As with modern England, so with modern France; its people are a mixture
of many races. To the southwest, in a remote age, came Iberians from
Spain, to Provence, Ligurians from Italy; to the northeast, Germanic
tribes; to the northwest, Scandinavians; to the central parts, from the
Seine to the Garonne, in the sixth century B.C., Gauls, who soon became
the dominant race, and so have remained until this day, masterful and
fundamental. When Caesar came, there had grown up in Gaul a martial
nobility, leaders of a warlike people, with chieftains whose names are
familiar in the mouths and ears of all schoolboys--Aricvistus and
Vercingetorix. When Vercingetorix was overthrown at Alesia, Gaul became
definitely Roman. For five hundred years it remained loyal to Rome.
Within its borders, was established the Pax Romana, and in 250 A.D.,
under St. Denis, Christianity. When the disintegration of the empire
set in five centuries afterward, Gaul was among the first provinces to
suffer. With the coming of the Visigoths and Huns from the Black Sea,
the Pranks and Bnrgundians from beyond the Rhine, the Roman fall was
near, but great battles were first fought in Gaul, battles which
rivaled those of Caesar five centuries before. Greatest of all these
was the one with Attila, at Chalons, in 451, where thousands perished.