written by men of culture and genius ceases to be identical with the vulgar idiom; it adopts new modes of expression, and coins new words wherein to clothe its new ideas. To this rule Latin was no exception. Roman authors had largely modelled their writings upon Greek literature, and had built up a noble language, but one as unsuited, as it was unintended, to express every-day wants and occupations. Now it was not this "classical" Latin which finally established itself, but the language of the merchants, the soldiers, and slaves who accompanied the conquerors. (§ 24.)

Again, though Celtic was superseded to such an extent that in French scarcely a vestige remains of the language (§ 25), the Latin which took its place was greatly modified by contact with it, by the new uses to which it was put by Romans and Celts alike, by the ignorance of the latter, and perhaps above all by their new style of pronunciation. In short, the popular Latin in Gaul, during the third and fourth centuries, was a vulgar, corrupt tongue, which Cicero would have failed to recognise as the language of Rome. § 7. But it was destined to meet with many more vicissitudes on this foreign soil. Throughout her history, Gaul has been perpetually Bands of Vandals, Goths,

as far as it is known to us, menaced by barbarous tribes. Allemans, and Franks had crossed the Rhine in succession, pillaging and destroying everything in their way, and either establishing small colonies in the midst of a terrified population, or returning to their homes laden with booty. After Gaul had become a Roman province, the lands which had been laid waste on the left bank of the Rhine were assigned by Rome to the conquered Germans, on condition of their protecting the frontier. But the Barbarians made their appearance none the less at each crisis of the Roman history. They established themselves among both Celts and Romans, and took possession little by little of Gaul and of the most important posts in the government of the country. But these colonies of Germans were, even after the great invasion of the fifth century, only a handful of men in the

midst of a conquered people. Reversing the part taken by the Gauls in the Roman conquest, the conquerors now adopted the language and customs of the conquered. Still their influence gradually worked upon the language and upon the people, and many words of German origin found their way into the vocabulary of the Gallo-Romans. (§ 26.)

§ 8. Old French Period, A.D. 800 to 1300.-Four centuries passed away after the German conquest, four centuries of violence and suffering, during which the country had gradually relapsed into barbarism and darkness.* At the end of that period a new dawn began to glimmer in the horizon. Charlemagne made great efforts to revive the old Roman civilization in his empire, and although men's minds were not prepared to receive it, nothing that this great man did left a deeper impression. It is at this time that the struggle between literary Latin and the popular Latin becomes more clearly manifest. (§ 27.) Common Latin, already named "Lingua Romana," was almost universally spoken, and the judgment of Charlemagne enabled him to apprehend the importance of this popular speech. He established schools where it was taught, and did his utmost to collect the poems and songs of the period. At the same time he sought instruction himself in the language spoken by so large a portion of his subjects.

§ 9. When he died (A.D. 814), the provinces which he had united under a single rule were again separated. His three grandsons, Lothaire, Louis, and Charles, after much fighting and bloodshed, divided the empire into three kingdoms; Italy, Germany, and France. It was in 842, the year from which may be dated the national history of France as distinct from those of Italy, Spain, etc., that a new language* was

*It is probable that, leaving aside certain restrictions, only one lingua romana was known at first all over Gaul. This language remained more pure in the Provençal than in the French, which as early as the ninth century began to separate itself. The Oaths may represent this common language. (§ 27.)

revealed to the political world. Louis the German, at the head of his troops, could only make himself understood to the Gallo-Romans, who formed the army of his brother, Charles the Bald, by using the Romance tongue; and the treaty between the two brothers, so important in a political point of view, is also one of the most valuable monuments left to us of the language spoken in Gaul during the ninth century.

§ 10. In the following century the Normans, who came from Scandinavia, and whose language was called Dacisca,* penetrated into the north-west of Gaul, and brought with them new beliefs, new poetry, and a new form of German. This last invasion proved of the utmost importance; for while the rich and learned Gaul still affected to consider the tongue of the people as a mere vulgar form of Latin, and scorned to make use of it in writing, the Normans accepted it with enthusiasm. As the Gauls had previously rivalled the Romans in Latin, so now the Normans in their turn rivalled the Gauls in the Romance.

§ 11. The South of France had been less disturbed by the various German invasions, and had in the meantime developed the Latin into a language distinct from the Langue d'Oil, or Old French. This language, known as the Langue d'Oc, or Provençal, shone with brilliant lustre for about four centuries. It then ceased, mainly through political reasons, to be a literary language, and degenerated into different patois. (§ 29.)

§ 12. It would be a mistake to suppose from what has been said that the Langue d'Oil was identical throughout the North of France. It was composed of various dialects, which changed from province to province, and varied in importance according to the political influence of the chiefs who had divided the empire of Charlemagne. There were four of these dialects the Norman, the Picardian, the Burgundian, and that of the Isle of France, barely distinguishable from the

* Danish.

Burgundian. (§ 28.) It was not till later, when the house of Capet began a new work of centralization, and the government of the Isle of France gradually became the seat of administration for the provinces, that the dialect of that state became the language of France, with the other dialects more or less incorporated into it.

§ 13. The Church, throughout these long ages of ignorance, had nobly pursued her work of regeneration. She had early adopted the barbarians for her sons, and had been the first among the higher classes to speak the popular language in order to win the multitude.* Governed at last by a second Charlemagne, Gregory VII., who tried to unite all the kingdoms of Europe under one spiritual sway, she became the greatest power of the age, and when she called all the nations of Christendom to the defence of the Faith, kings and people rose at her voice. Then commenced between East and West the struggle by means of which the French language was spread abroad. When a new Christian kingdom was founded at Jerusalem, its laws were written in French (A.D. 1099).

§ 14. Old French, the slow formation of which we have sketched through such a long space of time, at last reached its culmination during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. France was then at the head of the civilized world. Of the historical characters of the time, Louis IX. (St. Louis) is the most prominent; he stands out among them like a fine and noble figure, around which are grouped the arts and sciences and all the genius of the age. Philip Augustus had founded the University of Paris, St. Louis granted it new privileges, and founded the Sorbonne. On all sides arose magnificent monuments of Church architecture, the admiration of modern times. A nation had at length emerged from chaos, and in

* About 659 the Bishop of Noyon, St. Mummolinus, was highly thought of because of his knowledge of the Romance language.

In 813, the Council of Tours ordered the bishops to translate into the Romance language their pastoral instructions, and even the homilies of the fathers of the Church.

the strength of its youth, it clothed its ideas in an expressive and original language, which soon attracted the attention of Europe. Learned men of other countries adopted it; the great sent their sons to France to learn it; and the literary world, struck with admiration at the freshness, the simplicity, and the natural grace of its poetry, as well as at the almost classical qualities of the historian of Louis IX., Joinville, drank eagerly from its streams of popular literature.

§ 15. Middle French Period, A.D. 1300 to 1600.-The fourteenth century saw the unfortunate country of the Gauls again plunged into a cruel and bloody anarchy. The language, always strongly influenced by political events, suffered much in consequence.

The France of the Carlovingians had been ruined by the great nobles who had shared the land among them. The France of the Valois was well-nigh ruined by her proud and incapable kings and her feudal lords. In the midst of war, pillage, injustice, and cruelty, each powerful baron had his own court and legislature, and his own men of letters. Paris, towards which had once gravitated all the hopes and aspirations of France, ceased to preside over her civilization, and each state struggled for precedence. The want of unity between the king and his nobles, and between the nobles themselves, did not fail to stamp its mark upon the language, and the dialects of Burgundy, Normandy, Picardy, and Isle of France, renewed their rivalry. The "Langue d'Oil," in her turn, but just escaped the imminent danger of sinking, like the "Langue d'Oc," into a number of patois. Happily for the country, after a struggle of a century with England; after the "free bands" and the formidable revolts of the peasants; after famine, pestilence, and horrors of every description, there arose a new order of ideas out of the midst of the general ruin. Thought no longer depended on popes or emperors. The people no longer believed in the Church, nor in that chivalry which had deceived and oppressed them. By their vices these had forfeited the allegiance of the people, who,