When a really conquering race, however—one superior alike in physical and mental power to the subjugated population—invades a country, and, instead of being expelled, or passing onwards like a transient whirlwind, continues to hold the realm in virtue of superior power, such a race, as we have said, may long and almost indelibly perpetuate their features in the land. In such a case they in reality, if not in name, form a caste; each one of the invaders becomes a noble; and when they make exceptions to the practice of intermarrying among themselves, it is only that they may more widely diffuse their lineaments, by forming matrimonial or other unions with the female portion of the native race.[32] Thus the feudalism of the all-conquering Normans was a system of caste, by means of which they long maintained the purity and pre-eminence of their race in the countries which they conquered; as may best be seen in French history, where the _vieux noblesse_, even in 1789, were the lineal descendants of the soldiers of Clovis; and where the distinction between _noble_ and _roturier_ was kept up with such rigid and antiquated pertinacity, that at length the Celtic population, becoming more and more developed alike in intellect and resources, threw off the whole foreign system like an incubus, and returned to those principles of equality and volatility in government which distinguished their ancestors of old Gaul. We may remark in conclusion, on this topic, that the ascendancy of certain families of mankind is due not only to their superior physical, but even more to their superior mental organisation, which ever keeps them uppermost, and enables them to mate themselves with whom they please. It is a remarkable fact, as illustrative of the native vigour of some races, that there is not a head in Christendom which _legitimately_ wears a crown—not a single family in Europe whose blood is acknowledged to be royal, but traces its genealogy to that Norman colossus, WILLIAM the CONQUEROR. This has been well shown by M. Paulmier;[33] but we may add, as a curiosity which lately attracted our own notice, when looking at the portrait of the Conqueror—namely, that a strong resemblance exists between his fine and massive features and those of the present Czar of Russia. Both are distinguished by the same broad brow and arched eyebrows (not each forming a semicircle, as seems to be the meaning of the term “arched” when applied to eyebrows nowadays, but both combining to form an oval curve, vaulting over the under part of the face, as was the meaning among the Greeks), the same thick straight nose, and the same massive and beautiful conformation in the bones of the jaw and chin. The face of the Czar, however, we must add, is not equal in solid strength and intellect to that of his great progenitor.