d with
all the alternations of success and reverse, all the intermixture of
brilliant daring and obscure sufferings, that can occur when the
assailants are determined and the defenders devoted. Not only a
contemporary but an eye-witness, Abbo, a monk of St. Germain des Pres,
has recounted the details in a long poem, wherein the writer, devoid of
talent, adds nothing to the simple representation of events; it is
history itself which gives to Abbo's poem a high degree of interest. We
do not possess, in reference to these continual struggles of the Northmen
with the Gallo-Frankish populations, any other document which is equally
precise and complete, or which could make us so well acquainted with all
the incidents, all the phases of this irregular warfare between two
peoples, one without a government, the other without a country. The
bishop, Gozlin, died during the siege. Count Eudes quitted Paris for a
time to go and beg aid of the emperor; but the Parisians soon saw him
reappear on the heights of Montmartre with three battalions of troops,
and he re-entered the town, spurring on his horse and striking light and
left with his battle-axe through the ranks of the dumfounded besiegers.
The struggle was prolonged throughout the summer; and when, in November,
886, Charles the Fat at last appeared before Paris, "with a large army of
all nations," it was to purchase the retreat of the Northmen at the cost
of a heavy ransom, and by allowing them to go and winter in Burgundy,
"whereof the inhabitants obeyed not the emperor."

Some months afterwards, in 887, Charles the Fat was deposed, at a diet
held on the banks of the Rhine, by the grandees of Germanic France; and
Arnulf, a natural son of Carloman, the brother of Louis III., was
proclaimed emperor in his stead. At the same time Count Eudes, the
gallant defender of Paris, was elected king at Compiegne and crowned by
the Archbishop of Sens. Guy, duke of Spoleto, descended from Charlemagne
in the female line, hastened to France and was declared king at Langres
by the bishop of that town, but returned with precipitation to Italy,
seeing no chance of maintaining himself in his French kingship.
Elsewhere, Boso, duke of Arles, became king of Provence, and the
Burgundian Count Rodolph had himself crowned at St. Maurice, in the
Valais, king of transjuran Burgundy. There was still in France a
legitimate Carlovingian, a son of Louis the Stutterer, who was hereafter
to become Charles