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In the attempt which I am about to make to sketch that portion of the Middle Ages which is to engage our attention, and to select some predominant and characteristic points, my mind is perplexed by a multitude of facts so numerous, that I cannot mention all, and yet I fear to omit any. To which shall I give the preference? The monuments so numerous, and, for the most part, imperfectly known, the confusion of languages and manners, the paucity, and at the same time, the abundance of materials, render it almost impossible to accomplish that which nevertheless I wish to attempt. I have already spoken hastily of the great power which was about to reanimate society, and of the sublime geniuses, born VOL. VI.-No. III. 19

during the existence of the Roman Empire, which Christianity destroyed or transformed. I have said that a new life was soon to gush forth and flow into channels, new like itself; that races and languages were prepared to receive it, and that then only the metamorphosis of the Roman world would be manifest, would be complete.

While the Greek and Latin languages were still spoken, though all else was changed, there was, in that persistence, in that tenacity of ancient forms, something which concealed from view much of the creative originality inherent in Christianity. Afterwards, on the contrary, when the old races had been swept from the earth, or at least had disguised themselves under the costume of their conquerors, when they had renounced their nationality, in order to obtain permission to live; when, from the barbarism which succeeded were produced new idioms, then the revolution of the human mind appeared in all its immensity. In the ancient Roman territory all was changed, unsettled; there were no longer Gauls-Iberians became Romans; there were new races with varieties of physiognomy and language: it was chaos arising from the midst of that uniformity which the

Roman conquest had commenced, and neral and rapid preaching of the Christian which Christianity had at first seemed to complete.

Behold the condition of the world into which it is necessary for us to adventure, in order to view, in their origin, the literature and the genius of the principal nations of Europe. In commencing this task, I have confined myself within narrow limits. I have cast aside one half of my subject, because I do not understand it. I abandon all the German part, not that I do not admire it, not that I do not perceive from afar, with a confused and imperfect vision, all there is grand and instructive in the old monuments of the genius of the North, which, under the name of Gothic, traversed all the South of Europe, and which, upon its native soil, displayed so much indigenous vigor. But, indeed, I know all this too imperfectly to speak of it.

I confine myself, I imprison myself within the other half of Europe, the South, and the central countries, which have received and preserved for the longest period, the influence of the Southern genius. Thus France, both north and south of the Loire; England, situated so near us, over which has passed French conquest, represented by the Norman; Spain, whose frontier provinces have long spoken the same language as the South of France; and finally, Italy; these are all which will occupy us. All these subjects are closely connected and form but one; all these languages, except the English, which, shaking off the French conquest and laws, soon revived upon its old Teutonic stock ;-all these languages are sisters; they are all born of the same corruption; they all sprung up amid the ruins of the Latin language.

Let us observe this grand result, born of ancient civilization, and surviving it. The Roman genius carried its laws, customs and language into all the countries which it had conquered and long possessed; then came religion, more powerful than the Roman empire, and added the holy uniformity of its ritual to the uniformity of conquest and politics. St. Augustine has remarked in eloquent terms:-" Aid was given the Imperial City to impose not only its yoke, but also its language, upon conquered nations, for the peace of society."

faith.

Whatever were the causes of this grand revolution, so majestically announced by Christianity, one thing strikes us, which is, that all Gaul, as far as the Rhine, all Spain, and of course all Italy, spoke the Latin language in the fourth and fifth centuries. Undoubtedly there were local idioms, dialects concealed in some remote village; but Religion spoke Latin, Law spoke Latin, War spoke Latin; every where Latin was the language imposed by the conqueror upon the conquered. To form treaties, to solicit pardon, to obtain abatement of taxes, to pray in the temple, the Latin language was always required. Thus this grand transmutation of the conquered by the conquerors, this change of society, without the destruction of individuals, was effected under the powerful policy of the Romans, aided by the preaching of Christianity.

How long did this condition of the world continue? How was it gradually changed? At what epoch, from the midst of this Roman language, so widely diffused, did there arise new languages, and with them a more complete and more effectual manifestation of the modern spirit? For the minds of men are so influenced by the forms of speech, that even men of a new race and a new spirit, if they adopt an old language, will lose something of their native character; and if several races be united, they will form one people only when they shall have a new and common language.

These questions will long detain us. We shall be, in some degree, grammarians and lexicographers. These studies have their interest, their historical and piquant originality, and you will not reproach me for dwelling upon them.

Long before this revolution, we see all the South of Europe subdued by the Romans, and adopting their manners and language. It is the seal of victory- the condition of a peaceful life in the midst of defeat. A thousand proofs support this fact. Listen to that Gallic orator who, addressing the Roman Senate, in the fourth century, under Theodosius, feels some apprehension, he says, upon bringing among the descendants of Cicero and Hortensius, the rude and unpolished harshness of the Transalpine tongue, rudem et incultum transalAugustine saw something marvellous and pini sermonis horrorem. This refers not predestined in this wide diffusion of the Ro-to a Celtic harangue, but to a discourse in man language. In his eyes it was the pro- the Latin language of the Gauls. In the vidential means which prepared for the ge- preceding centuries, Suetonius, Pliny, Ju

remain. They themselves learned the popular idioms engrafted upon that language, gradually altered in Gaul, and at length were blended with the more numerous and more enlightened people, whom they had conquered. The ancient Roman spirit, the ancient Roman language, in time corrupted, prevailed in Gaul, over the language of the new conquerors.

venal and Martial, speak frequently of the changed into Romans, they took the counliterary games and declamations in the La- try without transforming it, and receiving tin language, common at Lyons, Vienna, the religion of the Gallic bishops, allowed Bordeaux, and all the cities of Southern the language, which that religion spoke, to Gaul and Spain. Subsequently, curious monuments attest the use of the Latin, in the provincial assemblies of the Gauls, to register acts, to state the complaints of Gallic subjects, and even sometimes to accuse the Roman prefect. It was in Latin that all the mind of the country was expressed. It is probable that a change in this condition of the provinces, conquered by the Romans, dates only from the incursion of The investigation of these facts will lead new races of barbarians. What happened to long details. Questions of history and then? In the same manner that civilized philology will arise which are, I confess, Rome had imposed its language upon all the disputable. When we shall have admitted nations subdued by its arms, did the new that, from the seventh century, three lanconquerors destroy the civilization recently guages were in use in Gaul-the Latin established in Gaul, and introduce their manners and language in the place of those which the Romans had in part substituted for the ancient usages and dialect of the country? No! And herein appears the power of civilization. A celebrated scholar, in a work upon the ouigour languages, has ingeniously maintained that, in the language of a people formed by various aggregations, we can recognize the original population of each of the united races, by computing the number of words and phrases contributed by each to the common stock of the new language.

language, still official and ecclesiastical, a vulgar language, uniformly altered from the Latin, and a German language, which the conquerors had brought with them, which they partly lost, and which they did not impose upon the inhabitants of the country, more than one difficulty will present itself.

Whilst admiring and studying the curious researches of a celebrated scholar and poet, M. Raynouard, perhaps we shall entertain some doubts with regard to his system; perhaps, while relying upon the authority of a no less ingenious scholar, M. Schlegel, we shall ask, if it is natural to But this remark can justly be applied only suppose, that from the seventh century, one when the races, which are thus mingled, single language, corrupted from the Ropossess an equal degree of civilization and man, had uniformly subjected to its emintellectual power. When, on the contra-pire, the whole of the two Gauls, and had ry, it is the learned and the ingenious who even extended into a part of Spain and into subdue the gross and the ignorant, then the Upper Italy. Nevertheless we shall not neequilibrium of the contingent, which each glect any of the arguments and proofs given brings to the formation of the new language, by the author in support of his learned conis destroyed; knowledge prevails over num-jectures. Fortunately, however, his fame bers, and those who have the most ideas, is secure from the attacks which his system give incomparably the most words. may receive. Though we may question Without doubt, the Romans who con- that kind of universality, which he appears quered and colonized Gaul, were much less numerous than the Gauls. They enforced the adoption of their language, because they imposed their laws and their religion. The Franks were also much less numerous than the Gauls, whom they invaded. Nevertheless, if they had been superior in intelligence and the arts-especially if they had brought with them a new worship, the ancient civilization and the ancient tongue would have been conquered by the new, aided by force. But as, on the contrary, the Franks were little better than barbarians, in comparison with the Gauls

to accord to a Roman language, uniform, sonorous, spoken both at the north and the south, it cannot be disputed that he has learnedly restored, explained, and analyzed the monuments of that language, which, for the most part, were not published; that he has, in the variety of these monuments, discovered and systematized the primitive elements of a language, till then imperfectly known, which was, if not the only, at least the principal medium between the Roman civilization and ours, and that in short he has recovered, not a few books, but a whole dialect.

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