During all this period, France had suffered from endless fighting and the
famines that came as an unevitable consequence, and just about this time
Neustria suffered still further owing to the incursions of the Danes. Even
in Charlemagne's time the black-sailed ships of the Northmen had been seen
hovering along the coast near the mouth of the Seine, and it has been said
that the great Emperor wept at the sight of some of these awe-inspiring
pirates.
In the year 841 the Northmen had sailed up the Seine as far as Rouen, but
they found little to plunder, for during the reign of the Merovingian
kings, the town had been reduced to a mere shadow of its former prosperity.
There had been a great fire and a great plague, and its ruin had been
rendered complete during the civil strife that succeeded the death of
Charlemagne. Wave after wave came the northern invasions led by such men as
Bjorn Ironside, and Ragnar Lodbrog. Charles the Bald, fearing to meet these
dreaded warriors, bribed them away from the walls of Paris in the year 875.
But they came again twelve years afterwards in search of more of the
Frenchmen's gold.
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