d, as soon as
emulation had rekindled their military ardor, they were permitted to
march in the ranks, or even at the head, of the victorious Germans. I
shall not attempt to enumerate the generals and magistrates, whose names
[113] attest the liberal policy of the Merovingians. The supreme command
of Burgundy, with the title of Patrician, was successively intrusted
to three Romans; and the last, and most powerful, Mummolus, [114] who
alternately saved and disturbed the monarchy, had supplanted his father
in the station of count of Autun, and left a treasury of thirty talents
of gold, and two hundred and fifty talents of silver. The fierce and
illiterate Barbarians were excluded, during several generations, from
the dignities, and even from the orders, of the church. [115] The clergy
of Gaul consisted almost entirely of native provincials; the haughty
Franks fell at the feet of their subjects, who were dignified with the
episcopal character: and the power and riches which had been lost in
war, were insensibly recovered by superstition. [116] In all temporal
affairs, the Theodosian Code was the universal law of the clergy; but
the Barbaric jurisprudence had liberally provided for their personal
safety; a sub-deacon was equivalent to two Franks; the antrustion, and
priest, were held in similar estimation: and the life of a bishop was
appreciated far above the common standard, at the price of nine hundred
pieces of gold. [117] The Romans communicated to their conquerors
the use of the Christian religion and Latin language; [118] but their
language and their religion had alike degenerated from the simple purity
of the Augustan, and Apostolic age. The progress of superstition and
Barbarism was rapid and universal: the worship of the saints concealed
from vulgar eyes the God of the Christians; and the rustic dialect
of peasants and soldiers was corrupted by a Teutonic idiom and
pronunciation. Yet such intercourse of sacred and social communion
eradicated the distinctions of birth and victory; and the nations of
Gaul were gradually confounded under the name and government of the
Franks.

[Footnote 112: The Abbe de Mably (tom. p. i. 247-267) has diligently
confirmed this opinion of the President de Montesquieu, (Esprit des
Loix, l. xxx. c. 13.)]

[Footnote 113: See Dubos, Hist. Critique de la Monarchie Francoise, tom.
ii. l. vi. c. 9, 10. The French antiquarians establish as a principle,
that the Romans and Barbarians may be d