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 M. 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.”  Tours, Rouen, Angers, Orleans, Meaux, Toulouse, Saint-Lo, Bayeux, Evreux, Nantes, and Beauvais, some of them more than once, met the fate of Saintes, Limoges, and Bordeaux.  The monasteries and churches, wherein they hoped to find treasures, were the favorite objects of the Nortlimen’s enterprises; in particular, they plundered, at the gates of Paris, the abbey of St. Germain des Pres and that of St. Denis, whence they carried off the abbot, who could not purchase his freedom, save by a heavy ransom.  They penetrated more than once into Paris itself, and subjected many of its quarters to contributions or pillage.  The populations grew into the habit of suffering and fleeing; and the local lords, and even the kings, made arrangement sometimes with the pirates either for saving the royal domains from the ravages, or for having their own share therein.  In 850, Pepin, king of Aquitaine, and brother of Charles the Bald, came to an understanding with the Northmen who had ascended the Garonne, and were threatening Toulouse.  “They arrived under his guidance,” says M. Fauriel, “they laid siege to it, took it and plundered it, not halfwise, not hastily, as folks who feared to be surprised, but leisurely, with all security, by virtue of a treaty of alliance with one of the kings of the country.”  Throughout Aquitaine there was but one cry of indignation against Pepin, and the popularity of Charles was increased