were brought together in public assemblies; these were held frequently at the beginning of the invasion or invasions, but became more impracticable and far rarer when the conquerors, becoming proprietors, had scattered themselves over the land. Every one then lived in almost complete isolation, surrounded by only a few companions-in-arms, who followed his fortunes to the end.
To Gallo-Romans, this sort of existence would have seemed hard; it was quite natural to the Franks and was in entire harmony with their character. This taste, we might say passion, for solitary life, this desire to isolate by means of a wall or a moat one’s domestic existence and hide it from the gaze of the world, constitutes one of the distinctive characteristics of the races derived from Germany. Do we not see it exemplified to-day, even after the lapse of centuries, among the Anglo-Saxons, for example?
On the other hand there was no more sociable being than the Gallo-Roman. In ancient times, social life was always sought in the open air, on the public square, in the circuses, the therm®, the academies, in the agitation of philosophical converse or political discussions. A civilization thus conceived found an admirably well prepared soil on Gaulish territory: the Gauls, said Cæsar, were fighters and fine talkers. At the dawn of the new day, when a stronger hand interfered in their interminable quarrels of tribe with tribe, the Gauls immediately accepted a regular organization and a common administration. They entered the Roman armies, to which they furnished brave, faithful and well-disciplined cohorts. In imitation of Rome, thermæ and schools were established everywhere, whose reputation soon became world-wide. “The Romans frequented the Greek schools of Marseilles. The keen, intriguing Gauls of the south were destined to succeed both as fine talkers and as physicians, and above all as mimes; they gave to Rome her Roscius (who was the Talma of the period); they succeeded likewise in other lines. We will merely mention by name Trogus Pompeius, Petronius Arbiter, Varro Atacinus and Cornelius Gallus, the friend of Virgil. The first rhetorician at Rome was the Gaul, M. Antonius Gnipho; he prepared the way there for the two great orators of the time, Cæsar and Cicero. Under Tiberius, the Montani were in the foremost ranks among orators, both in respect to ease and true genius. Caligula, who prided himself upon his eloquence, counted as his friends the two eloquent Gauls, Valerius Asiaticus and Domitius Afer. The Gaul, Zenodorus sculptured the colossus of the Gaulish Mercury for the city of the Arverni; Nero, who revelled in the massive and the stupendous, summoned him to Rome to erect a statue of himself, one hundred and twenty feet high near the Forum. ” We find among the Gauls, poets like Antonius Primus, a native of Toulouse, and the friend of Martial; illustrious generals, like the Provençal Agricola. The chief glory of Gaul was, however, her claim to the pious Antoninus, father of Marcus Aurelius; he was descended from a family of Nîmes.
It is easy to imagine with what facility and earnestness this people of artists, orators, poets, rhetoricians, physicians and soldiers adapted themselves to the ancient civilization, and with what zeal they adopted the graceful, polished and frank manners of the Roman world.
The ideal deeply rooted in the heart of the peoples of the north is, as we have seen, independent and solitary existence; to those of Gallo-Roman stock, it is sociability. These are constitutional characteristics which even centuries could alter only superficially, and the recognition of which may serve the historian as a sort of reagent. Wherever, in the various phases of our history, the first characteristic is the one most impressed upon society, it may be assumed that the Frankish races have the preponderance. When sociability sets its stamp on manners and customs it may be as unerringly inferred that the predominance is once more with the Gallo-Roman peoples.
Let us see, now, with what institutions Gaul had been endowed.
The Gallo-Roman population was, in a general way, divided into four classes; senators, curiales, the people, properly socalled, and the slaves.
The first were the descendants of the great Gaulish families, certain members of which had very probably been called to the Roman Senate; the curiales were landed proprietors in easy circumstances, members of the municipal body or curia of their own city; the people comprised petty landholders, small trades people and free artisans; these last were grouped in trade corporations, the origin of which goes back far beyond the Middle
Ages, although this fact has often been disputed. As for the slaves, they were variously ranked, their grade depending upon whether they worked in the cities or fields, and upon the nature of the engagements by which they were bound. Their condition was often far less cruel than the general designation of slaves would suggest; some were regular rent-paying farmers; others were metayers, that is they cultivated the ground in consideration of receiving half the produce; some were almost free workmen; some farm-hands working for wages.
Such were the social classes; the government was in the hands of the imperial court at Rome. Under the superior direction of a prætorian prefect residing at Treves, Gaul, properly so-called, was administered by a vice-prefect, who was placed over its seventeen provinces. The latter were specifically governed by consulares or by presidents.
These imperial officers were charged with the collection of the taxes and the administration of the public domains, the direction of the imperial posts, and the levying of troops for the army; they, moreover, had civil and criminal jurisdiction (almost exclusively). The analogy existing between their functions and those of our old provincial governors is evident. A magistrate, the defensor elected by the curia or municipal body, represented the popular interests before the imperial authorities and was charged with their defense; he exercised in such matters the jurisdiction in the first instance.
Under orders of these officers, each special department was administered by functionaries whose duties and powers were carefully defined; collectors and receivers of taxes, directors of public works and civil constructions; commissaries of army supplies, chiefs of the police and gendarmery; notaries, regis
trars and so forth, all of whom had at command an entire force of clerks and agents, just as in modern times.
It was, as we see, a very complete and rigorously officered organization, a cleverly adjusted machine, which would bear comparison in more than one respect with the governmental mechanism of some of the best organized peoples of recent times. The incessant warfare waged among themselves by the Gaulish tribes in early days, and the despotism exercised by the proconsuls during the period of military occupation had, then, both been superseded by an orderly regularity, which had made it possible for the country to adapt itself at once to Roman civilization. The Gauls thus enjoyed a period of true prosperity and of progress in the manners and intellectual training of the different tribes. Their moral education also gained therein, by the introduction of the law, that is to say, of the written law, unchangeable and equal for all, which was substituted for the daily interpretations of an equity which might be swayed by the chance of circumstances, interests and influences.
Public enterprises, commerce, fortune and general comfort developed rapidly; Roman occupation, and we may also say, Roman colonization, speedily introduced very tolerable forms; the Gauls were not enslaved; they were not reduced to the rank of a conquered race, nor were they despised as an inferior people; a number of Gauls, belonging to families of local influence, were called to Rome, played there an important rôle, and were admitted to the most valued honors of the Empire; there were Gaulish emperors. Such were the natural tendencies of the national spirit that there were always Gaulish troops at Rome, esteemed and courted for their bravery and fidelity, as there were literary men, lawyers and philosophers, numbered among the most illustrious of their kind.
Such were the advantages of the Roman civilization, and this accounts for the fact that it has left an ineffaceable impress upon the French nation. But when the Germans, who had up to that moment been held in check beyond the Rhine, began to force back the Gaulish and Roman troops which defended the frontiers, signs of decadence had already appeared. Rome had no longer anything to offer to the conquered provinces in compensation for that portion of their independence which they had been asked to sacrifice for the establishment of imperial unity. In default of a common origin, the peoples united under one rule, must needs at least have a common interest, namely, that of defence. Now, Rome had so extended her frontiers that she was threatened on all sides by barbarous, warlike and turbulent hordes; it was impossible to defend her territory on all the exposed points, and she therefore employed the forces of the Empire to fight the nearest enemy, and left the distant provinces to take care of themselves. While all the time drawing off armies from them to defend herself, while continuing to recruit her own troops from the vigorous and soldierly