il, with the discovery of America, a new period of even vaster race
expansion began. During this lull the nations of Europe took on their
present shapes. Indeed, the so-called Latin nations--the French and
Spaniards, for instance--may be said to have been born after the first
set of migrations ceased. Their national history, as such, does not
really begin until about that time, whereas that of the Germanic
peoples stretches back unbroken to the days when we first hear of
their existence. It would be hard to say which one of half a dozen
races that existed in Europe during the early centuries of the present
era should be considered as especially the ancestor of the modern
Frenchman or Spaniard. When the Romans conquered Gaul and Iberia they
did not in any place drive out the ancient owners of the soil; they
simply Romanized them, and left them as the base of the population. By
the Frankish and Visigothic invasions another strain of blood was
added, to be speedily absorbed; while the invaders took the language
of the conquered people, and established themselves as the ruling
class. Thus the modern nations who sprang from this mixture derive
portions of their governmental system and general policy from one
race, most of their blood from another, and their language, law, and
culture from a third.

The English race, on the contrary, has a perfectly continuous history.
When Alfred reigned, the English already had a distinct national
being; when Charlemagne reigned, the French, as we use the term
to-day, had no national being whatever. The Germans of the mainland
merely overran the countries that lay in their path; but the
sea-rovers who won England to a great extent actually displaced the
native Britons. The former were absorbed by the subject-races; the
latter, on the contrary, slew or drove off or assimilated the original
inhabitants. Unlike all the other Germanic swarms, the English took
neither creed nor custom, neither law nor speech, from their beaten
foes. At the time when the dynasty of the Capets had become firmly
established at Paris, France was merely part of a country where
Latinized Gauls and Basques were ruled by Latinized Franks, Goths,
Burgunds, and Normans; but the people across the Channel then showed
little trace of Celtic or Romance influence. It would be hard to say
whether Vercingetorix or Caesar, Clovis or Syagrius, has the better
right to stand as the prototype of a modern French general. There is
no