Yet even his foresight
could scarcely have imagined that, before he was seventy years in the
grave, the vikings of the north would be stabling their horses in the
most splendid of his palaces.
The rovers attacked Metz, and Bishop Wala fell while bravely fighting
them before its gates. City after city on the Rhine was taken and burned
to the ground. The whole country between Liege, Cologne, and Mayence was
so ravaged as to be almost converted into a desert. The besom of
destruction, in the hands of the sea-kings, threatened to sweep Germany
from end to end, as it had swept the greater part of France.
The impunity with which they raided the country was due in great part to
the indolent character of the monarch. Charles the Fat, as he was
entitled, who had the ambitious project of restoring the empire of
Charlemagne, and succeeded in combining France and Germany under his
sceptre, proved unable to protect his realm from the pirate rovers. Like
his predecessor, Charles the Bald of France, he tried the magic power of
gold and silver, as a more effective argument than sharpened steel, to
rid him of these marauders.
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