the Seine, bringing, it is said, more than thirty thousand men. The
chieftains were astonished at sight of the new fortifications of the
city, a double wall of circumvallation, the bridges crowned with towers,
and in the environs the ramparts of the abbeys of St. Denis and St.
Germain solidly rebuilt. Siegfried hesitated to attack a town so well
defended. He demanded to enter alone and have an interview with the
bishop, Gozlin. "Take pity on thyself and thy flock," said he to him;
"let us pass through the city; we will in no wise touch the town; we
will do our best to preserve, for thee and Count Eudes, all your
possessions." "This city," replied the bishop, "hath been confided unto
us by the emperor Charles, king and ruler, under God, of the powers of
the earth. He hath confided it unto us, not that it should cause the
ruin but the salvation of the kingdom. If peradventure these walls had
been confided to thy keeping as they have been to mine, wouldst thou do
as thou biddest me?"

"If ever I do so," answered Siegfried, "may my head be condemned to fall
by the sword and serve as food to the dogs! But if thou yield not to our
prayers, so soon as the sun shall commence his course our armies will
launch upon thee their poisoned arrows; and when the sun shall end his
course, they will give thee over to all the horrors of famine; and this
will they do from year to year."

The bishop, however, persisted, without further discussion; being as
certain of Count Eudes as he was of himself. Eudes, who was young and
but recently made Count of Paris, was the eldest son of Robert the
Strong, Count of Anjou, of the same line as Charlemagne, and but lately
slain in battle against the Northmen. Paris had for defenders two
heroes, one of the Church and the other of the empire: the faith of the
Christian and the fealty of the vassal; the conscientiousness of the