thetically, we cannot do better than call to mind, on
the one hand, what Tacitus says of the Germans, that they "were almost
naked, excepting for a short and tight garment round their waists, and a
little square cloak which they threw over the right shoulder," and, on the
other, to carry ourselves back in imagination to the ancient Roman
costume. We may notice, moreover, the curious description given of the
Franks by Sidoine Apollinaire, who says, "They tied up their flaxen or
light-brown hair above their foreheads, into a kind of tuft, and then made
it fall behind the head like a horse's tail. The face was clean shaved,
with the exception of two long moustaches. They wore cloth garments,
fitting tight to the body and limbs, and a broad belt, to which they hung
their swords." But this is a sketch made at a time when the Frankish race
was only known among the Gauls through its marauding tribes, whose raids,
from time to time, spread terror and dismay throughout the countries which
they visited. From the moment when the uncultivated tribes of ancient
Germany formally took possession of the territory which they had withdrawn
from Roman rule, they showed themselves desirous of adopting the more
gentle manners of the conquered nation. "In imitation of their chief,"
says M. Jules Quicherat, the eminent antiquarian, "more than once the
Franks doffed the war coat and the leather Belt, and assumed the toga of
Roman dignity. More than once their flaxen hair was shown to advantage by
flowing over the imperial mantle, and the gold of the knights, the purple
of the senators and patricians, the triumphal crowns, the fasces, and, in
short, everything which the Roman Empire invented in order to exhibit its
grandeur, assisted in adding to that of our ancestors."

[Illustration: Figs. 404 and 405.--Saints in the Costume of the Sixth to
the Eighth Centuries.--From Miniatures in old Manuscripts of the Royal
Library of Brussels (Designs by Count H. de Vielcastel).]

One great and characteristic difference between the Romans and the Franks
should, however, be specially mentioned; namely, in the fashion of wearing
the hair long, a fashion never adopted by the Romans, and which, during
the whole of the first dynasty, was a distinguishing mark of kings and
nobles among the Franks. Agathias, the Greek historian, says, "The hair is
never cut from the heads of the Frankish kings' sons. From early youth
their hair falls gracefully over their shoulde