stitute the mass of the people
in Central France. The Gauls, or Galatians, are supposed to have come
from the central district of Asia Minor. They were always a warlike
people. In their wanderings westward, they passed through the north
of Italy and entered France, where they settled in large numbers. Dr.
Smith, in his Dictionary of the Bible, says that "Galatai is the same
word as Keltici," which indicates that the Gauls were Kelts. It is
supposed that St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Galatians soon after his
visit to the country of their origin. "Its abruptness and severity, and
the sadness of its tone, are caused by their sudden perversion from the
doctrine which the Apostle had taught them, and which at first they had
received so willingly. It is no fancy, if we see in this fickleness a
specimen of that 'esprit impretueux, ouvert a toutes les impressions,'
and that 'mobilite extreme,' which Thierry marks as characteristic of
the Gaulish race." At all events, the language of the Gauls disappeared
in Central France to make way for the language or the Capital--the
modern French, founded on the Latin. The Gaulish race, nevertheless,
preserved their characteristics--quickness, lightness, mobility, and
elasticity--qualities which enabled them quickly to conceive new ideas,
and at the same time to quickly abandon them. The Franks had given
the country the name it now bears--that of France. But they were long
regarded as enemies by the Central and Southern Gauls. In Gascony, the
foreigner was called Low Franciman, and was regarded with suspicion and
dislike.

"This term of Franciman," says Miss Costello, who travelled through the
country and studied the subject, "evidently belongs to a period of the
English occupation of Aquitaine, when a Frenchman was another word for
an enemy."{3} But the word has probably a more remote origin. When the
Franks, of German origin, burst into Gaul, and settled in the country
north of the Loire, and afterwards carried their conquests to the
Pyrenees, the Franks were regarded as enemies in the south of France.

"Then all the countries," says Thierry, "united by force to the empire
of the Franks, and over which in consequence of this union, the name of
France had extended itself, made unheard-of efforts to reconquer their
ancient names and places. Of all the Gallic provinces, none but the
southern ones succeeded in this great enterprise; and after the wars of
insurrection, which, under the so