The real continuity with an immemorial past which inspires all Gallic
things is discoverable in this arrangement of Gaul. At the first glance
one might imagine a French province to be a chance growth of the feudal
ties and of the Middle Ages. A further effort of scholarship will prove
it essentially Roman. An intimate acquaintance with its customs and with
the site of its strongholds, coupled with a comparison of the most
recent and most fruitful hypotheses of historians, will convince you
that it is earlier than the Roman conquest; it is tribal, or the home of
a group of cognate tribes, and its roots are lost in prehistory. So it
is with Normandy.
This vast territory--larger (I think) than all North England from the
Humber to Cheviot and from Chester to the Solway--has never formed a
nation. It is typical of the national idea in France that Normandy
should have "held" of the political centre of the country, probably
since the first Gallic confederations were formed, certainly since the
organization of the Empire. It is equally typical of the local life of a
French province that, thus dependent, Normandy should have strictly
preserved its manner and its spirit, and should have readily made war
upon the Crown and resisted, as it still resists and will perhaps for
ever, the centralizing forces of the national temper.
If you will travel day after day, and afoot, westward across the length
of Normandy, you will have, if you are a good walker, a fortnight's
task ahead of you; even if you are walking for a wager, a week's.
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