945-946 912-954 and Barons were called over, name by name, to give the like confirmation. Hugh-le-Grand followed the clergy, foremost amongst the secularity, and then, the nobles and the knighthood of the realm; but a clenching security was to be given, the same as had been given to Rollo. In the presence of King Louis and by his direction, Hugh-le-Grand and his Baronage, and also the Norman Nobles and the Breton chiefs, renewed to the Duke of Normandy their pledges of service and amity.— Richard was conducted with surpassing pomp to Rouen; and thus did they three separate,-Richard, a Ducal Monarch; Hugh, a King without a crown; and Louis, a King without a Kingdom. §39. The well-spring most distant from the river's mouth does not invariably deserve the Pilgrim's visit, when he seeks to venerate the source of the stream. Though furthest up in the course according to map-measure, the rill may in fact be merely a feeder: such as would have disappeared in the soil, had it not been conducted as a contributor to the flowing current issuing from the real watershed on loftier ground. In the hierarchy of human glory the Founder of a State shines in the most exalted sphere; yet it is not necessarily the Warrior whose right hand Which is laid the first stone of the walls, or the Hero Founder of whose left foot first landed him upon the shore, by whom that transcendent honour should be the real the State? claimed. Progress is ever a complex process; 942-954 growth, ever the result produced by continuous 945-946 impulses; mutually independent, yet inseparable, each partial, all indispensable. He who waters could have done nothing without him who plants, nor he who plants without him who waters. But, whether in the supernal or the nether world, the world of spirit or the world of matter, the universal scheme of causation overwhelms our powers of conception: all moral and physical agents, the desires of the heart and the winds of heaven, being alike the instruments fulfilling the Lord's eternal will. It is not however merely consonant to our natural inclinations, but most helpful for the coordination of the recollections, which, manwards, constitute history, that we should canonize some one individual as the Founder of the State. And, perhaps, if we consider the doctrine in its full breadth and depth, seeking to assign that pre-eminence to the Leader who, so far as we are enabled to distinguish, was pre-doomed to be Richard the more special instrument in executing the b Divine decree, we should say, Peter Michaeloff Founder of rather than Ruric; Numa in preference to Ro- of Normulus. The Sage, or the Fortunate, or the Rollo. Bold, who established and effected the political and moral conformation of the State, rather than him, who, numbered first in chronological VOL. II. K K Sans Peur sidered as the real the Duchy mandy, not 945-946 942-954 sequence, appears at the head of the Fasti or the Dynasty. The stem of the Norman Dukes ascends from Rollo, but, it is Richard Sans Peur whom we must accept as the first organizer of the Norman Duchy; nay, through that Duchy, as the Parent of the British Empire. During Richard's long reign, and through his acts, the Normans became embued with that peculiar energy, which distinguished them ever afterwards so long as they retained a national existBy Richard's deeds and doings the ence. Duchy was fashioned and framed. This most successful and magnificent experiment had commenced with the renunciation or dissolution of all the antient engagements subsisting between Normandy and the Carlovingians, in place whereof was substituted the recent illusive compact, whereby a mere honorary supremacy was reserved to the French Crown. After these transactions, succeeded, as we shall, ere long, have occasion to narrate, that new connexion with the House of Robert-le-Fort, which, in process of time, enabled the Norman Duke to write himself Premier Temporal Peer of France, highest amongst the Nobles of the Monarchy. His people rose with him. It was through the Normans institutions introduced or devised by Richard, due to and which his personal influence vivified, that Sans Peur. the rude agglomeration of Danes and of half Formation of the national character of the principally Richard 945-946 Danes, and men of the Romane tongue, acquired 942-954 their distinct and homogeneous national character. Had it not been for Richard Sans Peur, never could the son of Tancred de Hauteville have engraved the vaunting epigraph upon his sword,-"Appulus et Calaber, Siculus mihi servit et Afer,"-never could William the Bastard have won the field of Senlac.-It was Richard's plastic talent which raised those Normans, whose vigour, infused into the fainting Anglo-Saxon race, has girdled them round the globe. 945 triumphal § 40. Gloriously was the young Richard restored to his own country and his own people, he, rejoicing in their affection, they, exulting in his prosperity. A splendid array of Chieftains and Nobles, Normans, Bretons, and Frenchmen, escorted him from Saint Clairsur-Epte. But, when he approached his own Richard's City, and drew nigh the Porte Beauvosine, that entry into eloquently silent record of so many mutations after his and misfortunes, the stately cavalcade was absorbed by the thickening multitude-crowds heapening upon crowds, in the very denseness of suffocation:-clergy and laity compressed into one vast moving mass,—all notions of dignity or regular order lost in the tumult of thankfulness. Richard was borne away by the living stream into the Cathedral: his Father and his Grandfather were lying there, and, in that Quire had Rouen liberation. 945-946 942-954, he been acknowledged as their successor. And he knelt before the high altar, and he and his subjects prayed, that he might be enabled to govern the country justly and peaceably, as he should give account at the great Judgment-day. And then, proceeding to the Palace, he entered upon the exercise of that authority to which he had been almost miraculously restored. Age of Richard at his restora tion to authority. sud So rich is our Norman history in events, so various and manifold the succession of incidents, that even to me myself,--moy l'escrivain,-it seems a very long time since I have had to tell you about Richard's birth at Fécamp.-How old do you suppose Richard was when he re-entered Rouen? Make him as old as we can, he cannot have been older than thirteen years of age-inthe time of deed hardly so old. But, called upon by necessity to perform the duties which had devolved upon him, the sharp, clever boy appears denly matured into full intellectual maturity. "Years of discretion:" how vague is the Majority import of that term!-Nature, in a manner, minority. prescribes a period; yet, when defined by rule, the line of demarcation becomes evanescent or hypothetical. The thoughtless, beardless spendthrift may commence his debauch on the eve of his natal day, unable to perform any valid act concerning his estates; let him, however, awaiting the chime, grasp the dice-box in his hands, and he becomes fully competent to play them and |