ing some
to become Christians, and then sending them home so loaded with
presents, that it was discovered they came to be baptized over and over
again, merely for the sake of the gifts, as Du Chesne tells us. But on
the subsequent division of the empire among the undutiful sons of Louis,
the pirates did not fail to take advantage of the general confusion;
braving the sea almost every summer in their light coracles, sailing up
the Seine, the Somme, or the Loire, and devastating the best parts of
France, almost without resistance. In 845, they went up to Paris,
pillaged it, and were on the point of attacking the royal camp at St.
Dennis; but receiving a large sum of money from Charles the Bald, they
retreated from thence, and with the new means thus supplied them,
ravaged Bordeaux, and were there joined by Pepin, king of Aquitaine. A
few years afterwards, they returned in great numbers. Paris was again
sacked, and the magnificent abbey of St. Germain des Pres burnt. In
861, Wailand, a famous Norman pirate, returning from England, took up
his winter quarters on the banks of the Loire, devastated the country as
high as Tourraine, shared the women and girls among his crews, and even
carried off the male children, to be brought up in his own profession.
Charles the Bald, not having the power to expel him, engaged the
freebooter, for 500 pounds of silver, to dislodge his countrymen, who
were harassing the vicinity of Paris. In consequence of this subsidy,
Wailand, with a fleet of 260 sail, went up the Seine, and attacked the
Normans in the isle of Oiselle: after a long and obstinate resistance,
they were obliged to capitulate; and having paid 6000 pounds of gold and
silver, by way of ransom, had leave to join their victors. The riches
thus acquired rendered a predatory life so popular, that the pirates
were continually increasing in number, so that under a "sea-king" called
Eric, they made a descent in the Elbe and the Weser, pillaged Hamburg,
penetrated far into Germany, and after gaining two battles, retreated
with immense booty. The pirates, thus reinforced on all sides, long
continued to devastate Germany, France, and England; some penetrated
into Andalusia and Hetruria, where they destroyed the flourishing town
of Luni; whilst others, descending the Dnieper, penetrated even into
Russia.

[Illustration: _A Priest thrown from the Ramparts of an Abbey._]

Meanwhile the Danes had been making several attempts to effect a
_lo