which they might treat about peace.  On the day fixed, Charles accompanied by Duke Robert, and Rollo, surrounded by his warriors, repaired to St. Clair-sur-Epte, on the opposite banks of the river, and exchanged numerous messages.  Charles offered Rollo Flanders, which the Northman refused, considering it too swampy; as to the maritime portion of Neustria, he would not be contented with it; it was, he said, covered with forests, and had become quite a stranger to the plough-share by reason of the Northmen’s incessant incursions; he demanded the addition of territories taken from Brittany, and that the princes of that province, Berenger and Alan, lords, respectively, of Redon and Del, should take the oath of fidelity to him.  When matters had been arranged on this basis, “the bishops told Rollo that he who received such a gift as the duchy of Normandy was bound to kiss the king’s foot.  ‘Never,’ quoth Rollo, ’will I bend the knee before the knees of any, and I will kiss the foot of none.’  At the solicitation of the Franks he then ordered one of his warriors to kiss the king’s foot.  The Northman, remaining bolt upright, took hold of the king’s foot, raised it to his mouth, and so made the king fall backward, which caused great bursts of laughter and much disturbance amongst the throng.  Then the king and all the grandees who were about him, prelates, abbots, dukes, and counts, swore, in the name of the Catholic faith, that they would protect the patrician Rollo in his life, his members, and his folk, and would guarantee to him the possession of the aforesaid land, to him and his descendants forever.  After which the king, well satisfied, returned to his domains; and Rollo departed with Duke Robert for the town of Rouen.”

The dignity of Charles the Simple had no reason to be well satisfied; but the great political question which, a century before, caused Charlemagne such lively anxiety, was solved; the most dangerous, the most incessantly renewed of all foreign invasions, those of the Northmen, ceased to threaten France.  The vagabond pirates had a country to cultivate and defend; the Northmen were becoming French.

No such transformation was near taking place in the case of the invasions of the Saracens in Southern Gaul; they continued to infest Aquitania, Septimania, and Provence; their robber-hordes appeared frequently on the coasts of the Mediterranean and the banks of the Rhone, at Aigues-Mortes, at Marseilles, at Arles, and in Camargue; they sometimes penetrated into Dauphine, Rouergue, Limousin, and Saintonge.  The author of this history saw, at the commencement of the present century, in the mountains of the Cevennes, the ruins of the towers built, a thousand years ago, by the inhabitants of those rugged countries, to put their families and their flocks under shelter from the incursions of the Saracens.  But these incursions were of short duration, and most frequently undertaken by plunderers few in number, who retreated precipitately