themselves masters of a far wider territory, broke up into two
kingdoms--that of the Eastern Franks in what is now Germany, and that of
the Western Franks reaching from the Rhine to the Atlantic. These Franks
subdued all the other Teutonic conquerors of Gaul, while they adopted
the religion, the language, and some of the civilization of the
Romanized Gauls who became their subjects. Under the second Frankish
dynasty, the Empire was renewed in the West, where it had been for a
time put an end to by these Teutonic invasions, and the then Frankish
king, Charles the Great, took his place as Emperor at its head. But in
the time of his grandsons the various kingdoms and nations of which the
Empire was composed, fell apart again under different descendants of
his. One of these, _Charles the Bald_, was made King of the Western
Franks in what was termed the Neustrian, or "not eastern," kingdom, from
which the present France has sprung. This kingdom in name covered all
the country west of the Upper Meuse, but practically the Neustrian king
had little power south of the Loire; and the Celts of Brittany were
never included in it.

2. The House of Paris.--The great danger which this Neustrian kingdom
had to meet came from the Northmen, or as they were called in England
the Danes. These ravaged in Neustria as they ravaged in England; and a
large part of the northern coast, including the mouth of the Seine, was
given by Charles the Bald to Rolf or Rollo, one of their leaders, whose
land became known as the Northman's land, or Normandy. What most checked
the ravages of these pirates was the resistance of Paris, a town which
commanded the road along the river Seine; and it was in defending the
city of Paris from the Northmen, that a warrior named Robert the Strong
gained the trust and affection of the inhabitants of the Neustrian
kingdom. He and his family became Counts (_i.e._, judges and protectors)
of Paris, and Dukes (or leaders) of the Franks. Three generations of
them were really great men--Robert the Strong, Odo, and Hugh the White;
and when the descendants of Charles the Great had died out, a Duke of
the Franks, _Hugh Capet_, was in 987 crowned King of the Franks. All the
after kings of France down to Louis Philippe were descendants of Hugh
Capet. By this change, however, he gained little in real power; for,
though he claimed to rule over the whole country of the Neustrian
Franks, his authority was little heeded, save in the d