glimmers pleasantly at intervals, pasture land and arable land both rich, and hills covered with apple and pear trees, grown for the making of cider and perry. Norman churches of the native style rise amidst all this cheerful beauty, to tinge it softly with old memories and the sentiment of the past; and while a few châteaux, with their round turrets and peaked spires, still harbour the survivors of the nobility of France, traces of ruined wall and old foss recall those earlier

lords whose history we are writing. It is a scene where an Anglo-Norman feels not quite a stranger, and yet has the piquancy of mingling with this the consciousness that he is not in his native land. To visit it is a kind of historic holiday.

No doubt, Gournay and its neighbouring districts wore a very different aspect to the eyes of Eudes, when a little unfortified village on a marshy spot represented it, and forest and morass overran whole miles. But we may be perfectly certain that he followed Rollo's example, and began that process of civilisation which, after all, was the real commencement of its prosperity to-day. The more "barbarous " Norsemen, we know those who shrank from baptism -were settled in a kind of colony about Bayeux; and hence we may be sure that the Lord of Gournay embraced Christianity—the first and most important step towards civilisation. And in the process which

followed-which created a new Normandy and laid the foundation of its present eminence among other departments of France-we see the justification of Rollo's conquest, and the purpose of Providence in preparing Scandinavia for sending men to this work. The Roman power had gone; the Frank government had failed; what remained? The Hand which may be seen everywhere in history drew from the officina gentium (as the Northern Peninsula was early called) a fresh weapon, and the Norseman supplied a new governing man to Europe, while he received a nobler faith and a higher culture for himself. To rule: this was his mission; for this he was made so strong, and yet so plastic, and his very viking barbarism was but a kind of discipline which, like the sea on which he lived, preserved his strength and health. In proportion as a family contributed to lead in Europe-saw when it had new work to do, and applied itself to doing it-is its history worth writing and reading; and this truth is the foundation of all honourable and pardonable "family pride." The meaner forms of this feeling are ignoble, but the feeling itself is natural and true. Hence, in this narrative, we are doing justice to many families, though only directly employed upon the story of one, and may help, perhaps, in telling that story, to suggest some hints towards the vindication of the Norman.

But, for the present, we shall pause in the narrative, having found in the Norse EUDES the founder of the race. All, we again repeat, is dim and shadowy, dark and indefinite, about the patriarch of this, as of all, families. It is a Force rather than a Person that is present with us when we think of him. But we may safely fancy him baptized at Rouen; building up fortresses and walls; clearing woods and setting ploughs going; putting down thieves and disorderly irregular people in his own lordship; looking up to Rollo as his chief and example, and slowly losing (half unconsciously to himself) the old inbred way of thinking about the world and life proper to Scandinavia―retaining chiefly the manhood and valour which formed the substratum of the more undeveloped capacities of the race. Such we may fancy the position of Eudes in the beginning of the tenth century.

CHAPTER II.

THE GOURNAYS IN NORMANDY FROM THE TIME OF ROLLO TO THE CONQUEST;-WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF "OLD HUGH."

F

JEW are the families-be their rank what it

may-whose descent and alliances are clearly ascertained during the tenth century. That century saw Hugh Capet win the crown of France; and the early Plantagenets (not then known by that famous name) begin to acquire renown in Anjou. The House of Este, from which springs her Majesty, can with difficulty be carried beyond its boundary by the researches of Leibnitz or the conjectures of Gibbon. Savoy sees her founder dimly in its twilight; when as yet the progenitors of Hapsburg and Hohenzollern were living obscurely in small castles in Switzerland and Suabia. Not till the year 958, or so, do we find with certainty the ancestors of such noble races as Montmorency and

Coucy; and it is about the same date that we make something like a personal acquaintance with the great shadowy potentates from whom sprung the AngloNorman aristocracy.

This early darkness-this hour before the daybreak of history—is a perplexing time. And the fact of its existence does something to favour a popular but unsound theory. According to this theory, the families -royal and noble-of Europe sprang up in the night of the Past,—much as mushrooms do. Any casual adventurer-stout of heart and strong of hand-could found a family; and everything in its subsequent history is explained by the circumstances in which he managed to place it. But on reflection and observation the plausibility of this view disappears. For, first, we know that aristocracy or nobility existed among the European races in the very depths of old times—as Tacitus, the Sagas, the Saxon Chronicle, and the most early historians sufficiently evince. And, secondly, absence of record cannot be made evidence of the non-existence of any person or fact. If Rollo was accompanied by swarms of sea-kings and vikings, why should not the landholders of the next three or four generations in Normandy have been sprung from them? that is, from races reckoned sacred in Scandinavia beyond our era,—and, so, originally, of a vis greater than that given to the average of mankind.