but it grieveth me deeply that, while I live, they should have been nigh
to touching at this shore, and I am a prey to violent sorrow when I
foresee what evils they will heap upon my descendants and their
people.'"

[Footnote 22: After his grandfather, Charles Martel.]

The forecast and the dejection of Charles were not unreasonable. It will
be found that there is special mention made, in the chronicles of the
ninth and tenth centuries, of forty-seven incursions into France of
Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Irish pirates, all comprised under the
name of Northmen; and doubtless many other incursions of less gravity
have left no trace in history. "The Northmen," says Fauriel, "descended
from the north to the south by a sort of natural gradation or ladder.
The Scheldt was the first river by the mouth of which they penetrated
inland; the Seine was the second; the Loire the third. The advance was
threatening for the countries traversed by the Garonne; and it was in
844 that vessels freighted with Northmen for the first time ascended
this last river to a considerable distance inland, and there took
immense booty. The following year they pillaged and burnt Saintes. In
846 they got as far as Limoges. The inhabitants, finding themselves
unable to make head against the dauntless pirates, abandoned their
hearths, together with all they had not time to carry away. Encouraged
by these successes the Northmen reappeared next year upon the coasts and
in the rivers of Aquitaine, and they attempted to take Bordeaux, whence
they were valorously repulsed by the inhabitants; but in 848, having
once more laid siege to that city, they were admitted into it at night
by the Jews, who were there in great force; the city was given up to
plunder and conflagration; a portion of the people was scattered abroad,
and the rest put to the sword."