With this answer the ambassadors returned to the French camp, and ere long the Normans were attacked in their entrenchments. But Rolfganger and his comrades rushed to arms, and fought with such courage that the French suffered a complete defeat, and the Duke of France fell by the hand of a fisherman of Rouen.
The Normans, after vanquishing the host of King Charles, found themselves at liberty to pursue their voyage; and Rolfganger, availing himself of the advantage, sailed up the Seine, and laid siege to Paris. Baffled in his attempt to enter the city, the Norman hero consoled himself by taking Bayeux, Evreux, and other places, and gradually found himself ruling as a conqueror over the greater part of Neustria. At Evreux, he seized as his prey a lady named Popa, the daughter of Count Beranger, whom he espoused; and, becoming gradually more civilized, he rendered himself wonderfully popular with the inhabitants of the district subject to his sway.
Meanwhile the French suffered so severely from the hostility of the Normans, that Charles the Simple recognised the expediency of securing the friendship of warriors so formidable. With this object he sent the Archbishop of Rouen to negotiate with Rolfganger, and the result was that the Sea-King consented to become a Christian, to wed Gisla, the daughter of Charles, and to live at peace with France, on condition that the French monarch ceded to him the province of Neustria.
Matters having reached this stage, preparations were made to ratify the treaty in a solemn manner, and for that purpose Charles the Simple and Rolfganger agreed to hold a conference at the village at St. Clair, on the green-margined Epte. Each was accompanied by a numerous train, and, while the French pitched their tents on one side of the river, the Normans pitched theirs on the other. At the appointed hour, however, Rolfganger crossed the Epte, approached the chair of state, placed his hand between those of the King, took, without kneeling, the oath of fealty, and then, supposing the ceremony was over, turned to depart.
"But," said the Frenchmen, "it is fitting that he who receives such a gift of territory should kneel before the King and kiss his foot."
"Nay," exclaimed Rolfganger; "never will I kneel before a mortal; never will I kiss the foot of any man."
The French counts, however, insisted on this ceremony, and Rolfganger, with an affectation of simplicity, made a sign to one of his comrades. The Norman, obeying his chief's gesture, immediately stepped forward and seized upon Charles's foot. Neglecting, however, to bend his own knee, he lifted the King's foot so high in the effort to bring it to his lips, that the chair of state was overturned, and the heir of Charlemagne lay sprawling on his back.
Rolfganger paying homage to Charles the Simple.