Vikings in Continental Ezirope 77 



to whom was especially intrusted the guardianship 

 of the Marches of Brittanv. The Bretons were rebel- 

 lious subjects of the Frankish empire ; and it was in 

 alliance with them that the first Vikings who came to 

 the Loire made their attack upon the shores of that 

 river and upon the town of Nantes. And higher up 

 the river were two other places of great importance, 

 Tours and Orleans. The former contained two famous 

 abbeys, the most famous (perhaps) of all in Europe. 

 This place was several times plundered by the pirates. 

 Finally, after leaving the Loire, the Viking ships would 

 come to the Garonne, up which they might sail as far 

 as the old Eoman-Gothic city of Toulouse, once the 

 capital of the West-Goth kingdom in Southern France. 

 At the mouth of one after another of all these rivers 

 the high-prowed, square-sailed Viking ships began to 

 appear in numbers after the year 840. They were at 

 first a strange siiiht to the inhabitants of Christendom. 

 But we must remember that these lands were not less 

 strange to the Northmen. Never before, probably, 

 had the majority of these sailors ventured beyond the 

 waters of the Baltic; not for hundreds of years had 

 any of their ancestors done so. It was, therefore, a 

 wondrous new life on which they were embarked. We 

 cannot be surprised that, therefore, they proceeded with 

 caution. The natural course for them would be to 

 seize upon some one of the promontories at the river- 

 mouth, the one which could be best guarded, or, safer 

 still, upon an island, if there was one near the mouth of 

 the river. For their Christian foes foolishly enough 

 never provided themselves with strong fleets, and so 

 the islands lay out of all danger of attack. The very 



