EARLY HISTORY DEFORESTS. 5 



the terrible extermination of Fontenailles, maintain that 

 the forces of the Franks were so enfeebled, and their war- 

 like spirit so felled by this combat, that from that time 

 forward, far from making conquests over their enemies 

 as they previously had done, they were no longer capable 

 of defending their own frontiers."* 



' Two years later, in 843, the Vikings, combined under the 

 terrible Hasting, of whom, beyond this, nothing is known 

 of his country and origin, and ascended, pillaging and 

 devastating, the courses of the Loire and of the Seine. All 

 the coast from the embouchure of the Rhine to the fron- 

 tiers of Spain, and even the Spanish coast of Galicia, were 

 ravaged with a daring and a cruelty till then unheard of. 

 The Norman Yikings ascended the Loire to Tours, and the 

 Seine to Paris, both of which cities they took and pillaged, 

 together with the rich churches and convents around them. 



' These expeditions extended already, at this period, to 

 the most southern coast cf Spain on the Atlantic; and 

 Seville, which was then in the hands of the Moors, was 

 twice first in 843, and again in 845 surprised and pil- 

 laged by the Norman Vikings. 



'The largest and richest towns in France Rouen, 

 Nantes, Tours, and Bordeaux, were retaken many times and 

 pillaged ; and at the embouchures of all the great rivers 

 flowing into the Atlantic Ocean the Vikings established 

 fortified encampments, in which at times they wintered, 

 and whence they made most audacious inroads into the 

 very heart of France. The powerless Carlovignian kings 

 sought to purchase deliverance from their attacks with 

 gold ; but this poor resource only so far prevented the evil 

 by exposing without covering the feebleness of the kingdom, 

 When any one of the chiefs had received a large sum to 

 keep the peace, he often doubtless returned to his home, 

 or retired to some other country ; but his promise was not 

 obligatory on his people, and there were formed of them 

 new bands of invaders under other chiefs. 



* Henri Martin's Histoire dc France* 4 to edition ; tome ii., pp. 414 and 415. 



