It was about this period that the Danes and Normans first began to harass the northern coasts of Europe. Confident of their naval strength, they attacked the possessions of Charlemagne with as little hesitation as those of his less formidable neighbor, Egbert of Wessex; descended upon Friesland as boldly as upon Teignmouth or Hengesdown; and even ventured with their galleys into the port of a city of Narbonnese Gaul at a time when the emperor himself was sojourning within its walls. Springing up, as they did, toward the close of so prosperous a reign, these new invaders proved more dangerous than Charlemagne had anticipated. He caused war barks to be stationed at the mouths of his great rivers, and in 808 marched an army to the defense of Friesland. On this occasion, however, he was glad to make terms of peace; and it is said that the increasing power of the Baltic tribes embittered his later days with presentiments of that decay which shortly afterward befell his gigantic empire. From the conclusion of this peace to the date of his death in the year 814, no event of historical importance occurred; and the great emperor was buried at Aix-la-Chapelle, in that famous cathedral of which he was the founder. The race of Carlovingian kings took their name, and only their name, from this, their magnificent ancestor. Weak of purpose as the descendants of Clovis, and endued, perhaps, with even a less share of animal courage, they suffered their mighty inheritance to be wrested from them, divided, subdivided, pillaged and impoverished. No portion of French history is so disastrous, so unsatisfactory, and so obscure as that which relates to this epoch. Indeed, toward the commencement of the tenth century, an utter blank occurs, and we are left for many years without any record whatever.—_A. B. E._ IV.—THE BATTLE OF CRECY AND SIEGE OF CALAIS.