Louis II succeeded his Charles father the Bald person, and was crowned in Compiegne by the archbishop of Rheims Hinemar, which had a great influence.

The new king tried to reconcile the large ones by generosities, but it only succeeds in being humiliated; its stammering made it ridiculous.

Eudes was worthy of his Robert father the Fort, it made with Norman terrible war; one did not speak any more but about his victories, still grown by popular imagination.

Thus the Abbon poet tells that in Montfaucon in Argonne, Eudes, with thousand warriors only, overcame nineteen thousand Norman, passed half to the son of the sword, and killed their chief in singular combat from there.

This legend even shows which services returned men like Eudes, and how much the people were grateful to them.

The Norman ones, after having taken Rouen, went up the Seine with their seven hundred boats and appeared in front of Paris on November 25 885: they expected to enter the city without blow to férir, but the count of Paris Eudes, son of Robert the Fort, and the valiant Gozlin bishop had repaired the walls, had barred the Seine and had brought together around them people of heart; all the attacks failed: the Parisian ones, which made good guard on the ramparts, launched enormous stones on the groups of Norman, and flooded those which approached ebullient oil and molten lead.

Finally the bishop and the count with some brave men made exits which threw the disorder among the attackers; Eudes, springing au.galop of its horse, cut through a path everywhere; the bishop accepted a blow of javelin and succumbed to tiredness.

Paris, besieged for eleven months, had been defended with strength, but suffered cruelly from the famine; also the joy was it large when one saw on the Montmartre hillock the helmets étincelants of the imperial army: it was Charles the Large one who finally decided to help the Parisian ones (October 886).

The Norman ones, which had established their camp with Saint-Germain the Resident of Auxerre, were folded up on left bank with Saint-Germain of the Meadows: they seemed lost, and the Parisian ones prepared to melt on them, when one learned with stupor that Charles the Large one had just made shamefully peace, and to pay 800 books with Norman to buy their departure.

From this day Charles excited the contempt, and Paris the admiration of all.

Contrast was large between the heroism of this city and the cowardice of this emperor.

The feudal lords, who will misuse later to be able to them, start by being the guards of the people against the brigands and the invaders; all the country roughcasts fortresses, to be in a position to defend oneself: each lord chooses in his stronghold an inaccessible hill on the edge of a pond or a ravine; he built massive walls there, he raises enormous turns there, he digs immense undergrounds there; there the peasants will find a shelter for them and their herds.

As soon as a danger is announced, the poor take refuge with the castle and pile up there; the danger passed, each one turns over to its thatched cottage.

The castle, it is safety, and the lord of the manor the saver.