domestic
annals. He celebrates their politeness and urbanity, their regular
government, and orthodox religion; and boldly asserts, that these
Barbarians could be distinguished only by their dress and language from
the subjects of Rome. Perhaps the Franks already displayed the social
disposition, and lively graces, which, in every age, have disguised
their vices, and sometimes concealed their intrinsic merit. Perhaps
Agathias, and the Greeks, were dazzled by the rapid progress of their
arms, and the splendor of their empire. Since the conquest of Burgundy,
Gaul, except the Gothic province of Septimania, was subject, in its
whole extent, to the sons of Clovis. They had extinguished the German
kingdom of Thuringia, and their vague dominion penetrated beyond
the Rhine, into the heart of their native forests. The Alemanni, and
Bavarians, who had occupied the Roman provinces of Rhaetia and Noricum,
to the south of the Danube, confessed themselves the humble vassals
of the Franks; and the feeble barrier of the Alps was incapable of
resisting their ambition. When the last survivor of the sons of Clovis
united the inheritance and conquests of the Merovingians, his kingdom
extended far beyond the limits of modern France. Yet modern France,
such has been the progress of arts and policy, far surpasses, in wealth,
populousness, and power, the spacious but savage realms of Clotaire or
Dagobert.

The Franks, or French, are the only people of Europe who can deduce
a perpetual succession from the conquerors of the Western empire. But
their conquest of Gaul was followed by ten centuries of anarchy and
ignorance. On the revival of learning, the students, who had been formed
in the schools of Athens and Rome, disdained their Barbarian ancestors;
and a long period elapsed before patient labor could provide the
requisite materials to satisfy, or rather to excite, the curiosity of
more enlightened times. At length the eye of criticism and philosophy
was directed to the antiquities of France; but even philosophers have
been tainted by the contagion of prejudice and passion. The most extreme
and exclusive systems, of the personal servitude of the Gauls, or of
their voluntary and equal alliance with the Franks, have been rashly
conceived, and obstinately defended; and the intemperate disputants have
accused each other of conspiring against the prerogative of the crown,
the dignity of the nobles, or the freedom of the people. Yet the sharp
confl