arles the Simple, began to
collect an army to meet the invader. Rollo, however, had made himself
master of Rouen before Charles was able to offer him any effectual
opposition. Rouen was already a strong place, but Rollo made it
stronger. He enlarged and repaired the fortifications, built
store-houses, established a garrison, and, in a word, made all the
arrangements requisite for securing an impregnable position for himself
and his army.

A long and obstinate war followed between Rollo and Charles, Rollo being
almost uniformly victorious in the combats that took place. Rollo became
more and more proud and imperious in proportion to his success. He drove
the French king from port to port, and from field to field, until he
made himself master of a large part of the north of France, over which
he gradually established a regular government of his own. Charles
struggled in vain to resist these encroachments. Rollo continually
defeated him; and finally he shut him up and besieged him in Paris
itself. At length Charles was compelled to enter into negotiations for
peace. Rollo demanded that the large and rich tract on both sides of the
Seine, next the sea--the same, in fact, that now constitutes
Normandy--should be ceded to him and his followers for their permanent
possession. Charles was extremely unwilling thus to alienate a part of
his kingdom. He would not consent to cede it absolutely and entirely, so
as to make it an independent realm. It should be a _dukedom_, and not a
separate _kingdom_, so that it might continue still a part of his own
royal domains--Rollo to reign over it as a duke, and to acknowledge a
general allegiance to the French king. Rollo agreed to this. The war had
been now protracted so long that he began himself to desire repose. It
was more than thirty years since the time of his landing.

Charles had a daughter named Giselle, and it was a part of the treaty of
peace that she should become Rollo's wife. He also agreed to become a
Christian. Thus there were, in the execution of the treaty, three
ceremonies to be performed. First, Rollo was to _do homage_, as it was
called, for his duchy; for it was the custom in those days for
subordinate princes, who held their possessions of some higher and more
strictly sovereign power, to perform certain ceremonies in the presence
of their superior lord, which was called doing homage. These ceremonies
were of various kinds in different countries, though they were all