Thanks, as the Franks believed, to the interposition of St.Germain, the fireships struck against the pile of stones from which the beams supporting the bridge in the centre were raised.

Eudes and his companions leaped down from the bridge and with hatchets hewed holes in the sides of the ships at the water-line, and they sank without having effected any damage to the bridge.
It was now the turn of the Franks to raise triumphant shouts, while the Danes, disheartened, fell back from the attack, and at night recrossed the river, leaving two of their battering-rams as tokens of the triumph of the besieged.

Paris had now a respite while the Danes again spread over the surrounding country, many of them ascending the river in their ships and wasting the country as far as Burgundy.
The monastery of St.Germain and the church in which the body of the saint was buried still remained untouched.

The bands of Northmen who had invaded England had never hesitated to plunder and destroy the churches and shrines of the Christians, but hitherto some thought of superstition had kept the followers of Siegfroi from assailing the monastery of St.Germain.
One soldier, bolder than the rest, now approached the church and with his spear broke some of the windows.

The Abbe D'Abbon, an eye-witness and minute historian of the siege of Paris, states that the impious Dane was at once struck dead.