of an expedition against Brittany that Paris became the centre of the conspiracy of 830. In a Breton war, a land war, Paris would not be of the same pre-eminent importance as it was in the invasion of the Northmen. Still the island stronghold would be of no small moment in case of a Breton inroad, and in the days of Lewis the Pious a Breton inroad was again a thing to be dreaded. Among the troubles of the next reign the pre-eminent importance of Paris begins to stand out more and more strongly. By the last partition under Lewis the Pious, his youngest son, Charles the Bald, became King of a kingdom formed by the accidental union of Neustria and Aquitaine. The kingdom so formed answered to nothing which had been thought of in earlier divisions, but it answered in a kind of rough way to modern France. Far smaller as a whole, it took in districts at both ends, in Flanders and in Catalonia, which have long ceased to be looked upon as French. But it nowhere came near to the coveted frontier of the Rhine and the Alps. Of this kingdom it seemed at first that Paris was at once to become the capital; no other city filled so prominent a place in the early history of the reign of Charles the Bald. In the very beginning of his reign we find Charles making use of the position of the city and its bridge: to bar the progress of his brother, the Emperor Lothar. We find him dwelling for a long time in the city, and giving the citizens the delight of a spectacle by appearing among them in royal pomp at the Easter festival.[55] Four years later, the city began to appear in its other character as the great mark for Scandinavian attack. The northern pirates were now swarming on every sea, and the coasts of Britain, Gaul, and Germany were all alike desolated by their harryings. But they instinctively felt that, while no shore lay more temptingly for their objects than the shores of Northern Gaul, there was no point either of the insular or of the continental realm where their approach was better guarded against. The island city, with its two bridges and its strongly fortified Roman suburb on the mainland, blocked their path as perhaps no other stronghold in Gaul or Britain could block it.[56] In the very year of the fight of Fontenay, as if they had scented the mutual slaughter from afar, the Northmen had sailed up the stream and had harried Rouen and the surrounding lands with the sternest horrors of fire and sword.[57] Four years later they pressed on yet further into the heart of the defenceless realm; Paris was attacked; in strange contrast with the valour of its citizens forty years later, no one had the heart to resist; the city was stormed and sacked; and King Charles, finding his forces unequal to defend or to avenge, was driven to forestal the wretched policy of Æthelred, and to buy a momentary respite from the invaders.[58] Other attacks, other harryings followed. One more terrible than all, in the year 857, was