intended to express the submission of the dependent prince to the
superior authority and power of the higher potentate of whom he held his
lands. This act of homage was therefore to be performed, and next to the
homage was to come the baptism, and after the baptism, the marriage.

When, however, the time came for the performance of the first of these
ceremonies, and all the great chieftains and potentates of the
respective armies were assembled to witness it, Rollo, it was found,
would not submit to what the customs of the French monarchy required. He
ought to kneel before the king, and put his hands, clasped together,
between the king's hands, in token of submission, and then to kiss his
foot, which was covered with an elegantly fashioned slipper on such
occasions. Rollo would do all except the last; but that, no
remonstrances, urgencies, or persuasions would induce him to consent to.

And yet it was not a very unusual sign or token of political
subordination to sovereign power in those days. The pope had exacted it
even of an emperor a hundred years before; and it is continued by that
dignitary to the present day, on certain state occasions; though in the
case of the pope, there is embroidered on the slipper which the kneeling
suppliant kisses, a _cross_, so that he who humbles himself to this
ceremony may consider, if he pleases, that it is that sacred symbol of
the divine Redeemer's sufferings and death that he so reverently kisses,
and not the human foot by which it is covered.

Rollo could not be made to consent, himself, to kiss King Charles's
foot; and, finally, the difficulty was compromised by his agreeing to do
it by proxy. He ordered one of his courtiers to perform that part of the
ceremony. The courtier obeyed, but when he came to lift the foot, he did
it so rudely and lifted it so high as to turn the monarch over off his
seat. This made a laugh, but Rollo was too powerful for Charles to think
of resenting it.

A few days after this Rollo was baptized in the cathedral church at
Rouen, with great pomp and parade; and then, on the following week, he
was married to Giselle. The din of war in which he had lived for more
than thirty years was now changed into festivities and rejoicings. He
took full and peaceable possession of his dukedom, and governed it for
the remainder of his days with great wisdom, and lived in great
prosperity. He made it, in fact, one of the richest and most prosperous
realms in Euro