the head toward the gentleman from France, and with a gracious smile
more expressive than his words--the smile interpreting to his hearers
the startling disclaimer: "It is nothing to me." The clever ecclesiast
read a very learned paper at the same meeting on a similar theme, and
the two gentlemen who sat near him, Du Chaillu and Nansen, were ideal
representatives of two of his four ethnological types, the Auvergnat
type of Central France and the long-headed Scandinavian of the North.
Indeed, as a matter for courteous rational discussion the question of
"Saxon or Norse" had the profoundest interest for the amiable savant,
who seemed to possess in perfection that fine philosophical quality of
intellect which the French have happily termed _justesse d'esprit_--a
quality of mind in which even the ablest disputant may sometimes be
deficient.
But, nothing disconcerted by criticism or compliment, M. Du Chaillu
remarked, with cold dignity, as he rose in final response: "Opinions,
gentlemen, may differ in England from opinions in France, but the
truth on both sides of the Channel is the same"--a sentiment to which
all present responded with that fine sympathy and with that perfect
courtesy "wherein--to derogate from none--the true heroic English
gentleman hath no peer."
III
"Every schoolboy" (to quote Macaulay) is familiar with the salient
facts in the history of the Normans; their origin in Scandinavia;
the seizure of a fertile province in France (wrung from a _fainéant_
heir of Charlemagne); their extraordinary evolution as the great
ethnic force of the period; their absolute mastery of sea and land
on every shore, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and notably
their Conquest of England, their perfect fusion with the conquered
peoples, and the resulting evolution of the English race. All this
is commonplace to every historical reader. But recent investigators,
going deeper, have inquired if the laws, institutions, language, and
material constructions which mark the pathway of Norman conquest are
simply the memorials of an extinct race? Is the Norman still living,
still powerful, progressive, and prolific? Or is it an exhausted racial
force, pithless, impotent, and effete, with no recognizable evidence
of its ancient prepotency in racial struggles for existence in the
conflicts of the past? Or, in a word, is it, as Mr. Freeman affirms,
a Lost Race? The answer to these questions depends largely upon the
answer to other queries, to wit: Was the conquest and sequential
settlement of England merely a military invasion? or was it a vast
popular migration such as America has witnessed in later times? or was
it not in point of fact both--an invasion and a migration, the one
following the other?
England was not conquered in a day. The battle of Hastings was
decisive, but not conclusive. There was a long and bloody struggle
before the invading force. Nearly _four_ years (the duration of our
"Civil War") of close, desperate fighting must be encountered before
the work of subjugation could be declared complete. Every gap in the
ranks of the invader must be filled by the importation of forces from
abroad. There was a perpetual draft upon the Continental populations,
and a ceaseless "rushing of troops to the front," precisely as in
the protracted "War between the States." All Europe had become the
recruiting ground of the Conqueror. He was peopling England even in the
midst of war; and when the period of "reconstruction" came the stream
of migration continued to flow. England was the bourn from which no
_immigrant_ returned; and under the military or reconstructive methods
of the Conqueror, every _invader_ was permanently planted upon the soil.
Apparently, these considerations furnish a conclusive answer to certain
critical objections which shall be cited as we proceed. The facts upon
which our conclusions rest are found, chiefly, in the official records
of England and in the authentic annals of the Anglo-Norman races.
Here, then, we must infer the existence of an immense multitude of
Norman immigrants mingling and eventually fusing with the subjugated
race. What has been the result of this intimate commingling of
ethnic elements upon English soil? Is it possible that so daring and
successful a gamester as the Norman was lost in the shuffle when an
auspicious destiny was directing the game? The writer of this paper
thinks that he found in the great Library of the British Museum
evidence that the Norman people are still a power upon this planet; to
be as carefully counted with in the struggles of the future as in the
conflicts of the past.
Recent investigation has disclosed the fact that contemporary records
in England and Normandy--records of two different countries of seven
hundred years' standing, relating to different branches of the same
race--are so minutely detailed as to enable the philosophic enquirer
"to trace the identity of families and even individuals, in two
countries." And this has been done by placing the Great Rolls of the
Norman Exchequer in juxtaposition with similar English records of
the Twelfth Century. This comparative juxtaposition of contemporary
official records of kindred races geographically separate has been
made the basis of an alphabetical series of English or Anglo-Norman
surnames, which is remarkably full, though necessarily incomplete since
the compiler, a very able English scholar, was not in position to
enumerate all the families then extant; but it contains five times as
many names as the famous Battle Abbey Roll, and conclusively shows that
the ancestry of the intellectual aristocracy of England was Norman.
The Anglo-Saxon and the Dane were shown to be in a hopeless minority.
The enquiry which resulted in the compilation of the alphabetical list
was restricted entirely to surnames of a purely Norman origin still
existing in England. A third or more of this English population is
Norman, directly descended from the Norman migration that preceded,
accompanied, or followed the Conquest.
Can evidence be more conclusive that the Norman was neither
extinguished nor absorbed by the sluggish Saxon who accepted his yoke?
Mr. Thomas Hardy, in his powerful fiction, "Tess," plainly accepts
the conclusiveness of these views. His heroine, though of humble
origin, clearly owed her involuntary seductiveness and fatal charm to
the transmitted potency of her Norman blood, and it is said that in
certain secluded parts of England may be found to-day rural or village
populations of the same class gathered about some old Norman castle,
donjon, or keep; their Norman descent distinctly visible in their
inherited personal traits; a certain characteristic combination of
intellect, courage, beauty, and social charm distinguishing them at
a glance from the dull, heavy, long-bodied, short-legged, unshapely
Saxon of a neighboring town or shire. The same restless blood or the
same spirit of adventure which brought the Scandinavian to Normandy and
the Norman to English soil, in time drove him to the great settlements
beyond the Atlantic Sea--settlements known by the English of to-day as
"The States." Their brethren in Ireland followed in great numbers at
a later day, and, wherever in recent wars the American flag has been
unfurled, "the fighting race" has stood beneath its folds--always in
force and always at the front, each with the line of battle beneath his
feet and the fire of battle in his eye.
"We fight wheriver a gintleman should,"
Says Murphy, and Kelly, and Shea;
"We fight wheriver the fighting is good;
And here's to the good, straight fighting blood!"
Says Murphy, and Kelly, and Shea.
[Illustration: DANIEL BOONE.]
Thither, too, came the indomitable Scot, precisely as he came in the
Colonial and Revolutionary days. "The Lowland race," says Mackintosh,
"Briton and NORMAN and Saxon and Dane, gave the world a new man--the
Sea Rover, the Border Soldier, the Pioneer.... The folk speech, from
Northumberland to the Clyde and the Forth, is Northern English or
Lowland Scotch; and the future man of Bannockburn and KING'S MOUNTAIN
is beginning to appear. He is the man with the blood of the Sea Rover
mixed with the blood of the Borderer, and the soldier, the scholar
and thinker, the statesman and lawyer, the trader and farmer." He is
the man that crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains as a pioneer. He is
the man that sat in the conventions that organized the State, and
stood in an unbroken line in all the pioneer battles of his race.
The earliest migration of the Anglo-Norman folk was to the Colony of
Virginia, as many of the old Virginian surnames, Bacon, Baskerville,
Boys (Bois), Cabell, Clay, etc., clearly attest; and the State of
Kentucky deriving a large population of English descent from Virginia,
we should naturally find a strong infusion of Anglo-Norman blood in the
people of this State--an inference fully sustained by the transcript of
Anglo-Norman surnames which the writer made from the list that he found
in the great Library in London.
The late Professor Shaler is frequently quoted to the effect that
ethnological research discloses the existence in Kentucky of the
largest body of nearly pure English folk to be found on the face of
the globe--that has been separated for two hundred years from the
parent English stock. But the facts do not warrant the assumption that
the Kentuckian is of purely "Anglo-Saxon" derivation. In _him_, at
least, the blood of the Norman is not wholly lost. He _is_, however, as
Professor Shaler says, an "Elizabethan" Englishman.
We print elsewhere a list of names familiar to Kentuckians, which
clearly points to the same general conclusion. With more leisure and
space this list might be greatly extended.
IV
But what are the characteristic traits of the Norman as we find
him in his early habitat in France? We are told by a contemporary
observer--Geoffrey Malaterra--that the typical or "composite" Norman
of his day was prodigiously astute, a passionate lover of litigation,
an eloquent speaker, skilled in diplomacy, sagacious in council,
convincing in debate; a son of the Church, but not too deferential to
prelates nor too precise in the observance of ecclesiastical forms; a
bold and tireless litigant, but not over-scrupulous in his methods of
procedure and not always strictly judicial in his construction of the
law. "If he was born a soldier," said Edward Freeman, "he was also a
born lawyer." In spite of this pronounced legal _penchant_ he was swift
(if not restrained) to disregard and override the law; in the phrase
of the old chronicler, the _gens_ was _effrenatissima_--recklessly
wild, unbridled and dangerous, _nisi jugo justitiæ prematur_; daring,
resolute, destructive in mutiny or revolt; seditious, piratical or
even revolutionary, unless the reins of government were in strong and
competent hands.
We had a notable mid-century exemplification of this "unbridled"
quality of temper in the introductory _razzia_ of Lopez at Cardenas.
When the Kentuckians, whose unerring rifles had crumpled up the
Spanish cavalry and successfully covered the slow retreat of Lopez
to the sea, were followed by the pursuing warship _Pizarro_ into the
harbor of Key West, nothing daunted they coolly seized the United
States fort, took possession of its batteries, and deliberately
trained its guns upon the Spanish man-of-war. _Gens effrenatissima_,
indeed. The fighting habits of the Liberators were notoriously loose
(especially under tropical suns); but what is to be particularly noted
in this instance is, that the reins of power in our highly civilized
government were unpardonably lax. It is possible, however, that the
reckless and "unbridled" conduct of the Kentuckians was due, in part,
to the circumstance that the chaplain of the Expedition had been killed.
The subsequent official investigation showed to the entire satisfaction
of our Anglo-Norman lawyers that practically everything had been done
under "the forms of law."
The word _effrenatus_ was almost overworked by Cicero. It perfectly
described the Catilines of old Rome and the banded ruffians that
wrought their will. But in his very lawlessness the Norman of Malaterra
never forgot the _law_. He scrupulously observed its "forms." Even
the Conquest of England was "justified" by a pronunciamento of
legal assumptions subtly and elaborately drawn. The Norman was a
shrewd and successful trafficker, and this tradition of commercial
skill and thrift is current in Normandy to-day. When he settled on
English soil or sailed in English ships he did not lose his inherited
commercial instincts. He made England the trading nation that she
is. An eminent Kentuckian, who bore the distinctive marks of Norman
blood, once said to a group of keenly attentive listeners, "The
meanest of all aristocracies is a commercial aristocracy." A like
disparaging conception of a powerful adversary was implied in the
remark attributed to Napoleon, that "the English were a nation of
shop-keepers"--_un peuple marchand_. It was this same race of innocuous
Anglo-Norman traffickers that crushed Napoleon's iron columns at
Waterloo, and forever closed his conquering career. But the Norman, who
was a soldier, a lawyer, a diplomatist, orator, hunter, horseman and
trader, was also a successful cultivator of the soil, and the Norman
agriculturist of to-day who reminds the tourist in his physical traits,
hair, eyes, and complexion, and even in the intonations of his voice,
of an English farmer of the Anglo-Norman type, bears a more striking
resemblance to his English kinsman indeed than to his dark-visaged
compatriot, the _vigneron_ of Southern France. We must add, to complete
the portraiture left us by Malaterra, that the Norman was a passionate
lover of horses, of the breed immortalized by the genius of Bonheur;
a bold equestrian, skilled in the use of arms; at home upon the sea,
and literally reared in the lap of war. And he was also a brilliant
orator, passionately fond of eloquent speech. From his early boyhood,
says the chronicler, he assiduously cultivated his natural aptitude for
that persuasive art, that power of ready and effective utterance which,
though often profane, made him dominant in the councils of war and of
peace; in the cabinets of diplomacy, and even in the chamber of the
King. _Gens astutissima_ beyond all doubt.
To return to our beginning--what think you was in the mind of Paul
Du Chaillu as he stood that memorable evening before an audience
of mid-century Kentuckians?--this philosophic thinker who had been
for years a critical observer of "the most dramatic spectacle in
history"--the sweeping, ceaseless, transcontinental march of the
Anglo-Norman race--what did he think of the environing conditions as he
stood in that old Courthouse which had resounded with the eloquence of
Anglo-Norman orators; which had echoed and re-echoed generation after
generation to the "Oyez!" "Oyez!" of Anglo-Norman sheriffs? and which
was still standing, an impressive memorial of days when the ground upon
which it was built was the camping-ground of the dominant figure in
this Westward march--the Anglo-Norman leader Boone or "Bohun"--a name
which in its very sound or utterance (_mugitus boum_) was in "dark and
bloody" times a challenge to mortal combat--a deep bellowing defiance
of "battle to the death"?
What were his thoughts as he looked with wondering eyes upon that
charming Southern matron with her fair, delicate features and high-bred
air? Was the vision a vivid reminder of blue-eyed "Scandinavian"
maidens with faces as white as their native snows and locks with the
softened shimmer of the midnight sun? One must acknowledge that the
very exquisiteness of form and tint made this a rare type, even in
Kentucky, but there were many interesting variations of it to be seen
at our great mid-century "Fairs"--from the rich "auburn" of Marie
Stuart to the "carroty" tresses of the Virgin Queen--framing lovely
faces and crowning tall, willowy figures of queenly mold. But probably
the prevailing tint of hair was that ascribed by the wizard romancer to
the Lady Rowena--with her dash of Scandinavian blood--something between
flaxen and brown; all in clear and brilliant contrast with a type that
glowed with the superb brunette finish of Southern and Central France.
Had Du Chaillu been with us in earlier days we could have shown him
likewise figures of a striking masculine type--tall, soldierly figures
that might have graced the "Viking age"--men who, after the fashion of
early Norman days, would have been equally at home in camp or court.
One of these gallant gentlemen, whom many of us remember, was in some
respects a striking counterpart of a Scandinavian sailor that figures
in a late romance, "Wolf Larsen"; like him even in the soubriquet
prefixed to his Scandinavian name; of gigantic stature and strength;
big-brained, passionate, strong-willed, energetic, proud, combative and
sagacious, with a deep instinctive love of the sea. But his chronic
irascibility of temper, often manifest on trifling provocation in
unbridled bursts of Berserker rage, sadly marred the brilliancy of his
military career, and engendered deep and implacable enmities which
brought his career as a soldier to a speedy and tragical close.
[Illustration: GOVERNOR ISAAC SHELBY.]
In other respects he radically differed from Norsemen of the Wolf
Larsen type. In his relations with his family and friends he was
delicate, generous, and kind; the tenderest of sons, the kindest
brother, the most devoted and loyal of friends: a lover of literature,
music, and the finer pleasures of social life. Strangest of all, he was
reverent and devout. He respected the forms of the Church, and every
night, even in the rude environment of the camp, he knelt beside his
soldier's couch and repeated the Lord's Prayer. But the soubriquet
fastened upon him both by resentful enemies and admiring friends
recalls his fictitious counterpart--Wolf Larsen. Whenever the name of
the Federal commander came up for discussion during our great Civil
War--whether in Confederate camp or by Kentucky firesides, or by the
campfires of his own loyal division--he was invariably known, by reason
of his huge figure, his big bovine head, his flaming black eyes,
his fierce, tumultuous energies, his headlong courage and gigantic
strength, by the soubriquet "Bull"--BULL NELSON--a sea-trained soldier
with a bellowing soubriquet prefixed to an honored racial name--a
mid-century Kentuckian, who in mediæval battle might have swung the
battle-axe of Front-de-Boeuf.
There were many others--Kentuckians of an ideal Anglo-Norman type--who
would have brought to M. Du Chaillu the strongest confirmation of his
philosophic views had he visited us during the cyclonic "sixties," or
in that halcyon interlude "before the war."
V
Returning now to the discussion of the masterly paper read by M. Du
Chaillu at the British Association,[4] we may consider certain aspects
of the question more in detail; conceding at the same time full credit
to the ability of the disputants who dissented from the views expressed
by the foreign savant. M. Du Chaillu was peculiarly fortunate in his
critics. If his theory should survive the searching and trenchant
criticisms of such men, his scholarship would command respect even if
they should decline to accept his conclusions in full.
[4] British Association for the Advancement of Science, Newcastle
Meeting, 1889.
A loyal Briton does not lightly abandon what he conceives to be
established or traditional views. This trait does not imply defect of
philosophic insight or want of wide research. It denotes simply the
influence of prepossession, opinionated habit, and conscious power.
Nor is this influence unusual. Scholars differ even as "doctors"
disagree. Dr. George Craik, whose name is familiar to every scholar
of the English race, was liberal enough to concede, a quarter of a
century before the advent of Du Chaillu as a Scandinavian protagonist,
that the English language might have more of a Scandinavian than of a
purely Germanic character; or, in other words, "more nearly resembled
the Danish or Swedish than the modern German." The invading bands, he
adds, by whom the dialect was originally brought over into Britain in
the Fifth and Sixth centuries, were in all probability drawn in great
part from the Scandinavian countries. At a still later date, too, this
English population was directly and largely recruited from Denmark and
the regions around the Baltic. Eastern and Northern England, from the
middle of the Ninth Century, "was as much Danish as English." In the
Eleventh Century the sovereign was a Dane.