Setting aside all the petty squabbles which rent the land,
the indignant princes gathered their forces and placed them under Otho's
command. By the 1st of October the late fugitive found himself at the
head of a considerable army, and prepared to take revenge on his
perfidious enemy.
Into France he marched, and made his way with little opposition, by
Rheims and Soissons, until the French capital lay before his eyes. Here
the army encamped on the right bank of the Seine, around Montmartre,
while their cavalry avenged the plundering of Aix-la-Chapelle by laying
waste the country for many miles around. The French were evidently as
little prepared for Otho's activity as he had been for Lothaire's
treachery, and did not venture beyond the walls of their city, leaving
the country a defenceless prey to the revengeful anger of the emperor.
The Seine lay between the two armies, but not a Frenchman ventured to
cross its waters; the garrison of the city, under Hugh Capet,--Count of
Paris, and soon to become the founder of a new dynasty of French
kings,--keeping closely within its walls.
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