Possibly human habitations have existed upon this promontory ever since God drove Adam and Eve out of Eden. If we consult Brother Boniface, the librarian at the local monastery, the best-read person in the district, the good old man will tell us that long before the Romans came, the ancient Druids ("now in hell") had their pagan altars here, and sacrificed human victims under a great oak. Some chiseled masonry found on the spot also indicates an extensive settlement in Roman days, when Gaul was a province of the Cæsars. Of course, all the pious people know that under the persecuting Emperor Diocletian, the holy Aliquis himself, a centurion in the Legions, was shot to death with burning arrows because he preferred Christ to Jupiter, and that the place of his martyrdom is at the new abbey church about a league from the castle. [Sidenote: Founding of the Castle] Nevertheless, secular history is not precise until after the time of the mighty Charlemagne. Under his feeble successor, Charles the Bald, tradition affirms that the vikings, Scandinavian barbarians, came up the greater river, ascended the Claire in their long dragon ships; then on the site of the present castle they established a stockaded camp, whence they issued to ravage the country. This was about A.D. 870, but after a year they departed, leaving desolation behind them. About A.D. 880 another band of vikings came with similar foul intent, but they met a different reception. The saints had raised up a brave protector for the Christian folk of those lands. Very uncertain is the ancestry of the redoubtable warrior Heribert, who about A.D. 875 seized the rocky triangle at the mouth of the Rapide, and built the first castle of St. Aliquis. Perhaps he was descended from one of Charlemagne's famous Frankish "counts." He did, indeed, only what was then being done everywhere to check the Scandinavian hordes: he built a castle and organized the levies of the region, hitherto footmen, into an effective cavalry force. This castle was anything save the later majestic fortress. It was merely a great square tower of rough masonry, perched on the crag above the streams. Around it was a palisade of heavy timbers, strengthened on the landward side by a ditch. Inside this compound were huts for refugees, storehouses for fodder, and rude stalls for the cattle. To stop passage up the Claire a heavy chain of iron was stretched across the river and stone piers were sunk at shallow places, thus forcing boats to pass close under the fortress in range of descending missiles. Where the chain was landed there was built another smaller stone tower. All the crossing then had to be by skiffs, although somewhat later an unsteady bridge was thrown over the stream.