admits, were filled with consternation at the giants they were called
upon to encounter when he marched against their leader, Ariovistus. The
Cymri were also remarkable for their exceeding swiftness. Csesar
witnessed that they "could lay their hands on the manes of horses and
keep pace with them in the race." Tully testifies that it was "their
joy and delight to die on the battlefield, and that nothing so
tormented them as to die idly in their beds." "No wonder," says Sammes,
"that they conquered many nations; distressed the Romans themselves,
and were a constant thorn in the side of the Gauls" ("Antiquities of
Ancient Britain," cap. 2).

Dr. Smith, in his "History of France," narrates that the Cymri
"acquired permanent possession of an extensive territory north of the
Loire, including the peninsula of Armorica" (p. 13). Bononia, or
Boulogne, St. Patrick's native town, was, therefore, situated in Belgic
Gaul during the days of Julius Caesar; but, later on, when the
descendants of the Cymri, the Belgic Gauls, were almost annihilated in
their fierce contests with the Romans, the same province came to be
called Armorica. Sulpicius Severus, as we shall see presently, named
the same country Britannia at the time of the Council of Ariminium in
the year 359--just fourteen years before St. Patrick was born.

In the year 597 Armorica, or Britannia, became absorbed in the province
of Neustria, when the kingdom of the Franks was sub-divided into three
separate kingdoms, as Dr. Smith relates: "Sigebert became King of
Austrasia (in the Prankish tongue, Oster-rike), or the kingdom of the
Eastern Franks; Chilperic was recognised as King Neustria (Ne-oster-
rike), the land of the Western Franks. The limits of the two kingdoms
are somewhat uncertain; but the river Meuse and the Forest of Ardennes
may be taken generally as the line of demarcation. Austrasia extended