st and Frenchiest of French character, that it makes simply
perfect _Servants_. Unwearied in protective friendship, in meekly
dextrous omnificence, in latent tutorship; the lovingly availablest of
valets,--the mentally and personally bonniest of bonnes. But in no
capacity shy of you! Though you be the Duke or Duchess of Montaltissimo,
you will not find them abashed at your altitude. They will speak 'up' to
you, when they have a mind.

[Footnote 15: Gibbon touches the facts more closely in a sentence of
his 22nd chapter. "The independent warriors of Germany, _who
considered truth as the noblest of their virtues_, and freedom as the
most valuable of their possessions." He is speaking especially of the
Frankish tribe of the Attuarii, against whom the Emperor Julian had to
re-fortify the Rhine from Cleves to Basle: but the first letters of
the Emperor Jovian, after Julian's death, "delegated the military
command of _Gaul_ and Illyrium (what a vast one it was, we shall see
hereafter), to Malarich, a _brave and faithful_ officer of the nation
of the Franks;" and they remain the loyal allies of Rome in her last
struggle with Alaric. Apparently for the sake only of an interesting
variety of language,--and at all events without intimation of any
causes of so great a change in the national character,--we find Mr.
Gibbon in his next volume suddenly adopting the abusive epithets of
Procopius, and calling the Franks "a light and perfidious nation"
(vii. 251). The only traceable grounds for this unexpected description
of them are that they refuse to be bribed either into friendship or
activity, by Rome or Ravenna; and that in his invasion of Italy, the
grandson of Clovis did not previously send exact warning of his
proposed route, nor even entirely signify his intentions till he had
secured the bridge of the Po at Pavia; afterwards declaring his mind
with sufficient distinctness by "assaulting, almost at the same
instant, the hostile camps of the Goths and Romans, who, instead of
uniting their arms, fled with equal precipitation."]

[Footnote 16: For detailed illustration of the word, see 'Val d'Arno,'
Lecture VIII.; 'Fors Clavigera,' Letters XLVI. 231, LXXVII. 137; and
Chaucer, 'Romaunt of Rose,' 1212--"Next _him_" (the knight sibbe to
Arthur) "daunced dame Franchise;"--the English lines are quoted and
commented on in the first lecture of 'Ariadne Florentina'; I give the
French here:--

"Apres tous ceulx estoit Franchis