Behold, then, Richard the Good and his Norman soldiery marching away to the wars! Duke Henry was dead, and King Robert made haste to summon his ally. Thirty thousand men were mustered under the Norman banner, and the black raven of war went slowly inland. What an enterprise it was to transport [Pg108] such a body of men and horses across country! Supplies could not be hurried from point to point as readily as in after-times, and the country itself must necessarily be almost devastated as if a swarm of locusts had crept through it. Normandy was overflowing with a military population anxious for something to do, with a lingering love for piracy and plundering. They made a swift journey, and Richard and his men were at the gates of the city of Auxerre almost as soon as the venerable duke was in his grave.
There was a tremendous siege; Robert's rival had won the people's hearts, and in the natural strongholds of the mountain slopes they defended themselves successfully. Besides this brave opposition of the Burgundians, the Normans were fought against in a more subtle way by strange phenomena in the heavens. A fiery dragon shot across the sky, and a thick fog and darkness overspread the face of the earth. Auxerre was shrouded in night, and the Norman archers could not see to shoot their arrows. Before long the leagued armies raised the siege of the border city and marched on farther into the country up among the bleak, rocky hills. Only one of the Burgundian nobles—Hugh, Count of Chalons and Bishop of Auxerre—was loyal to the cause of King Robert of France. Presently we shall see him again under very surprising circumstances for a count, not to speak of a bishop! The country was thoroughly ravaged, but some time passed before it was finally conquered. At last there was a compromise, and Robert's son was elected duke. His [Pg109] descendants gave France a vast amount of trouble in later years, and so Burgundy revenged herself and Otho William's lost cause.
Richard of Normandy had kept his army well drilled in this long Burgundian campaign, but before his reign was over he had another war to fight with the Count of Dreux. The lands of Dreux were originally in the grant made to Rolf, but later they were held by a line of counts, whose last representative disappeared in Richard the Fearless' reign. We find the country in Richard's possession without any record of war, so it had probably fallen to the crown by right. There was a great Roman road through the territory like the Watling Street that ran from Dover to Chester through England, and this was well defended as the old Roman roads always were. Chartres was joined to Dreux by this road, and Chartres was not at peace with Normandy. So a new fort and a town sprung up on the banks of the river to keep Chartres in check: Tillières, or the Tileries, which we might call the ancestor of the famous Tuileries of modern Paris.