ritory. The Frenchmen had disappeared, either in war or
by a voluntary submission to the lords under whose protection alone
could they find safety. No wonder that the chroniclers were obliged to
account for the barrenness and weakness of the land by exaggerating
the already certain slaughter at Fontenai....

"La peri de France la flor
Et des baronz tuit li meillor
Ainsi troverent Haenz terre
Vuide de gent, bonne a conquerre."

The land was left uncultivated. Forests grew thicker between Seine and
Loire. Wolves ravaged Aquitaine with none to hinder them. The South
was still infested by the Saracens. France seemed given up to wild
beasts. Nor were the pirates unaided in their work of rapine.
Necessarily few in number, for they came from far by sea, their ranks
were recruited by every reckless freebooter in the country, who was
quite ready to bow down to Thor and Odin, instead of to the shrines of
his own land, which had proved so powerless to protect it. Fast on the
heels of the first band of pirates came another, and another yet. Only
by the strength of Theobald of Blois was the Loire closed against
continual invasion, as the Seine was held by Rollo, who was to fix the
true race of the Northmen for ever in the land.

He made his settlement in Neustria in exactly the same way as Guthrum
thirty years before had taken possession of East Anglia. But while it
was an easy task for the Danes to become Englishmen, it was a far
harder one for the invaders of the Seine to become so completely
Frenchmen, as in fact they did. In the case of both Guthrum and Rollo,
the invaded sovereign had been compelled to give up part of his lands
to save the whole. Both the archbishop at Rouen and the "King" at
Paris saw no other way out of their difficulties; and Rollo was as
ready as Guthrum had been to go through the form of baptism and the
farce of a submission, requiring as a pledge the daughter of the King,
whose vassal or "man" he became. The treaty in which Charles the
Simple purchased peace was a close imitation of the Peace of Wedmore.
These things became more serious to the pirate later on. But his way
was at first made easy for him. At Rouen, Archbishop Franco,
remembering perhaps the gloomy prophecies of Charlemagne, gave up his
ruined and defenceless city without a blow.[11]

[Footnote 11: Chron. de St. Denis, iii. 99.--"Franco ... regarda
l'etat de la cite et les murs qui etaient dechus et abattus," etc., o