ch the Frenchmen of the age of Pericles! And
the same tides that washed the sands of Southern Gaul, a few hours
later ebbed and flowed upon the shores of Greece--rich in culture, with
refinements and subtleties in art which are the despair of the world
to-day--with an intellectual endowment never since attained by any
people.

The same sun which rose upon temples and palaces and life serene and
beautiful in Greece, an hour later lighted sacrificial altars and
hideous orgies in the forests of Gaul. While the Gaul was nailing the
heads of human victims to his door, or hanging them from the bridle of
his horse, or burning or flogging his prisoners to death, the Greek,
with a literature, an art, and a civilization in ripest perfection,
discussed with his friends the deepest problems of life and destiny,
which were then baffling human intelligence, even as they are with us
today. Truly we of Keltic and Teuton descent are late-comers upon the
stage of national life.

There was no promise of greatness in ancient Gaul. It was a great,
unregulated force, rushing hither and thither. Impelled by insatiate
greed for the possessions of their neighbors, there was no permanence
in their loves or their hatreds. The enemies of to-day were the allies
of to-morrow. Guided entirely by the fleeting desires and passions of
the moment, with no far-reaching plans to restrain, the sixty or more
tribes composing the Gallic people were in perpetual state of feud and
anarchy, apparently insensible to the ties of brotherhood, which give
concert of action, and stability in form of national life. If they
overran a neighboring country, it seemed not so much for permanent
acquisition, as to make it a camping-ground until its resources were
exhausted.

We read of one Massillia who came with a colony of Greeks long ages
ago, and after founding the city of Marseilles, created a narrow,
bright border of Greek civilization along the southern edge of the
benighted land. It was a brief illumination, lasting only a century or
more, and leaving few traces; but it may account for the superior
intellectual quality which later distinguished Provence, the home of
minstrelsy.

It requires a vast extent of territory to sustain a people living by
the chase, and upon herds and flocks; hence the area which now amply
maintains forty millions of Frenchmen was all too small for six or
seven million Gauls; and they were in perpetual struggle with their
neighb