dge and luxury seldom fails to inspire, they
derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the North; their rustic
manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite, and their horrid appearance,
equally disgusting to the sight and to the smell. The liberal studies
were still cultivated in the schools of Autun and Bordeaux; and the
language of Cicero and Virgil was familiar to the Gallic youth. Their
ears were astonished by the harsh and unknown sounds of the Germanic
dialect, and they ingeniously lamented that the trembling muses fled
from the harmony of a Burgundian lyre. The Gauls were endowed with all
the advantages of art and nature; but as they wanted courage to defend
them, they were justly condemned to obey, and even to flatter, the
victorious Barbarians, by whose clemency they held their precarious
fortunes and their lives. [4]

[Footnote 1: In this chapter I shall draw my quotations from the Recueil
des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, Paris, 1738-1767, in
eleven volumes in folio. By the labor of Dom Bouquet, and the other
Benedictines, all the original testimonies, as far as A.D. 1060, are
disposed in chronological order, and illustrated with learned notes.
Such a national work, which will be continued to the year 1500, might
provoke our emulation.]

[Footnote 2: Tacit. Hist. iv. 73, 74, in tom. i. p. 445. To abridge
Tacitus would indeed be presumptuous; but I may select the general ideas
which he applies to the present state and future revelations of Gaul.]

[Footnote 3: Eadem semper causa Germanis transcendendi in Gallias
libido atque avaritiae et mutandae sedis amor; ut relictis paludibus
et solitudinibus, suis, fecundissimum hoc solum vosque ipsos
possiderent.... Nam pulsis Romanis quid aliud quam bella omnium inter se
gentium exsistent?]

[Footnote 4: Sidonius Apollinaris ridicules, with affected wit and
pleasantry, the hardships of his situation, (Carm. xii. in tom. i. p.
811.)]

As soon as Odoacer had extinguished the Western empire, he sought the
friendship of the most powerful of the Barbarians. The new sovereign of
Italy resigned to Euric, king of the Visigoths, all the Roman conquests
beyond the Alps, as far as the Rhine and the Ocean: [5] and the senate
might confirm this liberal gift with some ostentation of power, and
without any real loss of revenue and dominion. The lawful pretensions
of Euric were justified by ambition and success; and the Gothic nation
might aspire, under his command, to the