CHAPTER IV.

Gaul had been Latinized and Christianized. Now one more thing was
needed to prepare her for a great future. Her fibre was to be
toughened by the infusion of a stronger race. Julius Caesar had shaken
her into submission, and Rome had chastised her into decency of
behavior and speech, but as her manners improved her native vigor
declined. She took kindly to Roman luxury and effeminacy, and could no
longer have thundered at the gates of her neighbors demanding "land."

The despotism of a perishing Roman Empire had become intolerable; and
the thoughts of an overtaxed and enslaved people turned naturally to
the Franks. They had rescued them from one terrible fate, might they
not deliver them from another? And so it came about that the young
savage Chlodoveg, or _Clovis_, grandson of Meroveus, found himself
master of the fair land long coveted beyond the Rhine; and Gaul and
Roman alike were submerged beneath the Teuton flood, while Clovis,
sitting in the Palace of the Caesars, on the island in the Seine, was
wearing the kingly crown, and independent and dynastic life had
commenced in what was hereafter to be not Gaul, but _France_.

But the king of whom she had dreamed was of her own race; not this
terrible Frank. Had she exchanged one servitude for another? Had she
been, not set free, but simply annexed to the realm of the barbarian
across the Rhine? Let us say rather that it was an espousal. She had
brought her dowry of beauty and "land," that most coveted of
possessions, and had pledged obedience, for which she was to be