THE French nation is formed of a mixture of several races, of different origin, manners, and language. In order the better to understand her history, it is necessary to enter into some particulars of the various tribes who successively inhabited or conquered that country, and who ended a protracted struggle by merging into one and the same people.

The ancient Gauls were the first masters of that vast extent of country comprised between the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, the Alps, the Rhine, and the ocean. Their territory then embraced, besides France itself, a portion of the duchy of the Lower Rhine situated on the right bank of that river, Belgium, and a great part of Holland, Switzerland, and Savoy.

They were not all subject to the same laws and chiefs. Although of one nation, they had different

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interests, and it was no unusual thing for the most sanguinary civil wars to break out amongst them ; the result of which was to give a temporary preponderance to one or other of the numerous tribes which then divided the kingdom. Nevertheless, danger silenced all rivalries; and when it was necessary to defend their common country, or undertake some distant expedition, these people, under ordinary circumstances usually so jealous of each other, united themselves under one chief, and went forth as a single

man.

From the earliest ages the Gauls have been remarkable for their enterprising spirit, as well as their courage and love of liberty. About the year 600 b.c. a numerous assemblage, under Segovèze, crossed the Rhine, and established themselves in a part of Germany, since called Bohemia. The descendants of these warriors, about 279 B.C., penetrated into Greece, pillaged the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and then, throwing themselves into Asia, conquered the country known under the name of Gallo-Græcia, or Galatia. While Segovèze spread terror in Germany, another horde, under Bellovèze, fixed themselves in the north of Italy, after routing the Etruscans, and founded in that part of the Peninsula (called Cisalpine Gaul) several important cities.

From that moment they waged continual war with the Romans. Brennus, one of their chiefs, made himself master of Rome, and it required the whole force of the republic, headed by her most skilful generals, to repel the terrible strangers. They were thrown back first into Cisalpine Gaul, then ejected from their hold on that province, and pursued across the Alps;

and at last the Romans succeeded in gaining a footing on their territory, in the year 121 B. C., when the whole south-east of Gaul was reduced to a Roman province, and the conquerors founded there the city of Narbonne; but it still required many years for them to become completely rulers of the country.

At that epoch, Gaul was by no means a desirable conquest. With the exception of Marseilles, founded 599 B. C. by a colony of Phocians, and very soon enriched with all the wonders of Grecian civilisation, the Gauls, properly speaking, had no cities. Their wild country, covered with impenetrable forests and marshes most difficult of access, presented few attractions to any but the natives.

Gay, fickle, impetuous, and at the same time easily discouraged, they only yielded a voluntary, and in some measure a conditional obedience to their chief. These chiefs or kings possessed no other power than that of a general over his army; nay, even less, for when an expedition was to be decided upon, it was their practice to consult those who were to take part in it.

The nation was divided into three distinct classes, the slaves, the free men or warriors, and the priests or druids. The condition of the slaves was wretched: they either cultivated the ground, or marched in the train of the army. The free men had no other occupation than war; their influence was reckoned by the number of their dependants, whose only recompence was the pillage obtained from the vanquished. The free men composed also the council of the prince. The power of the druids was unbounded: they presided over their ceremonies of worship and the education of the youth: they administered justice, and added much to their

ascendency by inspiring the people with a kind of superstitious terror. The religion they taught was, with few exceptions, a mixture of gross errors and barbarous customs. They had no temples, but only rustic altars raised in the midst of the forest: the mistletoe, especially when it grew upon the oak, was accounted to possess singular virtue; it was gathered every year at the beginning of winter, when the tree, stripped of its leaves, better distinguished the eternal green of the sacred fruit. A druid with a white robe cut it with a bill-hook of gold; others received it in a cloth of fine linen, as it was not permitted to touch the ground: it was deemed a charm against all distempers, and an offering of two white oxen was willingly exchanged for a small portion of this precious talisman.

The druids were not always satisfied with the blood of cattle; and it is but too certain, that upon the occasion of great and public calamities, or before entering on a campaign, they introduced the execrable custom of human sacrifices. Such was the state of Gaul when conquered by Julius Cæsar, 58 years B. C.

The Helvetians or Swiss, inhabiting a savage country, the sterility of which scarcely provided for their wants, and which was unceasingly exposed to the incursions of the Germans, resolved to seek a milder and more fertile climate, and asked permission of Cæsar, who then commanded in Cisalpine Gaul, to establish themselves in the south. Cæsar, far from allowing them to do so, attacked and conquered them, forcing them to retreat to their own country. He also gained a brilliant victory over the Seguanais, who had allied themselves with the Germans, and compelled them to

The Gauls, little daunted

retire across the Rhine. by these defeats, formed a powerful league, headed by the Belgians, against the Romans; but Cæsar, by skill and patience, and the able assistance of his lieutenants, triumphed everywhere; and in the third year of the war, the north and south-east of the country, as well as the province of Brittany, were completely subdued.

The Arverni, under the guidance of Vercingetorix, revolted in their turn, 52 years B. C., seconded by a a great number of the neighbouring tribes. Cæsar redoubled his energies, and would not suffer either a few reverses or the difficulties of the country to discourage him, and after many glorious exploits, he reduced his enemies to the last extremity. Vercingetorix was taken prisoner, and with him perished the last hope of independence for their nation; thenceforward they only made isolated efforts which were easily repressed, and 49 years B. C. the whole of Gaul became a Roman province. The incorporation was so complete that the people served in the Roman army, Cæsar himself forming a legion distinguished by the lark which surmounted the soldiers' helmets, and which was considered an image of the national vivacity. One fourth of the population perished in these struggles; but the Romans sought every means to heal the wounds of the vanquished, and the better to perpetuate their dominion over the country, they effaced, by degrees, all traces of nationality. The forests were cut down, the marshes drained, roads traversed the soil in all directions, cities were built, and the druidical worship, already much weakened, gradually disappeared, and was completely abolished under the emperors.