CHAPTER XII .-- --DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS.
From the death of Charlemagne to the accession of Hugh Capet,--that is, from 814 to 987,--thirteen kings sat upon the throne of France.

What then became, under their reign and in the course of those hundred and seventy-three years, of the two great facts which swayed the mind and occupied the life of Charlemagne?
What became, that is, of the solid territorial foundation of the kingdom of Christian France, through efficient repression of foreign invasion, and of the unity of that vast empire wherein Charlemagne had attempted and hoped to resuscitate the Roman empire?
The fate of those two facts is the very history of France under the Carlovingian dynasty; it is the only portion of the events of that epoch which still deserves attention nowadays, for it is the only one which has exercised any great and lasting influence on the general history of France.
Attempts at foreign invasion of France were renewed very often, and in many parts of Gallo-Frankish territory, during the whole duration of the Carlovingian dynasty, and, even though they failed, they caused the population of the kingdom to suffer from cruel ravages.

Charlemagne, even after his successes against the different barbaric invaders, had foreseen the evils which would be inflicted on France by the most formidable and most determined of them, the Northmen, coming by sea, and landing on the coast.

The most closely contemporaneous and most given to detail of his chroniclers, the monk of St.Gall, tells in prolix and pompous, but evidently heartfelt and sincere terms, the tale of the great emperor's far-sightedness.

"Charles, who was ever astir," says he, "arrived by mere hap and unexpectedly, in a certain town of Narbonnese Gaul.