942-943

Probability

that the

assented

942-954 instruction had opened the ears of the facile boy to the persuasions of Thormod. Richard escaped perversion, yet the effects of the teaching suggested by his father were permanently discernible. The pliant youth became so thoroughly versed in the Danish tongue that he spake it with equal fluency as the Romance. He was renowned for this accomplishment. At the close of his long reign he was distinguished as one of the very few Normans who retained a knowledge of their ancestral language; and, throughout his life, he always appears as a boon hail-fellow, well met amongst the Danes. Now the heathen Normans or heathenizing party being still numerous and for the pur- formidable, the Romanized party who enjoyed placing Ri- the ascendancy at Rouen might be desirous to remove the young Duke beyond the sphere of the Danish- Danish power, and still more beyond the subtle dangers of the moral influence which the Danishry exercised. Laon was entirely secure against a coup-de-main,-no river up which a Danish fleet could sail, flowed through the surrounding plains. No Danish Hosts had ever nighed the Rock of Laon or been signalled by the Warder stationed on the topmost turret of Laon's huge tower.-— Louis anyhow would educate the boy as beseemed a Peer of France and a Christian, and keep him clear from Pagan infection.

pose of

chard out

of the power of

ry.

Concomitant circumstances may also have been admitted as diminishing the perils to

Bernard de

which the Minor might be exposed when his 942-954 person should be placed in the actual custody of his Royal Guardian.-Laon, though distant 942-943 from Rouen, was fairly within ken of Senlis, where antient Bernard, the trusty Uncle of Guillaume Longue-épée, now usually dwelt. Richard Vicinity of would be under Bernard's shadow: and Couci, Senlis to Count Bernard's stronghold, the stronghold wherein Guillaume Longue-épée, when crazed by terror, had contemplated of taking refuge, was quite in the neighbourhood of Laon.-Starting from Laon, and refreshing your horse at Couci by the way, you might reach Senlis between prime and evensong.

Laon.

Richard accompa

These ready means of communication with Count Bernard, that affectionate and powerful kinsman, so prompt for action, Hugh-le-Grand's liegeman, a member of the Vermandois family, and therefore radically antagonistic to Louis, might surely be valued as affording some security.-Closer safeguards had also been provided. When the royal cavalcade, defiling beneath the Beauvoisin gate, moved off from Rouen to France, the gazing multitude might behold Osmond de Yvo de Centvilles riding by the side of the merry boy's Osmond de horse, and, with the Tutor and the Pupil there was also the Fortis Marchio, otherwise the Formargis, the Veteran Yvo, heading the king's crossbow men, and preparing to take charge of the proud Castle in which the young Richard was to

nied to

Laon by

Creil and

Centvilles.

942-954 be prepared for the exercise of sovereign power. Thus would the Heir of Normandy be sure to 942-943 have excellent friends about him; some more distant, some nearer, whose fidelity and activity compensated for the paucity of their number.

Louis su

persedes the Nor

man autho

vernor of Rouen.

Whether this escort had been conceded to Norman solicitude or proffered by the cunning courtesy of the French King, the effect of the sedative, thus administered to the popular anxiety, must have been the same.-Louis dealt with the rities-ap- Normans in a masterly way. Bernard may have points Herfouin Go- discerned the King's manoeuvres, but, for the present, his sagacity could not serve to defeat them. Bernard, and Oslac, and Raoul Torta had been elided from the government without any visible effort. Louis, all his rights and privileges coalescing, Liegelord, Suzerain, Protector, Guardian, Conqueror, King,-had become supreme in Normandy. He therefore could safely depart, and Bernard, who had previously acted as Governor of the City, being put aside, that most important office was entrusted to Count Herlouin as the Royal Lieutenant.

Count Herlouin was a brave soldier, one of Guillaume Longue-épée's best friends, and rendered very recommendable to the Normans by his enmity against Arnoul. Yet there were those who entertained a dislike against him because it was held that he had brought Guillaume Longue-épée to his death. Herlouin's enemies

942-943

argued that it was the protection he had obtained 942-954 from Guillaume Longue-épée in the Montreuil affair which provoked Arnoul to the perpetration of the murder, and that therefore he was the original cause of the crime. Without denying the fact that popular unreason may have cast this undeserved responsibility upon Herlouin, we would also suppose that his strenuous adhesion to Louis, and his desertion of his patron's child, may have enhanced the aversion to which he ultimately fell a sacrifice; and, as we shall find in the course of this history, he perished during the crisis when his services were most needed by the French king.

Grand and

equally

and mutu

cal.

§ 10. Hugh-le-Grand held off cautiously dur- Hugh-leing these first stages of the Norman revolution, Louis a revolution ultimately so conducive to his own cautious aggrandizement and to the irreparable detriment ally inimiof the King. He avoided embroiling himself with the Normans, allowing free scope of action to Louis; for although Hugh kept up his relations in Normandy, yet he refrained from giving any open support to his homagers, and not only permitted Louis to pursue his schemes undisturbed, but actually made a formal surrender of Evreux. The apprehensions which Louis entertained concerning Hugh-le-Grand, his distrust of Hugh-leGrand, his deep resentment for the injuries he had sustained from Hugh-le-Grand, and, most tormenting of all, the drear foreboding that he had

942-954 not yet come to the worst of Hugh-le-Grand-kept him in constant disquietude. But the able antago942-943 nists were well matched and worthy of each other. The son of Charles-le-Simple and the sire of Hugh Capet were equally keen-sighted and agile:―Junge and guard, guard and lunge,—the fencing match continued during their respective lives. Hughle-Grand's temporary tameness was considerately motived according to the maxims of his family. Never did Hugh really recede, and, if he now appeared to halt in his career, he had slackened only for the purpose of making a fresh advance. When practicable, Hugh-le-Grand always preferred to cover his usurpations by the sanction of legality, and he had various objects in view, which, so long as there was a King in France, could not be effected otherwise than through that King's instrumentality.

Partition of the Ver

heritance.

The sons of Herbert of Vermandois were mandois in- bickering about the partition of their inheritance, to which an allusion has been previously made. Hugh-le-Grand was much interested in this transaction, he watched his nephews' affairs as well as his own, and they all appeared before Louis when holding his Court at Compiegne.

See Vol. I. p. 357, II. p. 330.

It will have been noticed by the reader, that the genealogical table of the succession exhibits an apparent departure from the usual rule, inasmuch as Albert the second son took the County of Vermandois and assumed his father's title,