"Charles, I have heard everything."
"You spied upon me!" cried the King. "You have dared to surprise the secrets of your master!"
"I mistrusted your weakness. After our interview with Rothbert, I followed you. I have overheard everything;" and addressing himself to the young girl who, trembling at every limb, had fallen back upon her seat, the Archbishop of Rouen proceeded in a solemn and threatening voice: "Ghisèle, your father told you the truth. He is King only in name. The little territory that he still is master of is, like his crown, at the mercy of the Frankish seigneurs. They will dethrone him whenever it should please them, as they dethroned Charles the Fat and crowned in his stead Eudes, the Count of Paris, only twenty-five years ago."
"Yes! Yes! And there will be no lack for a bishop to consecrate the new usurper, just as there was found one to consecrate Count Eudes, not so, Francon?" cried Charles the Simple with bitterness. "Such is the gratitude of the priests towards the descendants of the Frankish Kings that have made the Church so rich!"
"The Church owes nothing to Kings; the Kings owe to the Church the remission of their sins!" was the disdainful reply of the archbishop. "The Kings have bestowed wealth upon the Church here below, on earth; they have been rewarded a hundredfold in heaven and all eternity. Now, Ghisèle, listen to what I have to say to you. If, by reason of your refusal, or the refusal of your father, the Northman pagans should, as they threaten to do, renew against Gaul the frightful and sacrilegious warfare that we are all familiar with, but which they promise to put an end to in the event of your father's consenting to grant your hand to their chieftain Rolf and to relinquish Neustria to him, then you and your father will be alone responsible for the frightful ills that will anew desolate the land."
"Francon," put in Charles the Simple imploringly, "the seigneurs also have provinces and daughters. Why could not they give to Rolf one of their provinces and one of their daughters?"
"Rolf wants Neustria, and Neustria belongs to you; Rolf wants Ghisèle, and Ghisèle is your daughter. The two sacrifices impose themselves upon the King!"
"I to marry that monster who caused my mother's death!" cried Ghisèle. "No! Never! Never! Rather would I die!"
"A curse, then, upon you in this world and the next!" shouted the archbishop in a thundering voice. "Let the blood that is to flow in this impious war fall upon your head and your father's! You will both have to answer before God for all the acts of sacrilege that you can prevent! You will both expiate these sins here on earth by the excommunication that I shall hurl upon you, and after death in everlasting flames! Charles, excommunicated and damned in this world shall be an object of horror to all his subjects. The Church that consecrated him King, will pronounce him damned and forfeit of his throne! His life will be ended in a dungeon!"
The terror that took hold of Charles the Simple as the Archbishop of Rouen spoke, now reached its height. He fell upon his knees at the priest's feet and clasping his hands implored: