France,--that of ransom. Charles marched to its relief with a strong
army, but, instead of venturing to meet his foes in battle, he bought
them off as so often before, paying them a large sum of money, granting
them free navigation of the Seine and entrance to Paris, and confirming
them in the possession of Friesland. This occurred in 887. A year
afterwards he lost his crown, through the indignation of the nobles at
his cowardice, and France and Germany again fell asunder.

The plundering incursions continued, and soon afterwards the new
emperor, Arnulf, nephew of Charles the Fat, a man of far superior energy
to his deposed uncle, attacked a powerful force of the piratical
invaders near Louvain, where they had encamped after a victory over the
Archbishop of Mayence. In the heat of the battle that followed, the
vigilant Arnulf perceived that the German cavalry fought at a
disadvantage with their stalwart foes, whose dexterity as foot-soldiers
was remarkable. Springing from his horse, he called upon his followers
to do the same. They obeyed, the nobles and their men-at-arms leaping to
the ground and rushing furiously on foot upon their opponents. The
assault was so fierce and sudden that the Norsemen gave way, and were
cut down in thousands, Siegfried and Gottfried--a new Gottfried
apparently--falling on the field, while the channel of the Dyle, across
which the defeated invaders sought to fly, was choked with their
corpses.

This bloody defeat put an end to the incursions of the Norsemen by way
of the Rhine. Thenceforward they paid their attention to the coast of
France, which they continued to invade until one of their great leaders,
Rollo, settled in Normandy as a vassal of the French monarch, and served
as an efficient barrier against the inroads of his countrymen.

As to Hasting, he appears to have returned to his old trade of
sea-rover, and we hear of him again as one of the Norse invaders of
England, during the latter part of the reign of Alfred the Great.

_THE CAREER OF BISHOP HATTO._

We have now to deal with a personage whose story is largely legendary,
particularly that of his death, a highly original termination to his
career having arisen among the people, who had grown to detest him. But
Bishop Hatto played his part in the history as well as in the legend of
Germany, and the curious stories concerning him may have been based on
the deeds of his actual life. It was in the beginning of the tenth