o, "and all be equally masters
among us. We be come to drive out the inhabitants of this land, and to
subject it as our own country. But who art thou, thou who speakest so
glibly?" "Ye have sometime heard tell of one Hastings, who, issuing
forth from among you, came hither with much shipping and made desert a
great part of the kingdom of the Franks?" "Yes," said Rollo, "we have
heard tell of him; Hastings began well and ended ill." "Will ye yield
you to King Charles?" asked Hastings. "We yield," was the answer, "to
none; all that we shall take by our arms we will keep as our right. Go
and tell this, if thou wilt, to the King, whose envoy thou boastest to
be."

Hastings returned to the Gallo-Frankish army, and Rollo prepared to
march on Paris. Hastings had gone back somewhat troubled in mind. Now
there was among the Franks one Count Tetbold (Thibault), who greatly
coveted the countship of Chartres, and he said to Hastings: "Why
slumberest thou softly? Knowest thou not that King Charles doth purpose
thy death by cause of all the Christian blood that thou didst aforetime
unjustly shed? Bethink thee of all the evil thou hast done him, by
reason whereof he purposeth to drive thee from his land. Take heed to
thyself that thou be not smitten unawares." Hastings, dismayed, at once
sold to Tetbold the town of Chartres, and, removing all that belonged to
him, departed to go and resume, for all that appears, his old course of
life.

On the 25th of November, 885, all the forces of the Northmen formed a
junction before Paris; seven hundred huge barks covered two leagues of
the Seine, bringing, it is said, more than thirty thousand men. The
chieftains were astonished at sight of the new fortifications of the
city, a double wall of circumvallation, the bridges crowned with towers,
and in the environs the ramparts of the abbeys of St. Denis and St.
Germain solidly rebuilt. Siegfried hesitated to attack a town so well
defended. He demanded to enter alone and have an interview with the
bishop, Gozlin. "Take pity on thyself and thy flock," said he to him;
"let us pass through the city; we will in no wise touch the town; we
will do our best to preserve, for thee and Count Eudes, all your
possessions." "This city," replied the bishop, "hath been confided unto
us by the emperor Charles, king and ruler, under God, of the powers of
the earth. He hath confided it unto us, not that it should cause the
ruin but the salvation of the kingdom. If