There seemed no defence from these Northmen, as they were called, who swarmed like destroying insects upon the coast, up the rivers, and over the lands; three times sacked Paris, the scars to-day being visible in that impressive Roman ruin, the _Palais des Thermes_, the home of the Caesars, and of the Merovingian kings, which they partially burned.
Fortified castles with towers and moats and drawbridges sprang up all over the kingdom for the protection of the rich.

After seven invasions all the old cities, Rouen, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Orleans, Beauvais, had been devastated, and France in coat of mail was hiding behind stone walls.
In looking through the vista of centuries it is easy to read the eternal purpose in the chain of cause and effect; and also to see that events, no less than kings, have their pedigrees.

The terrible child of the Northman was the _Feudal System_; which was again the father of those romantic and picturesque children, the _Crusades_; and these, the creators of a European civilization, whose children we are! Who can imagine the course of history with any one of these removed--each an apparently inevitable step in the unfolding of a mighty design, utterly incomprehensible at the time?
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