These are harmless, and may be despised; but when, to dignify the chief of some great family, history is perverted, a severer censure is necessary. Thus, Dudo (who is followed by many Norman writers) informs us that Rollo was powerful enough to become the ally and friend of Alfred; that by the Saxon monarch he was provided with a fleet to make war on the French king; that in gratitude for this aid he afterwards assisted Alfred—whom his subjects or the Danes had dethroned—to reascend the throne. How living writers could fall into the absurdity of receiving such statements, which are contrary to the unanimous voices of contemporary history, is surprising.[287] [Sidenote: 876 to 888.] The year in which Rollo arrived in the south is not very clearly established. Schoning has 995; but this will not bear the test of scrutiny, for the French and Norman writers assert that he was occupied above thirty years in his subjugation of Normandy, and we know that he was recognised its duke in 912. Asser of St. David’s—a contemporary—has the year 876, and he is confirmed by the writers nearest to the period; yet there are some chronological difficulties which we cannot remove. Harald of Norway did not undertake the voyage to the Orkneys before the year 895; and the banishment of Rollo is assigned to the year following. The only way to reconcile this anachronism is by the conjecture that Rollo, being exiled for piracy in 876, joined his countrymen and the Danes, who were ravaging England and France; that he established himself at Rouen, but frequently extended his devastations to the north and east of that city; that he was more than once in England, and perhaps in the north, before his recognition as duke of Normandy. But let us follow his footsteps. Landing at Walcheren, he defeated the count of Hainault, whom he captured, and exacted a heavy sum by way of ransom. Repairing to Rouen, he was not so ruthless as to destroy it: he accepted from the archbishop a sum of money, fortified it, and made it the basis of his operations against the French king. His arrival threw France into consternation; and Hastings was sent to learn his object, which he coolly replied was—conquest. But whether at this period he proceeded far in his operations may well be doubted. His name does not appear in the siege of Paris, which took place in 886, nor in many other enterprises which from 876 to 896—that is, twenty years—afflicted France. Yet the names of other chiefs are specified. As we have already conjectured, he was probably for some years in England, or in the north. Certainly he could not have entered on that splendid career which led to his elevation, before the year 890, or later still. Yet it is possible that he might be joined with the other chiefs in the devastations which, from 876,—during full thirty years,—afflicted the whole of France. However this be, in ten years after his first disembarkation, siege was laid to Paris.