s originated in the impression which Norman
genius made upon him. It was to transform this race, the tyrants of
the Baltic and the English seas, the dominators of the Mediterranean
and the Aegean, into omnipresent emissaries and soldiers of the
theocratic State whose centre was Rome. But the vastness of his
original design broke even the mighty will of Hildebrand; his purpose
with regard to the Norseman remains like some abandoned sketch by
Buonarroti or Tintoretto. Yet no ruler of men had a profounder
knowledge of character, and with the Viking nature circumstance had
rendered him peculiarly familiar. The judgment of Orderic and of
William of Malmesbury confirms the impression of Hildebrand. But the
Normans have been their own witnesses, the cathedrals which they raised
from the Seine to the Tyne are epics in stone, inspired by no earthly
muse, fit emblems of the rock-like endurance and soaring valour of our
race.

There is a way of writing the history of Senlac which Voltaire,
Thierry, Michelet, and Guizot dote upon, infecting certain English
historians with their complacency, as if the Norse Vikings were the
descendants of Chlodovech, and the conquest of England were the glory
of France. The absurdity was crowned in 1804, when Napoleon turned the
attention of his subjects to the history of 1066, as an auspicious
study for the partners of his great enterprise against the England of
Pitt! How many Franks, one asks, followed the red banner of the
Bastard to Senlac, or, leaning on their shields, watched the coronation
at Westminster? Nor was it in the valley of the Seine that the
Norsemen acquired their genius for religion, for government, for art.
To the followers of Hrolf the empire of Charlemagne had the halo which
the Empire of Rome had to the followers of Alaric, and in that spirit
they adopted its language and turned its laws to their own purposes.
But Jutes and Angles and Saxons, Ostmen and Danes, were, if less
assiduous, not less earnest pupils in the same school as the Norsemen:
to all alike, the remnant of the Frankish realm of Charles lay nearest,
representing Rome and the glory of the Caesars. Nature and her
affinities drew the Normans to the West, across the salt plains whither
for six hundred years the most adventurous of their own blood had
preceded them. They closed the movement towards the sunset which Jute
and Saxon began; they are the last, the youngest, and in politics the
most richly gifte