like to own it. This
ancestorial reminiscence must have resulted from some peculiar fancy; no
Montgomery possessed or transmitted any memorial of his Norman
progenitors. The very name of Rollo's father, 'Senex quidam in partibus
Daciae,' was unknown to Rollo's grandchildren, and if not known, worse
than unknown, neglected."[D]

Another unfounded notion respecting the Normans relates the purity of
lineage. To read some historians, you might come to the conclusion that
the Normans were an unmixed race, and that they prided themselves on the
blueness of their blood, and were the most exclusive of peoples. Nothing
of the kind. Like most peoples who have done much, the Normans were a
mixed race. They took to themselves all who would come to them, who were
worth the taking. The old Roman lay of the asylum on the Palatine Hill
might almost serve as matter for a Norman _sirvente_, for the policy
which it attributes to Romulus, and which was followed by his
successors, was the policy adopted by Rollo, and which his successors
maintained. Says Sir F. Palgrave, "When treating of the 'Normans,' we
must always consider the appellation as descriptive rather than
ethnographical, indicative of political relations rather than of race.
Like William, the Conqueror's army, the hosts of Rollo were augmented by
adventurers from all countries. Rollo exhibited a remarkable flexibility
of character; he encouraged settlers from all parts of France and the
Gauls and England, and his successors systematically obeyed the
precedent." Most such adventurers in any age of the world must be of the
most ancient of families, the families, to wit, of "robbers and
reivers," the enlisted rascality of the earth, but none the worse
workmen because their patron is St. Cain. There is a great deal of work
to be done that can be done only by such fellows. It is sagely said that
the world would be but ill peopled if none but the wise were to marry.
It is certain that the world would get forward very slowly if none but
the mild and the moral were active in its business. There is an immense
amount of business to be accomplished that the mild cannot do, and which
the moral will not do. How can it be expected of mild men that they
should cut human throats, when they cannot be trusted even to stick the
sheep which they have no hesitation in eating? How unreasonable it would
be to expect moral men to become soldiers,--and the soldier's trade is
the only permanent pursuit