last remnant of his reputation. Moreover all kinds of evil reports were current concerning him among the people. It was said that by the help of the pope he intended to legitimise his illegitimate son Bernard, and to procure the succession for him.d