The Gauls were the chief branch of the great original stock of Celts, and as they called themselves Gael, the name Gaul probably thus took its rise. A great resemblance appears to have existed among all the Celts, and although they were divided into numerous tribes, there were but few branches that were perceptibly different from each other. The period of their earliest migrations is, however, too remote for history, and inapplicable to our present object. Cæsar represents all the Gallic tribes as warlike, going always armed, and ready on all occasions to decide their differences by the sword; as a people of great levity, and little inclined to idleness, but hospitable, generous, confiding, and sincere. The Druids, their priests, who were the sole depositaries of learning among them, were indebted to the credulity of the people for the deference they paid to them. These priests ruled the people by the terror of their anathemas; they were exempt from all tribute to the state, and abounded in riches. They had also bards or poets, who composed war-songs to animate the combatants, and to perpetuate the memory of their heroes. The elders, or senators of their towns, together with the military and their chiefs, formed the nobility; these, in conjunction with the priests, possessed the riches and the power; vassalage and misery were the portion of the commonalty.

The discipline of the Romans, and the genius and good fortune of Cæsar. triumphed in ten years over the valour of the Gauls. Colonies had commenced the work of subjugation, and conquest completed it; Gaul became a Roman province. The municipal regulations, and the agriculture of the Romans, soon rendered the country flourishing, but despotism afterwards despoiled it. This state of things continued for four centuries, when the people were reduced to the lowest depths of misery, impoverished by the proconsuls, the prey of factions, and alternately passing from insurrection to slavery, under tyrants, who were perpetually changing. But the "incursions of the barbarians" on the Roman territory, had by this time greatly humbled the former mistress of the world. The civilization, arts, and literature of the Romans were on the decline; the empire, divided and weakened, was falling into ruin, discipline was relaxed, and the glory of the Roman name faded before the barbaric hosts that issued from the north and overran the five provinces which had flourished under the administration of a Trajan and an Antonine.

Four hundred years after the Roman conquests, and under the reign of the weak Honorious, a people known by the name of Franks, from Franconia in Germany, abandoned their morasses and their woods, in search of a better country. Under the direction of their king Pharamond, they passed the Rhine, and entered Gaul, but carried their arms no further than Belgic Gaul, that part of modern France till lately called the Netherlands. Pharamond died soon after he had effected the settlement. The long lists of kings which followed Pharamond, are divided into three races. The first is called the MEROVINGIAN, from Merovius, the third king of the Franks; it produced twenty-one kings to France, from the year 448 to the year 751, and ended with Childeric III., surnamed the Foolish. The second race began with Pepin, mayor of the palace, who did not take upon himself the title of king; nor did his son, the celebrated Charles Martel. Pepin the Short, his son, deprived Childeric III. of his crown. This race, called the CARLOVINGIAN, gave thirteen kings to France. It acquired much glory under Charlemagne, but became very weak under his successors, and terminated with Louis V., called the Sluggard, after having possessed the throne 235 years, from 752 to 987. The third race, called the CAPETINE, commenced with Hugh Capet, and gave to France thirty-three kings, who reigned 806 years, and finished with Louis XVI., who was beheaded January, 1793. France then became a republic, which lasted until May 1804, when it was transformed into an empire by Napoleon Bonaparte.

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who had risen on the ruins of the republic, and had been dictator of France under the appellation of chief consul. The imperial title, however, lasted but ten years, Napoleon having been driven from his usurped throne, and Louis XVIII. restored to the throne of his ancestors.

In tracing the obscure records of the early periods, we behold alternately wars and alliances among the Romans and Franks, the Visigoths, and other barbarians; ambitious generals raised to power by the imperial court, but quickly overcoming their feeble masters, and calling in the aid of the barbarous tribes to serve the ever-varying purposes of their personal ambition. The western empire was then declining; the Saxons seized upon Anjou and Maine; the Burgundians occupied the country near the Seine; the Goths and Visigoths extended their dominions as far as the Loire; the Franks and the Allmanns, branches of the different hordes which issued from Germany, contended for the possession of the north; while the Romans or Gauls kept the other part of the country. On the conquest of Gaul by the Franks, the lands were distributed among their officers; and these, with the clergy, formed the first great councils or parliaments. Thus the government was evidently a kind of mixed monarchy, in which nothing of moment was transacted without the grand council of the nation, consisting of the principal officers, who held their lands by military tenures. It appears, indeed, that when Gaul became the possession of northern invaders, it did not acquire that degree of freedom to its constitution which Britain received, about the same time, from conquerors who sprung from the same common stock.

The Merovingian Dynasty, or First Race.

A. D. 420.—Pharamond, the first king of the Franks, was succeeded by Clodio, who extended the bounds of his kingdom. Merovius secured the acquisitions of his predecessor, and Childeric, his son, pushed his conquests to the banks of the river Seine. Clovis, his son, and the inheritor of his ambition, aggrandized his kingdom, and so far extended his power that he is ranked as the founder of the French monarchy. This prince, the first of the Frank kings who had embraced Christianity, brought almost all the Gauls under his government. He parted his dominions, before he died, between his children. Clovis owed his conversion to Christianity from his marriage with a Christian princess of Spain, and his example was followed by most of the Franks, who until that time had been pagans. He was baptized with great splendour in the cathedral at Rheims, on which occasion the king granted freedom to a number of slaves, and received the title of "Most Christian King," which has ever since been retained by the monarchs of France. Charles I., the youngest and most barbarous of the sons of Clovis, and the last survivor of them, at the time of his death possessed the whole of France; his dominion extended from the banks of the Elbe to the sea of Aquitaine, in the Atlantic ocean, and from the Scheldt to the sources of the Loire. At his death he divided it The kingdom was soon after rendered miserable, among his four sons. from the jealousy of two ambitious women, the queens Fredigonde and Brunehaut. The former was a prodigy of boldness, of wickedness, and genius, and gained several battles in person; the other is described as a woman who, under the exterior graces of beauty, practised the worst of vices, and expiated her crimes by a shocking death.

A. D. 613.-Clotaire II., the worthy son of Fredigonde, became sole monarch of France. Under this prince the mayors of the palace began to have considerable power, which increased under Dagobert I., and became We see in the first race excessive under Clovis II. and his successors. little more than the shadows of kings, while their ministers governed and tyrannized over the people. Pepin Heristal, mayor of the palace to Childeric the Foolish, seized the whole authority. His son. Charles

Martel, a bold and enterprising warrior and great politician, with more ambition even than his father, increased his power by his brilliant achieve. ments, and governed France under the title of duke."

The Carlovingian Dynasty, or Second Race.

As mayor of the palace, Charles Martel had long exercised the sovereign power in the name of Childeric, a weak and indolent prince. The Saracens, who had made themselves masters of the south of France, penetrating into the heart of the kingdom, were at length entirely defeated by him, in one great battle, fought between Tours and Poitiers, which lasted seven days, and in which 300,000 Moslems were slain. In consequence of this splendid victory, he was considered the champion of Christendom, and such was his popularity, that with the consent of the people he assumed the dominion of France; for, having a victorious army at his command, he not only deposed the king, but rendered himself an absolute prince, by depriving the nobility and clergy of their share in the govern

ment.

A. D. 752.-His son Pepin succeeded him on the throne, but restored the privileges of the nobility and clergy, on their agreeing to exclude the former race of kings. He also divided the provinces among his principal nobility, allowing them to exercise sovereign authority in their respective governments, till at length, assuming a kind of independency, they only acknowledged the king as their head, and this gave rise to the numerous principalities, and their several parliaments, every province retaining the same form of government that had been exercised in the whole; and no laws were made, or taxes raised, without the concurrence of the clergy.

A. D. 768.-Charles, his son, called Charlemagne, was valiant, wise, and victorious. He conquered Italy, Germany, and part of Spain, and was crowned emperor of the Romans (the western empire), by Pope Leo III. He established a regular and popular government, compiled a code of laws, favored the arts and sciences, and died with the glory of being beloved by his subjects, and feared by his enemies. Louis I., le Debonnaire, the only surviving son of Charlemagne, began his reign with the most cruel executions. His children revolted against him, he was compelled to do public penance, and declared to have forfeited the imperial dignity. The Normans renewed their incursions and their ravages under Charles the Bald, besieged Paris in the reign of Charles the Gross, and at length obtained a fixed establishment under Charles the Simple. The royal authority became weakened, while the power of the lords considerably augmented; the imperial dignity was already lost to the house of Charlemagne, and it was soon followed by the loss of the crown of France.

FIRST BRANCH.-The Capetine Dynasty, or Third Race.

A. D. 987.-After the death of Louis V., the last of the Carlovingian race, Hugh Capet usurped the throne. This Hugh was the grandson of Robert, whom the French had elected king in the room of Charles the Simple. His father had rendered himself much respected by the nation, in defending Paris against the attacks of the barbarians. Hugh Capot, inheriting the valor of his ancestors, saved France under Lothaire. This family possessed the duchies of Paris and of Orleans; and these two cities, by their situation on the Loire and the Seine, were the strongest bulwarks of the monarchy against the Normans. Hugh associated his son Robert in the kingdom. Robert, as pusillanimous as his father was courageous, reunited the duchy of Burgundy to the crown, but his weakness tarnished his virtues.

A. D. 1031.-Henry I., who had the misfortune to see his own mother armed against him, to deprive him of his crown and give it to his brother,