4 THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



of France, and England, which in the beginning of the 

 eleventh century was completely overrun by them, and 

 became a united kingdom under Canute the Great. The 

 Scandinavians of Norway directed their expeditions more 

 to the north, and further to the west, to the Faroe Islands, 

 the Shetland Islands, and the Orkneys, whence they 

 spread along the East Coast of Scotland, in the Hebrides, 

 and in Ireland, where, in the twelfth century, kings of the 

 Norwegian race reigned in Dublin until the establishment 

 of the English dominion about the year 1170. 



Dr Broch, in a work entitled Le Royaume de Norvege et 

 le People h'orvegien* on whose authority I state these 

 facts, goes on to say : 



' From Ireland the Norwegian Vikings directed their 

 way towards the coasts of France, combined and mixed 

 with the Danish Vikings come from England and from 

 the Frisian coast, as also with the Swedish Vikings, and 

 devastated those coasts, then under the incapable successors 

 of Charlemagne. By its riches this coast presented to the 

 invaders from the North the most attractive prey. 

 The Frank Monarchy having reached its apogee under 

 Charlemagne, had already begun to decline under his son, 

 Louis the Pious, or Le Debonnaire ; and under their 

 successors it became a prey to the scourge of civil discords 

 which ended in the dismemberment of the great empire, 

 and the destruction of all its military forces at the great 

 battle of Fontenailles, on the plains of the Auxerrois, in 

 June 841. It was there that Lother, followed by the 

 Franks of Austrasia and in part of Neustria, and also those 

 of Aquitains, was conquered by the brothers Louis and 

 Charles, surnamed the Bold, after a struggle bloody for 

 both parties. According to Martin, 'the force of the 

 carnage fell upon the Franks and the Aquitains ; and the 

 flower of the Frank race perished in this fearful field of 

 battle. A great many writers, some of them almost con- 

 temporaries, others more recent, exaggerating still more 



* Christiana : P. T. Mallin, Rue Carl Johan. Paris : Challamel Aine, Rue Jacob 5. 



