dynasties, of rivalry between Laon and Paris, between the Frank and the Frenchman, had still to follow. But the great step had been taken; there was at last a King of the French reigning in Paris. The city which by its own great deeds had become the cradle of a nation, the centre of a kingdom, was now placed in the foremost rank at their head. The longest and most unbroken of the royal dynasties of Europe had now begun to reign. And it had begun to reign, because the first man of that house who wore a crown was called to that crown as the worthiest man in the realm over which he ruled. But we must go back to the enemy before Paris. By the treaty concluded with the Emperor, they were to raise the siege, but they were left at liberty to harry Burgundy and other lands. The citizens of Paris, however, steadfastly refused to allow them to pass up the Seine; so the Northmen ventured on a feat which in that age was looked on as unparalleled.[114] They saw, we are told, that the city could not be taken; so they carried their ships for two miles by land, and set sail at a point of the river above the city.[115] While the Empire was falling in pieces, while new kingdoms were arising and were being struggled for by rival kings, the Northmen were harrying at pleasure. Soissons was sacked;[116] after a long and vain attack on the mighty walls of Sens, the enemy found it convenient to retire on a payment of money.[117] Meaux also, under the valiant Count Theodberht, stood a siege; but after the death of their defender, the citizens capitulated. The capitulation was broken by the Northmen; the city was burned, and the inhabitants were massacred.[118] By this time Odo was King. Meanwhile the Northmen, after their retreat from Sens, had made another attempt on Paris, and had been again beaten off by the valiant citizens.[119] The King now came to what was now his royal city, and established a fortified camp in the neighbourhood to secure it from future attacks.[120] Yet when the Northmen once more besieged Paris in the autumn of 889, even Odo himself had to stoop to the common means of deliverance, The new King, the first Parisian King, bought off the threatened attack by the payment of a Danegeld, and the pirates went away by land and sea to ravage the Constantine peninsula, the land which, a generation or two later, was to become the special land of the converted Northmen.[121]