Europe were mere barbarians, but there were
among them men of great natural powers, as there were among those
barbarians who overran the Roman empire; and they were able to take
advantage of the wretched condition of Europe, as earlier barbarians had
profited from the wretched condition of Rome. Of these men, Rollo was
one of the most eminent; and beyond all others of the Northmen his
action has had the largest influence on human affairs,--an influence,
too, that promises to last; for it is working vigorously at this moment,
though he has been more than nine centuries in his grave, and though to
most persons he is as much a mythical character as Hercules, and more so
than Romulus. We know that he was the founder of Normandy in the early
part of the tenth century; and but for his action in obtaining a
southern home for himself and his heathen followers, the conquest of
England never could have been attempted in a regular manner; and the
stream of English history must have run altogether differently, in a
political sense, even had Northmen, as distinguished from Normans,
succeeded in establishing themselves in that country. It was the French
character of the Normans which rendered their subjugation of England so
important an event, giving to it its peculiar significance, and causing
it to bear so strongly on European, Asiatic, and American history. The
Northmen became Christians and Normans. It is not uncommon to speak of
them as if they retained their Norwegian characteristics in "the
pleasant land of France," and were in the habit of looking back to the
home of their youth, or of their fathers, with that sort of fondness and
regret which were felt by those Englishmen who founded the American
nation. This is all wrong. The Northmen had left the North for the same
reason that other men leave their countries,--the only reason that ever
causes them to do so,--because the North did not afford them means of
support. Had they remained at home, they would have starved; and
therefore they turned their backs on that home, and became plunderers.
Some returned home, bearing with them much spoil; but others settled
abroad, and thought no more of the North. They cut the connection
entirely. Like an earlier "brood of winter," they found ample
compensation for all they had left behind in "the brighter day and skies
of azure hue" of Southern lands. They thought they had made a good
exchange of "Northern pines for Southern roses."

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