in Burgundy with difficulty collecting an army, the Northmen decamped without the slightest effort on Hugh's part to pursue them.
The Northmen of Rouen thereupon resumed operations more fiercely than ever; they burned Amiens, Arras and the suburbs of Noyon. Once again directly threatened, the king hurried back from Burgundy and convoked the inhabitants of the district to the ost. This time the lords felt the necessity for union, and responded to the king's appeal; all took up arms, the Count of Vermandois and the Count of Flanders among others, and getting possession of Eu they slaughtered a whole band of pirates. Some months later the Northmen surprised the king at Fauquembergue in Artois. A bloody struggle ensued, the king was wounded and the Count of Ponthieu killed, but a thousand Northmen lay dead upon the field. The remainder fled, and indemnified themselves by pillaging the whole of the north of Francia.
Just at this time (beginning of 926) the Hungarians fell upon the country, and for a moment even threatened the territory round Rheims. Once again contributions were raised to buy the departure of the Northmen, and, meanwhile, the Hungarians re-crossed the frontier without let or hindrance.
Raoul, however, seemed disposed to make an effort to do his duty as king. In 930, as he was endeavouring to subdue the Aquitanians, who had rebelled against his authority, he met a strong party of Northmen in the Limousin; he pursued them valorously and cut them to pieces. Five years later, as the Hungarians were invading Burgundy, burning, robbing, and killing as they went, Raoul suddenly came up, and his presence sufficed to put the ravagers to flight. The Northmen, for their part, content themselves thenceforward with ravaging Brittany.
But hardly was Raoul dead when the Hungarians grew bolder. Repulsed from Germany in 937, they flooded the kingdom of France, burning and pillaging the monasteries around Rheims and Sens. They penetrated into the midst of Berry, and, traversing the whole of Burgundy, passed into Italy to continue their ravages there. In 951 Aquitaine was devastated in its turn; in 954 having burnt the suburbs of Cambrai, they pillaged Vermandois, and the country round Laon and Rheims, as well as Burgundy.
Against all these incursions, the atrocity of which left a strong impression on the minds of contemporaries, the monarchy did nothing. After having attempted to lead the struggle against the barbarians, it had gradually narrowed its outlook and had thought it sufficient to protect—though even this was in an intermittent way—the territories in which its actual domains lay, leaving to the dukes and counts of other districts the task of providing for their own defence. All care for the public interest was so far forgotten that each man, the king as well as the rest, felt that he had performed his whole duty when he had thrust back the predatory bands upon his neighbour's territory. The
