France Author:William Chambers Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. CONQUEST OF ROMANISED GAULS BY THE FRANKS—THE MEROVINGIAN AND CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTIES. 'C"VER since the days of Caesar, Gaul had been "" trouble... more »d with the menaces and attempted invasions of Teutonic or German tribes who occupied the right bank of the Rhine. When the Roman protection was enfeebled, the encroachments of these tribes increased in audacity. In the fifth century, three Teutonic or German tribes, established themselves in Gaul—the Visigoths on the south, the Burgundians on the east, and the Franks on the north. These invaders are understood to have been impelled forward by hordes of Huns, an Asiatic race, who at this era made forays into Europe, plundering and driving everything before them, and who finally established themselves in a country on the Danube, which takes from them the name Hungary. There is no distinct account of the cessation of Roman rule in Gaul, and the manner of settlement of the Teutonic tribes. It is only known that there was much fighting and commotion, as also much suffering on the part of the Romanised Celts, before the new-comers had made themselves at home in the country. The Franks —a name assumed to signify freemen—poured in from the countries east of the Rhine, and from that part ofthe Netherlands known as Brabant Just as it was the fortune of England to derive its national designation from the Angles, who invaded it from the continent, so was the name France derived from the colony of Franks who intruded themselves into Gaul, and obtained supremacy, about the middle of the fifth century. This settlement of the Franks is the second important fact in French history. It does not appear that the various bodies of Teutonic invaders made any serious change in the language and the religion of the population. The ecclesiasti...« less