The ninth century, upon which we now enter, too truly verified the forebodings of the prophets of evil. It began indeed in glory, with Charles the Frank acclaimed at Rome as Augustus, and meditating the revival of the old Roman empire in all its splendour, the protection of the widow and the fatherless, the humbling of all lawless power, the foundation of St. Augustine’s City of God. But the new empire had scarcely been founded when it began to crumble; all through the middle years of the century it sank lower and lower into the morass. With the deposition of Charles the Fat in 887 and his death in 888 the last Carolingian emperor vanished from the scene. Saracen pirates ravaged the shores of the Mediterranean, besieged Rome (846), rifled the tombs of the apostles and hurled their lances at the mosaic picture of Christ in the apse of St. Peter’s. Ere the century was ended, Hungarian Arpad was renewing in Central Europe the ravages of Attila. Everywhere there was “distress of nations with perplexity”--perplexity made all the more terrible by the fact that the popes themselves, the men to whom Europe looked for counsel and for cheer, were throughout this century for the most part men of poor and feeble character. It was the age which saw the posthumous condemnation of Pope Formosus, the age in which the malevolent credulity of a later generation placed the fable of Pope Joan. But greater than all the other calamities which befel Europe during this period was unquestionably the misery caused by the raids of Scandinavian free-booters. A well-known story describes how Charles the Great saw the ships of the Northmen approaching the city in Provence where he then dwelt. As soon as the pirates perceived that they would have to deal with the great emperor himself, they sheered off in well-advised caution, but Charles stood at the eastern window of his palace gazing at their departing sails, and as he gazed he wept. None of his courtiers durst ask him the reason of his tears, but he himself deigned thus to explain them: “I weep for sorrow that they should have dared in my lifetime to approach this coast, and because I foresee how much misery they will cause to those who come after me”. Whatever may be the truth of this story, there is no doubt that Charles’s alleged prophecy was fatally verified. Engrossed as we generally are by the story of Danish ravages in England, we are apt to forget that, at least in the ninth century, France and Germany suffered nearly as much from the same calamity. All round the coast from Denmark to Spain, wherever a broad estuary invited their presence, there the Danish pirates entered and ravaged. The Elbe, the Rhine, the Seine, the Loire and the Garonne were all furrowed by their keels. Hamburg, Paris, Rouen, Bordeaux, Marseilles and countless other cities were sacked by them; some, especially Paris, more than once.