on the mountain tops over the
carcass of a slaughtered stag; and the reluctant yielding of the Saracen
power to the superior might of the northern warriors might not inaptly
recall those other lines of the same book of the _Iliad_, where the
downfall of Patroclus beneath Hector is likened to the forced yielding
of the panting and exhausted wild boar, that had long and furiously
fought with a superior beast of prey for the possession of the scanty
fountain among the rocks at which each burned to drink.

Although three centuries had passed away since the Germanic conquerors
of Rome had crossed the Rhine, never to repass that frontier stream, no
settled system of institutions or government, no amalgamation of the
various races into one people, no uniformity of language or habits had
been established in the country at the time when Charles Martel was
called to repel the menacing tide of Saracenic invasion from the south.
Gaul was not yet France. In that, as in other provinces of the Roman
Empire of the West, the dominion of the Caesars had been shattered as
early as the fifth century, and barbaric kingdoms and principalities had
promptly arisen on the ruins of the Roman power. But few of these had
any permanency, and none of them consolidated the rest, or any
considerable number of the rest, into one coherent and organized civil
and political society.

The great bulk of the population still consisted of the conquered
provincials, that is to say, of Romanized Celts, of a Gallic race which
had long been under the dominion of the Caesars, and had acquired,
together with no slight infusion of Roman blood, the language, the
literature, the laws, and the civilization of Latium. Among these, and
dominant over them, roved or dwelt the German victors; some retaining
nearly all the rude independence of their primitive national character,
others softened and disciplined by the aspect and contact of the manners
and institutions of civilized life; for it is to be borne in mind that
the Roman Empire in the West was not crushed by any sudden avalanche of
barbaric invasion. The German conquerors came across the Rhine, not in
enormous hosts, but in bands of a few thousand warriors at a time. The
conquest of a province was the result of an infinite series of partial
local invasions, carried on by little armies of this description. The
victorious warriors either retired with their booty or fixed themselves
in the invaded district, taking ca