of the different communities combined
to form a separate alliance hostile to the power of the community,
the multitude ceased not to desire the restoration of the monarchy;
and not unfrequently a prominent nobleman attempted, as Spurius
Cassius had done in Rome, with the support of the mass of those
belonging to the canton to break down the power of his peers,
and to reinstate the crown in its rights for his own special benefit.

Efforts towards National Unity

While the individual cantons were thus irremediably declining,
the sense of unity was at the same time powerfully stirring
in the nation and seeking in various ways to take shape and hold.
That combination of the whole Celtic nobility in contradistinction
to the individual canton-unions, while disturbing the existing order
of things, awakened and fostered the conception of the collective
unity of the nation. The attacks directed against the nation
from without, and the continued diminution of its territory in war
with its neighbours, operated in the same direction. Like the Hellenes
in their wars with the Persians, and the Italians in their wars
with the Celts, the Transalpine Gauls seem to have become conscious
of the existence and the power of their national unity in the wars
against Rome. Amidst the dissensions of rival clans and all their
feudal quarrelling there might still be heard the voices of those
who were ready to purchase the independence of the nation
at the cost of the independence of the several cantons, and even
at that of the seignorial rights of the knights. The thorough
popularity of the opposition to a foreign yoke was shown by the wars
of Caesar, with reference to whom the Celtic patriot party occupied
a position entirely similar to that of the German patriots
towards Napoleon; its extent and organization are attested,
among other things, by the telegraphic rapidity with which news
was communicated from one point to another.

Religious Union of the Nation
Druids

The universality and the strength of the Celtic national feeling
would be inexplicable but for the circumstance that, amidst
the greatest political disruption, the Celtic nation had for long
been centralized in respect of religion and even of theology.
The Celtic priesthood or, to use the native name, the corporation
of the Druids, certainly embraced the British islands and all Gaul,
and perhaps also other Celtic countries, in a common religious-
national bond. It posses