[A two days’ attack followed, but without success; they tried in vain to fill up the moat around the walls, throwing into it earth, trees, leaves, grass, shrubs, slaughtered animals, and even human beings, their captives.]
“Their ill-omened ranks tried in vain to fill up even a single ditch, or to prostrate the tower by their battering rams. Furious at being unable to get at us in open field, the Northmen take three of their highest vessels, quickly fill them with whole trees with all their leaves on, and set fire to them.”
January 31, 886.—“The east wind gently moves these ships vomiting flame, and with ropes they drag them along the banks to destroy the bridge and burn the tower; from the wood which fills them burst out burning flames.”
[Then the whole populace call upon their patron saint, St. Germain, and implore him to save them. The enemy’s vessels get aground upon a large mass of stones heaped up to render the bridge firm; no harm is done to it, and the besieged rush out, and sink the vessels in the river Seine. Thus ended the combat for that day, and the night was quietly passed.]
February 1, 886.—“Next day the Danes secretly carry to their camp the large bucklers which formed their testudo; they abandon two of their rams, vulgarly called carcamuses, which they feared to carry away; and our men took possession of them, and joyfully broke them in pieces. Sigefroy, the king, by whom it was feared the gates of our tower would have been burst in, then led away all his Danes.
“The third day of this battle was that of the ‘Purification of the Virgin.’ Nevertheless, the fatal cohorts of the Northmen went on board their vessels, swifter than birds, and directed their course to the eastern lands, then subject to the rule of Sad Austrasia, and which had hitherto not suffered from the enemy’s ravages.”
[Destroying in their course the deserted cottages of the famous Robert, whom they slew, and in their turn defeated with great loss, they bravely escaped to their ships without booty; they met with no greater success at the church of St. Germain, miraculously defended by the Saint.]
February 6, 886.—“Alas! during the silence of night the middle of the bridge fell in, carried away by the force of the furious waters. It was not so with the tower, which, built on land belonging to the happy Saint, remained standing on its foundations. Both were on the right side of the city.
“At sunrise the cruel Danes awoke, boarded their vessels, filled them with arms and shields, crossed the Seine, surrounded the unfortunate tower, and assailed it repeatedly with showers of missiles. At last, after a desperate fight, in which the besieged behaved nobly, the infamous besiegers, seeing that nothing could bend these brave hearts, brought before the gates of the unhappy tower a car filled with grains, and set it on fire. Another fierce struggle takes place; the Danes allow the flames to do their work, and retire; from want of vessels for drawing water the tower was destroyed, and the besieged retired to the end of the bridge which was still standing, and maintained the fight till sundown.”