When some of the French nobles informed him that, in return for so generous a present, it was expected that he should throw himself at the king’s feet, and make suitable acknowledgments for his bounty, Rollo replied, that he would rather decline the present; and it was with some difficulty they could persuade him to make that compliment by one of his captains. The Dane, commissioned for this purpose, full of indignation at the order, and despising so unwarlike a prince, caught Charles by the foot, and pretending to carry it to his mouth, that he might kiss it, overthrew him before all his courtiers. The French, sensible of their present weakness, found it prudent to overlook this insult.[*] [* Gul. Gemet. lib. ii. cap. 17.] Rollo, who was now in the decline of life, and was tired of wars and depredations, applied himself, with mature counsels to the settlement of his new-acquired territory, which was thenceforth called Normandy; and he parcelled it out among his captains and followers. He followed, in this partition, the customs of the feudal law, which was then universally established in the southern countries of Europe, and which suited the peculiar circumstances of that age. He treated the French subjects, who submitted to him, with mildness and justice; he reclaimed his ancient followers from their ferocious violence; he established law and order throughout his state; and after a life spent in tumults and ravages, he died peaceably in a good old age, and left his dominions to his posterity.[**] [** Gul. Gemet. lib. ii. cap. 19, 20, 21.] William I., who succeeded him, governed the duchy twenty-five years; and, during that time, the Normans, who were thoroughly intermingled with the French, had acquired their language, had imitated their manners, and had made such progress towards cultivation, that, on the death of William, his son Richard, though a minor,[***] inherited his dominions; a sure proof that the Normans were already somewhat advanced in civility, and that their government could now rest secure on its laws and civil institutions, and was not wholly sustained by the abilities of the sovereign. Richard, after a long reign of fifty-four years, was succeeded by his son, of the same name, in the year 996,[****] which was eighty-five years after the first establishment of the Normans in France. This was the duke who gave his sister Emma in marriage to Ethelred, king of England, and who thereby formed connections with a country which his posterity was so soon after destined to subdue. [*** Order. Vitalis, p. 459. Grl. Geinet, lib. iv. cup. 1.] [**** Order. Vitalis, p. 459.]