76 Norivay and the Norwegians 



one of these mouths stood a city called Dorstad, which 

 has now disappeared and hardly left a trace, but which 

 was then quite the emporium for the north of Europe, 

 carrying on a trade as far as the British Isles on the one 

 side, and the Baltic countries on the other. Dorstad, 

 which must have been known by reputation to the Vik- 

 ings even before they came there, was one of the chief 

 marks for their attacks, and was so frequently plundered, 

 that by the middle of the ninth century its trade had 

 almost entirely left it. A little further down the coast, 

 after leaving the Ehine mouths, the Vikings came to 

 the Scheldt, on which stood Antwerp, a city of some 

 importance. Farther on still lay, at the mouth of the 

 little river Canche, which empties itself into the English 

 Channel near Calais, a town, Quentovic, which has now 

 entirely decayed, but was then second only to Dorstad 

 among the trading cities of the north. After they had 

 left the Canche, the Vikings would come to the Somme, 

 on which lay Amiens ; and next to the far more im- 

 portant Seine, which in those days was rich in trading 

 towns and in religious houses. Eouen lay not far from 

 the mouth ; and, when the Vikings had become adven- 

 turous enough to navigate some way inland, they came 

 to Paris. Paris could not yet be described as the 

 capital of France, but it was a city of growing im- 

 portance. It was, too, full of sacred associations, on 

 account of the many monasteries which surrounded it. 

 The sieges of Paris by the Vikings are among the great 

 events in the history of this century. 



The next great river after the Seine was the Loire, 

 only a little way up which lay the important town of 

 Nantes. Nantes gave its name to the title of the count 



