n of several
mangonels capable of casting huge blocks of stone. In the morning the
Danes planted their battering-rams, one on each side of the tower, and
recommenced the assault. The new machines of the defenders did great
havoc in their ranks, their heavy stones crashing through the roof of
bucklers and crushing those who held them, and for a time the Norsemen
desisted from the attack.

They now filled three of their largest vessels with combustibles, and
placing them on the windward side of the bridge, set them alight. The
people of Paris beheld with afright these fire-ships bearing down upon
the bridge, and old and young burst into tears and cries at the view of
the approaching destruction, and, led by the archbishop, all joined in
a prayer to St. Germain, the patron saint of Paris, to protect the
city. The exulting Danes replied to the cries of those on the walls
with triumphant shouts. Thanks, as the Franks believed, to the
interposition of St. Germain, the fireships struck against the pile of
stones from which the beams supporting the bridge in the centre were
raised. Eudes and his companions leaped down from the bridge and with
hatchets hewed holes in the sides of the ships at the water-line, and
they sank without having effected any damage to the bridge.

It was now the turn of the Franks to raise triumphant shouts, while the
Danes, disheartened, fell back from the attack, and at night recrossed
the river, leaving two of their battering-rams as tokens of the triumph
of the besieged. Paris had now a respite while the Danes again spread
over the surrounding country, many of them ascending the river in their
ships and wasting the country as far as Burgundy.

The monastery of St. Germain and the church in which the body of the
saint was buried still remained untouched. The bands of Northmen who
had invaded England had never hesitated to plunder and destroy the
churches and shrines of the Christians, but hitherto some thought of
superstition had kept the followers of Siegfroi from assailing the
monastery of St. Germain.

One soldier, bolder than the rest, now approached the church and with
his spear broke some of the windows. The Abbe D'Abbon, an eye-witness
and minute historian of the siege of Paris, states that the impious
Dane was at once struck dead. The same fate befell one of his comrades,
who mounted to the platform at the top of the church and in descending
fell off and was killed. A third who entered the