g so unwarlike a prince, caught
Charles by the foot, and pretending to carry it to his mouth, that he
might kiss it, overthrew him before all his courtiers. The French,
sensible of their present weakness, found it prudent to overlook this
insult [l].
[FN [k] Ypod. Neust. p. 417. [1] Gul Gemet. lib. 2. cap. 17.]

Rollo, who was now in the decline of life, and was tired of wars and
depredations, applied himself, with mature counsels, to the settlement
of his newly-acquired territory, which was thenceforth called
Normandy; and he parcelled it out among his captains and followers.
He followed, in this partition, the customs of the feudal law, which
was then universally established in the southern countries of Europe,
and which suited the peculiar circumstances of that age. He treated
the French subjects, who submitted to him, with mildness and justice;
he reclaimed his ancient followers from their ferocious violence; he
established law and order throughout his state; and after a life spent
in tumult and ravages, he died peaceably in a good old age, and left
his dominions to his posterity [m].
[FN [m] Ibid. cap. 19, 20, 21.]

William I. who succeeded him, governed the duchy twenty-five years;
and, during that time, the Normans were thoroughly intermingled with
the French, had acquired their language, had imitated their manners,
and had made such progress towards cultivation, that on the death of
William, his son Richard, though a minor [n], inherited his dominions:
a sure proof that the Normans were already somewhat advanced in
civility, and that their government could now rest secure on its laws
and civil institutions, and was not wholly sustained by the abilities
of the sovereign. Richard, after a long reign of fifty-four years,
was succeeded by his son of the same name in the year 996 [o]; which
was eighty-five years after the first establishment of the Normans in
France. This was the duke who gave his sister Emma in marriage to
Ethelred, King of England, and who thereby formed connexions with a
country which his posterity was so soon after destined to subdue.
[FN [n] Order. Vitalis, p. 459. Gul. Gemet. lib. 4. cap. 1. [o]
Order. Vitalis, p. 459.]

The Danes had been established during a longer period in England than
in France; and though the similarity of their original language to
that of the Saxons invited them to a more early coalition with the
natives, they had hitherto found so little example of civilized