n 219; St. Felix and St. Fortunatus to
Valence, St. Ferreol to Besancon, St. Marcellus to Chalons-sur-Saone,
St. Benignus to Dijon, St. Trophimus to Arles, St. Paul to Narbonne,
St. Saturninus to Toulouse, St. Martial to Limoges, St. Andeol and
St. Privatus to the Cevennes, St. Austremoine to Clermont-Ferrand,
St. Gatian to Tours, St. Denis to Paris, and so many others that their
names are scarcely known beyond the pages of erudite historians, or the
very spots where they preached, struggled, and conquered, often at the
price of their lives. Such were the founders of the faith and of the
Christian Church in France. At the commencement of the fourth century
their work was, if not accomplished, at any rate triumphant; and when,
A.D. 312, Constantine declared himself a Christian, he confirmed the fact
of the conquest of the Roman world, and of Gaul in particular, by
Christianity. No doubt the majority of the inhabitants were not as yet
Christians; but it was clear that the Christians were in the ascendant
and had command of the future. Of the two grand elements which were to
meet together, on the ruins of Roman society, for the formation of modern
society, the moral element, the Christian religion, had already taken
possession of souls; the devastated territory awaited the coming of new
peoples, known to history under the general name of Germans, whom the
Romans called the barbarians.

CHAPTER VII.----THE GERMANS IN GAUL.--THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS.

About A.D. 241 or 242 the sixth Roman legion, commanded by Aurelian, at
that time military tribune, and thirty years later, emperor, had just
finished a campaign on the Rhine, undertaken for the purpose of driving
the Germans from Gaul, and was preparing for Eastern service, to make war
on the Persians. The soldiers sang,--

We have slain a thousand Franks and a thousand Sarmatians;
we want a thousand, thousand, Thousand Persians.

[Illustration: Germans invading Gaul----129]

That was, apparently, a popular burden at the time, for on the days of
military festivals, at Rome and in Gaul, the children sang, as they
danced,--

We have cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand,
Thousand;
One man hath cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand,
Thousand, thousand;
May he live a thousand, thousand years, he who hath slain a
thousand, thousand!
Nobody hath so much of wine as he hath of blood poured out.