Thus was a fierce, an obscure pirate invested with one of the most important fiefs in Europe. His successors were, like him, valiant and politic; and by their means the duchy was raised to a height of power that rendered it a rival at once to the French and English kings. By what degrees, however, this progressive greatness was achieved, must be left to the historian of France. It is sufficient for us to observe that the new state became a successful barrier against the pagans of Scandinavia. Not that, both in Bretagne and Gascony, new armaments did not arrive and do some mischief; but it was transient, and no fear was entertained that the most powerful cities of France would ever again be assailed by them. When they did appear in any district, they were soon repulsed. The policy, therefore, of erecting Neustria into a state, and confiding it to the government of a race of heroes, was a wise one. A successor of Charles the Simple endeavoured to dethrone a grandson of Rollo; but, as we have already seen, Harald of Denmark sailed to the aid of the young duke, took the French king prisoner, and restored the relation between duke and monarch to the state in which it was on the death of Rollo.[293] 3. _Ireland._ At what period the Northmen first commenced their depredations in Ireland is, like many other points of northern history, impossible to be established. The Irish annals themselves contain no record of such transactions prior to the eighth century; yet they must have happened before. If little reliance is to be placed on the statement of Saxo, that Fridleif I. and Frode III. conquered and plundered Dublin, it would be rash to affirm that there was not a very ancient intercourse between that island and Scandinavia. Whether the Lochlans, or Dwellers of the Lakes, were Scandinavians, or the Scottish Highlanders, has been matter of great dispute. We know, however, that, in the ninth century, the Danes were expressly called Lochlans by the Irish, and that the term was used at an earlier period to designate some maritime people with whom the natives had a frequent intercourse. The term, however, might be applied to both the Gael and the Northmen,—to all maritime nations. On this subject let us hear the last and most eloquent of Irish historians:—