d not, in
the nature of him, become a _Christian_ at all; and he never did;--he
only became, at his best, the enemy of the Saracen. What he was, and
what alone he was capable of being, I will try to-day to explain.

And here I must advise you that in all points of history relating
to the period between 800 and 1200, you will find M. Viollet le
Duc, incidentally throughout his 'Dictionary of Architecture,' the
best-informed, most intelligent, and most thoughtful of guides.
His knowledge of architecture, carried down into the most minutely
practical details,--(which are often the most significant), and
embracing, over the entire surface of France, the buildings even of
the most secluded villages; his artistic enthusiasm, balanced by the
acutest sagacity, and his patriotism, by the frankest candour, render
his analysis of history during that active and constructive period the
most valuable known to me, and certainly, in its field, exhaustive.
Of the later nationality his account is imperfect, owing to his
professional interest in the mere _science_ of architecture, and
comparative insensibility to the power of sculpture;--but of the
time with which we are now concerned, whatever he tells you must be
regarded with grateful attention.

I introduce, therefore, the Normans to you, on their first entering
France, under his descriptive terms of them.[12]

[Footnote 12: Article "Architecture," vol. i., p. 138.]

"As soon as they were established on the soil, these barbarians became
the most hardy and active builders. Within the space of a century
and a half, they had covered the country on which they had definitely
landed, with religious, monastic, and civil edifices, of an extent and
richness then little common. It is difficult to suppose that they had
brought from Norway the elements of art,[13] but they were possessed
by a persisting and penetrating spirit; their brutal force did not
want for grandeur. Conquerors, they raised castles to assure their
domination; they soon recognized the Moral force of the clergy, and
endowed it richly. Eager always to attain their end, when once they
saw it, they _never left one of their enterprises unfinished_, and
in that they differed completely from the Southern inhabitants of
Gaul. Tenacious extremely, they were perhaps the only ones among the
barbarians established in France who had ideas of order; the only ones
who knew how to preserve their conquests, and compose a state. They
foun