The story moves rapidly enough, and ultimately a son, William the Conqueror, was born to Herlève and Robert the Magnificent.
After the death of Robert, Herlève married the Comte de Conteville, who took the name of Herlevin. Two sons were born to the pair, Odon, Bishop of Bayeux, and the Comte de Mortain, who fought gallantly at Hastings in the train of his stepbrother. There was a daughter, too, Muriel, who became Duchess of Albemarle.
Herlève and Herlevin were interred at the old Abbey of Grestain, whose ruins are yet to be seen near Honfleur.
It is a well-recognized fact in history that Edward VII. is a direct descendant, the twenty-ninth in the line, of William the Conqueror, the illustrious son of Herlève of Falaise; but it is not so widely known, apparently, that a number of the reigning sovereigns of Europe are equally of the blood of the duke-king, William of Normandy.
The Bourbons of France, Spain, Italy, and Brazil descended from Guillaume by the _reine-l'impératrice_ Mathilde, daughter of Henri I., likewise the Bourbons-Orleans.
The Emperor Joseph of Austria, of the house of Hapsburg, and Victor Emmanuel of Savoy follow, the latter in the thirtieth degree.
Finally, the Kaiser Wilhelm II. is a descendant, also the twenty-ninth in line, of the Norman Herlève.
All these illustrious sovereigns are proud indeed of their Norman blood, and when President Loubet visited the court of the Quirinal recently, he presented to the little Princesses of Italy a family of dolls dressed after the Norman fashion, a delicate sentiment apparently much appreciated by their elders, besides being held a political move of the first importance.
When the Kaiser, a few years since, made his celebrated journey to the Holy Land, it was with the avowed intention of visiting the great religious monuments of Sicily, erected by the kings of the family of the Guiscards of the Norman Cotentin.
The learned work of Bellencontre of Falaise on the genealogy of the ruling European houses traces all of the following directly in descent from the peasant maid of Falaise:
"Angleterre, Anhalt-Dessau, Autriche, Bade, Bavière, Belgique, Bresil (Dom Pedro), Brunswik, Cobourg-Gotha, Danemark, Deux Siciles, Espagne, France (Bourbon et Orleans), Grece, Hanovre, Hesse, Leuchtenberg, Lucques, Mecklembourg-Schewerin, Modene, Naples, Parme, Pays Bas, Portugal, Prusse (Allemagne), Russie, Sardaigne, Savoie-Carignan (Italie), Saxe-Royle, Saxe-Altenbourg, Saxe-Weimar, Suède, Toscane, Wurtemberg."