The greater part of that people were afterward
conquered by France, and gradually became French in feeling as well as
in language. But a remnant clave to their connection with the land which
their forefathers had conquered, and that remnant, while keeping the
French tongue, never became French in feeling. This last case, that of
the Norman islands, is a specially instructive one. Normandy and England
were politically connected, while language and geography pointed rather
to a union between Normandy and France. In the case of continental
Normandy, where the geographical tie was strongest, language and
geography together could carry the day, and the continental Norman
became a Frenchman. In the islands, where the geographical tie was less
strong, political traditions and manifest interest carried the day
against language and a weaker geographical tie. The insular Norman did
not become a Frenchman. But neither did he become an Englishman. He
alone remained Norman, keeping his own tongue and his own laws, but
attached to the English crown by a tie at once of tradition and of
advantage.
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