A Short History of France

ture, we now know. An identity in the structural form of language establishes with scientific certitude that however diverse their character and civil

istory of this wonderful Asiatic people, and when and why they left their native continent and colonized upon the northern shores of the Medi

the Teuton and Slav, which at a much later period followed them from the ancestra

renees and the Alps. And at a later period a portion of Northern Gaul, and the islands lying north of

same mountains rearing their heads; the same rivers flowing to the sea; the same plains stretching out in the sunlight. But instead of vines and flowers and cultivated fields we should behold great herd

iption of life in Gaul fiv

and covered with branches or straw, open to daylight by the door alone and confusedly heaped together behin

rn Gaul, a few hours later ebbed and flowed upon the shores of Greece-rich in culture, with refinements and subtleti

uman victims to his door, or hanging them from the bridle of his horse, or burning or flogging his prisoners to death, the Greek, with a literature, an art, and a civilization in ripest perfection, discussed with hi

day were the allies of to-morrow. Guided entirely by the fleeting desires and passions of the moment, with no far-reaching plans to restrain, the sixty or more tribes composing the Gallic people were in perpetual state of feud and anarchy, apparently insens

t border of Greek civilization along the southern edge of the benighted land. It was a brief illumination, lasting only a century or more,

locks; hence the area which now amply maintains forty millions of Frenchmen was all too small for si

disdainfully closed upon their messengers, not land, but vengeance, was their cry; and hordes o

nto the Eternal City, silent and deserted save only by the Senate and a few who remained intrenched in the Citadel; and

on-clad legions had been no match for his naked force, and a new sensation thrilled through the length and breadth of Gaul. It was the first throb of n

hat for food and land; a hunger for conquest, for vengeance

ook long-and cost no end of blood and treasure; but two hundred years from the capture of Rome, the Gauls were

n long before an overflow of a tribe in Northern Gaul (the Kymrians), which had hewed and plundered its wa

finally crossed the Hellespont (B.C. 278), and turned their attention to Asia Minor. And there, at last, we find them settled in a province called Gallicia, where they lived without amalgamating with the people about them, and four hundred years after Christ were speaking the language of

was struggling with Gaul and with the memories of the Carthaginian wars still fresh at Rome, the Goths were at her gates-their blows

n did superior training and intelligence drive back th

he condition of the centuries

ed centuries, and to recognize the preparation for