tablet has now (1911) disappeared. _See_ p. 313.]

[Footnote 36: Abbo's favourite epithet. They were without a head, for
they knew not Christ, the Head of Mankind.]

At the extreme north-east of Paris the Rue du Crimee leads to a group
of once barren hills, part of which is now made into the Park of the
Buttes Chaumont. Here, by the Mount of the Falcon (Montfaucon[37]) in
892 King Eudes fell upon an army of Northmen, who had come against
Paris and utterly routed them. Antheric, the noble pastor, with his
virgin-like face, led three hundred footmen into the fight and slew
six hundred of the _acephali_. But Abbo's muse now fails him, for
Eudes, noble Eudes, is no more worthy of his office, and Christ's
sheep are perishing. Where is the ancient prowess of France? Three
vices are working her destruction: pride, the sinful charms of Venus
(_foeda venustas veneris_) and love of sumptuous garments. Her
people are arrayed in purple vesture, and wear cloaks of gold; their
loins are cinctured with girdles rich with precious stones. Monk Abbo
wearies not of singing, but the deeds of noble Eudes are wanting; all
the poet craves is another victory to rejoice Heaven; another defeat
of the black host of the enemy.

[Footnote 37: In the Middle Ages and down to 1761 Montfaucon had a
sinister reputation. There stood the gallows of Paris, a great stone
gibbet with its three rows of chains, near the old Barriere du Combat,
where the present Rue de la Grange aux Belles abuts on the Boulevard
de la Villette.]

Alas! the noble Eudes was now a king with rebellious vassals. Paris
was never captured again, but the _acephali_ were devouring the land.
The grim spectres of Famine and Plague made a charnel-house of whole
regions of France, while Eudes was fighting the Count of Flanders, a
rival king, and the ineffectual emperor, Charles the Simple. He it was
who after Eudes' death, by the treaty of St. Claire sur Epte in 902,
surrendered to the barbarians the fair province, subsequently to be
known as Normandy. The new prayer in the Litany, "From the fury of the
Northmen, good Lord deliver us," was heard, and the dread name of
Rollo vanishes from history to live again in song. Under the title of
Robert, assumed from his god-father, he reappears to win a dukedom and
a king's daughter; the Normans are broken in to Christianity, law and
order; their land becomes one of the most civilized regions of France;
the fiercest of church levellers are known