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Page 19
[Footnote 16: Article "Ch�teau," vol. iii, p. 65.]
The next sentence is a curious one. I pray your attention to it. "The
defensive system of the Norman is born of a profound sentiment of
_distrust_ and _cunning, foreign to the character of the Frank_."
You will find in all my previous notices of the French, continual
insistance upon their natural Franchise, and also, if you take the
least pains in analysis of their literature down to this day, that
the idea of falseness is to them indeed more hateful than to any other
European nation. To take a quite cardinal instance. If you compare
Lucian's and Shakespeare's Timon with Moli�re's Alceste, you will find
the Greek and English misanthropes dwell only on men's _ingratitude_
to _themselves_, but Alceste, on their _falsehood to each other_.
Now hear M. le Duc farther:
"The castles built between the tenth and twelfth centuries along the
Loire, Gironde, and Seine, that is to say, along the lines of the
Norman invasions, and in the neighbourhood of their possessions, have
a peculiar and uniform character which one finds neither in central
France, nor in Burgundy, nor can there be any need for us to throw
light on (_faire ressortir_) the superiority of the warrior spirit
of the Normans, during the later times of the Carlovingian epoch,
over the spirit of the chiefs of Frank descent, established on the
Gallo-Roman soil." There's a bit of honesty in a Frenchman for you!
I have just said that they valued religion chiefly for its influence
of order in the present world: being in this, observe, as nearly as
may be the exact reverse of modern believers, or persons who profess
to be such,--of whom it may be generally alleged, too truly, that they
value religion with respect to their future bliss rather than their
present duty; and are therefore continually careless of its direct
commands, with easy excuse to themselves for disobedience to them.
Whereas the Norman, finding in his own heart an irresistible impulse
to action, and perceiving himself to be set, with entirely strong
body, brain, and will, in the midst of a weak and dissolute confusion
of all things, takes from the Bible instantly into his conscience
every exhortation to Do and to Govern; and becomes, with all his might
and understanding, a blunt and rough servant, knecht, or knight of
God, liable to much misapprehension, of course, as to the services
immediately required of him, but supposing, since the whole make of
him, outside and in, is a soldier's, that God meant him for a soldier,
and that he is to establish, by main force, the Christian faith and
works all over the world so far as he comprehends them; not merely
with the Mahometan indignation against spiritual error, but with a
sound and honest soul's dislike of material error, and resolution to
extinguish _that_, even if perchance found in the spiritual persons to
whom, in their office, he yet rendered total reverence.
Which force and faith in him I may best illustrate by merely putting
together the broken paragraphs of Sismondi's account of the founding
of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily: virtually contemporary with the
conquest of England.
"The Normans surpassed all the races of the west in their ardour for
pilgrimages. They would not, to go into the Holy Land, submit to the
monotony[17] of a long sea voyage--the rather that they found not
on the Mediterranean the storms or dangers they had rejoiced to
encounter on their own sea. They traversed by land the whole of
France and Italy, trusting to their swords to procure the necessary
subsistence,[18] if the charity of the faithful did not enough provide
for it with alms. The towns of Naples, Amalfi, Gaeta, and Bari, held
constant commerce with Syria; and frequent miracles, it was believed,
illustrated the Monte Cassino (St. Benedict again!) on the road of
Naples, and the Mount of Angels (Garganus) above Bari." (Querceta
Gargani--verily, laborant; _now_, et orant.) "The pilgrims wished
to visit during their journey the monasteries built on these two
mountains, and therefore nearly always, either going or returning to
the Holy Land, passed through Magna Gr�cia.
[Footnote 17: I give Sismondi's idea as it stands, but there was no
question in the matter of monotony or of danger. The journey was made
on foot because it was the most laborious way, and the most humble.]
[Footnote 18: See farther on, p. 110, the analogies with English
arrangements of the same kind.]
"In one of the earliest years of the eleventh century, about forty
of these religious travellers, having returned from the Holy Land,
chanced to have met together in Salerno at the moment when a small
Saracen fleet came to insult the town, and demand of it a military
contribution. The inhabitants of South Italy, at this time, abandoned
to the delights of their enchanted climate, had lost nearly all
military courage. The Salernitani saw with astonishment forty Norman
knights, after having demanded horses and arms from the Prince of
Salerno, order the gates of the town to be opened, charge the Saracens
fearlessly, and put them to flight. The Salernitani followed, however,
the example given them by these brave warriors, and those of the
Mussulmans who escaped their swords were forced to re-embark in all
haste.
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