Gaul

“ Your gorgeous capital of Aix-la-Chapelle, the capital of your Germanic possessions, is not Gaul. Gaul has remained to you a strange country. You love forests that lend themselves to your autumn hunting parties, and the rich domains, whence every year the revenues are carted to your residences on the other side of the Rhine. But you do not love Gaul, seeing that you exhaust her resources in men and money in order to carry on your wars. Frightful misery desolates our provinces. ”

“ Out of eight members Provence, Bordeaux, Périgord and Languedoc had supplied six; and then, growing excited: “Aha, the South is climbing, the South is climbing! Paris is ours. We have everything. It rests with you, gentlemen, to profit by it. For the second time the Latins have conquered Gaul!”
He looked indeed like a Latin of the conquest, his head like a medallion with broad flat surfaces on the cheeks, with his dark complexion and unceremonious ways, his carelessness, so out of place in this Parisian drawing-room. ”

“ And he advanced among the shattered and trampled vestiges of Gallic huts, the thatched roofs of which once extended like some motionless army and which were now degraded into less even than ruins—into little more than a heap of manure spread upon the ground. And he reflected:
"Behold what remains of so many ages of men! Behold what they have made of the dwellings wherein the chiefs of the Atrebates hung their arms!"
The sun had risen over the grades of the amphitheatre, and with insatiable and inquisitive hatred the Gaul wandered among the vast enclosures filled with bricks and stones. ”

“ Aye, where is she, the proud and powerful Gaul of the days of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys, of the Sacrovirs, the Vindexes, the Civiles, the Victorias?"
"Who is the present inheritor of Gaul's one-time valor? The Vagres, the 'Wolves-Heads,' the 'Wolves!' It is they alone who still carry on the struggle against the barbarians!"
"And yet we are hunted like wild beasts, put to the rack and hanged if taken!"
"But our nails are sharp and our teeth trenchant to tear to pieces and devour our enemies!" ”

“ The crowns offered to me by all the cities of Gaul I have submitted, conscript fathers, to your grace; dedicate ye them with your own hands to Jupiter, all-bountiful, all-powerful, and to the other immortal gods and goddesses. All the booty is retaken, and, further, we have made fresh captures, more considerable than our first losses; the fields of Gaul are tilled by the oxen of the barbarians, and German teams bend their necks in slavery to our husbandmen; divers nations raise cattle for our consumption, and horses to remount our cavalry ”

“ I alone governed our country. Ruper, an old and tried general in the wars of the Rhine, was placed in command of the troops. In its undying idolatry for you, the army wished to keep you in its midst. I was engaged in developing in Gaul the blessings of peace. Always faithful to the Christian faith, I did not consider it politic to make a public confession of my belief, and I concealed from even you, Victoria, my conversion to a religion whose Pope is in Rome. Since the last five years Gaul has been prospering at home, and is respected abroad. ”

“ Such is its spirit of adventure: always marching ahead towards the unknown, rather than to stop and build. Thus, to-day, one-third of Gaul is in the hands of the Romans, while some centuries ago the Gallic race occupied through its headlong conquests, besides Gaul, England, Ireland, upper Italy, the banks of the Danube, and the countries along the sea border as far east and north as Denmark. ”

“ The Gauls were settling into peaceful habits. The soil of Gaul was now as well cultivated as Italy. Barges loaded with merchandise were passing freely along the Rhone and the Saône, the Loire, the Moselle, and the Rhine. 8 The best of the chiefs were made senators of Rome, and the people were happy and contented. What he had done for Gaul he might, if he lived, do for Spain, and Africa, and the East. But it was the concern of others more than of himself. “Better,” he said, “to die at once than live in perpetual dread of treason.” ”

“ They soon overran Flanders and the north, and at length under Clovis captured Paris and conquered nearly the whole of Gaul.
The end of the fifth century is the beginning of the evil times of Gallic story. That fair land of France, “one of Nature’s choicest masterpieces, one of Ceres’ chiefest barns for corn, one of Bacchus’ prime wine cellars and of Neptune’s best salt-pits,” became the prey of the barbarian. The whole fabric of civilisation seem doomed to destruction. Gaul had become the richest and most populous of Roman provinces; its learning and literature were noised in Rome ”

“ Latin civilization was speedily assimilated, and Gaul became, after a time, more Roman almost than Rome itself. Even at this distant date, nowhere is it more easy to enter into the spirit of ancient Rome than within the gaunt and gigantic amphitheatre of Arles, by the exquisite Maison Carrée of Nimes, and beneath the stupendous aqueduct of Pont du Gard. But as the power of Rome declined new torrents of invaders swept into Gaul in successive waves, Burgundian giving place to Visigoth, and Visigoth to Frank. ”

“ While it is true that Gaul was again a province of Rome, nevertheless, all the practical franchises, that we reconquered so dearly by innumerable insurrections, and paid for with the blood of our fathers, have remained to us. None has dared, none will dare to deprive us of them. We shall preserve our laws and customs; we shall enjoy our full rights as citizens. Our incorporation with the Empire, the impost that we pay into the fisc, and our name of "Roman Gaul"—these are the only evidences of our dependence. ”

“ Gaul could boast of her twelve hundred cities; 75 and though, in the northern parts, many of them, without excepting Paris itself, were little more than the rude and imperfect townships of a rising people, the southern provinces imitated the wealth and elegance of Italy. 76 Many were the cities of Gaul, Marseilles, Arles, Nismes, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Bourdeaux, Autun, Vienna, Lyons, Langres, and Treves, whose ancient condition might sustain an equal, and perhaps advantageous comparison with their present state. ”

“ Gaul was not only the name of the whole country, which embraced three provinces—Gallia, Aquitania, and Britannia—it was also the name of one of the provinces. As Gaul in its widest sense was a different country from the Island of Britain, so the province of Gaul was quite distinct from the province of Armoric Britain. The Gauls, Aquitanians, and Britons, all possessing, as Csesar testifies, separate governments and different nationalities, regarded one another as distinct races. ”

“ Domitius, the consul, is angry, but the chief, or king, as he is styled, of the Allobroges, sends an ambassador in great state and formality to deprecate his anger. The interview is amusing, and the contrast very notable, as between the poetical and romantic Gaul and the cold, matter-of-fact Roman. Out of politeness to the Roman general, the Gaul arrives richly dressed, and having with him a brilliant train, also a number of fine dogs, the sign of an ancient as of a modern gentleman. ”

“ I have said that in the Avernian Mountains was the centre of Gaul and the power upon which the history of Gaul depends. Upon the Margeride, which is one of their uttermost ridges, du Guesclin was wounded to death. One may see the huge stones piled up on the place where he fell. In the heart of those mountains, at Puy, religion has effects that are eerie; it uses odd high peaks for shrines—needles of rock; and a long way off all round is a circle of hills of a black-blue in the distance, and they and the rivers have magical names—the river Red Cap and Chaise Dieu, "God's Chair." ”

“ His bounty free, Fierce to destroy. Beloved of all, Gaul, gentle, brave, Son of great Morn; Hardy in war, His praise of old, A comely man, King, soldierly, free, Of no soft speech, No lack of sense, Cheerful as great: In battle’s day He moved a prince; Though soft his skin, Not soft his deed, Of portly mould, A fruitful branch, His heart so pure, He trains the young. ’Bove mountains high Rises in victory, We ever fear When he assails. I tell you Finn, Avoid the man, Terror of Gaul Should make you quail; Soothe him rather, [45] Better than fight. ”

“ By ceaselessly warring against the Frisians, the Saxons and other peoples who wished to invade Gaul, you have checked, if not forever, at least for a long time, the maraudings of those hordes that ravaged the north and east of our unhappy country. But if you have barred the entrance of the barbarians into Gaul over land, the sea remains open to them. The Northman pirates almost every day make descents upon the coasts of your Empire, and their boldness increases to the point that ascending in their vessels the Meuse, the Gironde and the Loire, they threaten the very heart of your dominion. ”

“ Winter came and covered Gaul with darkness, with ice and with snow. The hearts of the warriors in their wattle huts were moved as they thought on the chiefs and their retainers whom Cæsar had slain or sold by auction. Sometimes to the door of the hut came à man begging bread and showing his wrists with the hands cut off by a lictor. And the warriors' hearts revolted. Words of wrath passed from mouth to mouth. They assembled by night in the depths of the woods and the hollows of the rocks.
Meanwhile King Komm with his faithful followers hunted in the forests, in the land of the Atrebates. ”

“ All the documents that we possess authorise us to respond that Gaul--to begin from the time of Augustus--was able to grow rich quickly, because the events following the Roman conquest turned and disposed the general conditions of the Empire in its favour. Gaul then, as France now, was endowed with several requisites essential to its becoming a nation of great economic development: a land very fertile; a population dense for the times, intelligent, wide-awake, active ”

“ Geographically and ethnographically, the Low Countries belong both to Gaul and to Germany. It is even doubtful to which of the two the Batavian island, which is the core of the whole country, was reckoned by the Romans. It is, however, most probable that all the land, with the exception of Friesland, was considered a part of Gaul. Three great rivers—the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheld—had deposited their slime for ages among the dunes and sandbanks heaved up by the ocean around their mouths. A delta was thus formed, habitable at last for man. ”

“ These descriptions show Gaul to be one of the new countries, like the Argentine Republic or the United States, in which the land has still almost its natural pristine fecundity and brings forth a marvellous abundance of plants that clothe and nourish man. We know that in Gaul under the Empire there were immense fortunes in land in face of which the fortunes of wealthy Italian proprietors shrink like the fortunes of Europe when compared with the great ranch fortunes of the Argentine Republic or the United States. ”

“ No other city of old Gaul seems to have put itself so completely in harmony with its rich nucleus of "remains"—eliminating or omitting the monuments of other periods, and content to group its later growth subserviently about the temple and the amphitheatre. ”

“ In short, there was really nothing in common between the two great parts of Gaul, the lands south and the lands north of the Loire, except their union, first under Roman and then under Frankish dominion. And in Armorica the old Celtic population, strengthened by the settlers from Britain, formed another and a yet more distinct element. ”

“ The identity of the earliest inhabitants of Gaul is veiled in obscurity, though philologists, anthropologists and archaeologists are using the glimmer of traditions collected by ancient historians to shed a faint twilight upon that remote Pre-historic Gaul. ”

“ Reign and Conversion of Clovis — His Victories over the Alemanni, Burgundians, and Visigoths — Establishment of the French Monarchy in Gaul — Laws of the Barbarians — State of the Romans — The Visigoths of Spain — Conquest of Britain by the Saxons
The revolutions of Gaul The Gauls, [1] who impatiently supported the Roman yoke, received a memorable lesson from one of the lieutenants of Vespasian, whose weighty sense has been refined and expressed by the genius of Tacitus. [2] "The protection of the republic has delivered Gaul from internal discord and foreign invasions. ”

“ Being thus from early youth habituated to the life of war, the youth developed great military talents. Intrepid as the bravest of the soldiers, skilful and cautious as a veteran captain, generous to the full extent that his purse allowed it, of a joyful disposition, open and kind to all, he gained ever more the attachment of the army that soon divided with him its adoration for his mother.
The day finally arrived when Gaul, already almost independent, demanded to share with Rome the government of our country. The power was then divided between a Gallic and a Roman chief. ”

“ In this cause I am taking more pains and trouble to get them to produce their witnesses, than other advocates for the defence usually take to refute them. I say this boldly, O judges, but I do not assert it rashly. All Gaul is filled with traders,—is full of Roman citizens. No Gaul does any business without the aid of a Roman citizen; not a single sesterce in Gaul ever changes hands without being entered in the account-books of Roman citizens. ”

“ The southern and eastern coasts were more particularly occupied by the emigrants from Belgic Gaul, who had crossed the channel and the northern sea, attracted by the prospect of plunder. After having obtained a footing they became agriculturists. They possessed the same manners as the Gauls, though their social condition was less advanced; the Celts in Gaul having attained a comparatively high degree of civilization. ”