beauty, with most delightful scarlet locks,
who must be identical with your heroine.
See, she is coming now."

As I spoke, an open carriage and pair
rattled past us. It contained a lady and
gentleman— the former all smiles, the latter
all admiration.

"'Tis she," cried Auguste, "but not quite so
handsome, I think, as I once believed her.
But who is that hideous-looking person by
her side?"

"I should have told you," I answered,
"that Miss Walsingham is just married to
the richest and ugliest Englishman in Paris.
He is forty-five, and— never flatters!"

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER V.

UPON the ground where the brave Harold
fell, William the Norman afterwards founded
an abbey, which, under the name of Battle
Abbey, was a rich and splendid place through
many a troubled year, though now it is a grey
ruin, overgrown with ivy. But the first work
he had to do was to conquer the English
thoroughly; and that, as you know by this
time, was hard work for any man.

He ravaged several counties; he burned
and plundered many towns; he laid waste
scores upon scores of miles of pleasant
country; he destroyed innumerable lives;
and at length STIGAND, Archbishop of Cantebury,
with other representatives of the clergy
and the people, went to his camp, and submitted
to him. EDGAR, the insignificant son
of Edmund Ironside, was proclaimed King
by others, but nothing came of it. He
fled to Scotland afterwards, where his sister,
who was young and beautiful, married the
Scottish King. Edgar himself was not
important enough for anybody to care much
about him.

On Christmas Day William was crowned
in Westminster Abbey, under the title of
WILLIAM THE FIRST; but he is best known
as WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. It was a
strange coronation. One of the bishops who
performed the ceremony asked the Normans,
in French, if they would have Duke
William for their king? They answered
Yes. Another of the bishops put the same
question to the Saxons, in English. They,
too, answered Yes, with a loud shout. The
noise being heard by a guard of Norman
horse-soldiers outside, was mistaken for
resistance on the part of the English. The
guard instantly set fire to the neighbouring
houses, and a tumult ensued, in the midst of
which the King, being left alone in the Abbey,
with a few priests (and they all being in a
terrible fright together), was hurriedly crowned.
When the crown was placed upon his head,
he swore to govern the English as well as the
best of their own monarchs. I dare say you
think, as I do, that if we except the Great
Alfred, he might pretty easily have done that.

Numbers of the English nobles had been
killed in the last disastrous battle. Their
estates, and the estates of all the nobles who
had fought against him there, King William
seized upon, and gave to his own Norman
knights and nobles. Many great English
families of the present tune acquired their
English lands in this way, and are very proud
of it.

But, what is got by force must be maintained
by force. These nobles were obliged
to build castles all over England, to defend
their new property; and, do what he would,
the King could neither soothe nor quell the
nation as he wished. He gradually introduced
the Norman language and the Norman
customs; yet, for a long time, the great body
of the English remained sullen and revengeful.
On his going over to Normandy, to visit
his subjects there, the oppressions of his half-
brother, ODO, whom he left in charge of his
English kingdom, drove the people mad.
The men of Kent even invited over, to take
possession of Dover, their old enemy Count
Eustace of Boulogne, who had led the fray
when the Dover man was slain at his own
fireside. The men of Hereford, aided by the
Welsh, and commanded by a chief, named
EDRIC THE WILD, drove the Normans out of
their county. Some of those who had been
dispossessed of their lands, banded together in
the North of England; some, in Scotland;
some, in the thick woods and marshes; and
whensoever they could fall upon the Normans,
or upon the English who had submitted to
the Normans, they fought, despoiled, and
murdered, like the desperate outlaws that
they were. Conspiracies were set on foot
for a general massacre of the Normans,
like the old massacre of the Danes. In short,
the English, rendered furious by their injuries,
were in a murderous mood all through the
kingdom.

King William, fearing he might lose his
conquest, came back, and tried to pacify the
London people by soft words. He then set
forth to repress the country people by stern
deeds. Among the towns which he besieged,
and where he killed and maimed the inhabitants
without any distinction, sparing none,
young or old, armed or unarmed, were Oxford,
Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln,
York. In all these places, and in many
others, fire and sword worked their utmost
horrors, and made the land dreadful to
behold. The streams and rivers were
discolored with, blood; the sky was blackened
with smoke; the fields were wastes of ashes;
and the waysides were heaped up with dead.
Such are the fatal results of conquest and
ambition! Although William was a harsh
and angry man, I do not suppose that he
deliberately meant to work this shocking
ruin, when he invaded England. But, what
he had got by the strong hand, he could only
keep by the strong hand, and, in so doing, he
made England a great grave.