There were several fierce battles, and sometimes gaining and sometimes losing, the Normans found themselves presently in a hard place. We are rather startled to hear of the appearance of king Olaf of Norway and the king of the Swedes as Richard's allies. The French people had not wholly outgrown their hatred—or fear and distrust either—of the pirates, and when the news came that bands of Northmen were landing in Brittany there was a wild excitement. Richard and the Chartres chieftain were making [Pg110] altogether too much of their quarrel, and King Robert, as preserver of the public peace, was obliged to interfere. After this episode everybody was more afraid of Normandy than ever, and Chartres was the gainer by the town of Dreux, with its forest and castle, that being the king's award. We cannot help wondering why Richard was persuaded to yield so easily, with all his Northmen eager enough to fight—but they disappear for the time being, and many stories were told of their treacherous warfare in Brittany; of the pitfalls covered with branches into which they tempted their mounted enemies on the battle-field of Dôl. All this seems to have been a little private diversion on their way to the Norman capital, where they were bidden for the business with Chartres.
Then there was a fight with the bishopric of Chalons, which interests us chiefly because Richard's son and namesake first makes his appearance. Renaud, the son of Otho William, who had lost the dukedom of Burgundy, had married a Norman damsel belonging to the royal family of Rolf. This Renaud was defeated and captured by the Count-Bishop of Chalons, of whom we know something already. He was loyal to King Robert of France, you remember, in the war with Burgundy, and now he treated Renaud with terrible severity, and had broken his vows, moreover, by getting married.
King Robert gave the Normans permission to march through his dominions, and seems to have turned his back upon the Count-Bishop. There was a succession of sieges, and the army burned and [Pg111] destroyed on every side as it went through Burgundy, and finally made great havoc in one of the chief towns, called Mirmande in the chronicles, though no Mirmande can be heard of now in that part of the world, and perhaps the angry Normans determined to leave no trace of it for antiquarians and geographers to discover. The Count-Bishop flees for his life to Chalons, and when he was assailed there, he was so frightened that he put an old saddle on his back and came out of the city gates in that fashion to beg for mercy. The merry historian who describes this scene adds that he offered Richard a ride and that he rolled on the ground at the young duke's feet in complete humiliation. One might reasonably say that the count made a donkey of himself in good earnest, and that his count's helmet and his priestly, shaven crown did not go very well together.