[Illustration: The Assault on St. Jean d'Acre----386]





A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES.




CHAPTER I.----GAUL.

The Frenchman of to-day inhabits a country, long ago civilized and
Christianized, where, despite of much imperfection and much social
misery, thirty-eight millions of men live in security and peace, under
laws equal for all and efficiently upheld. There is every reason to
nourish great hopes of such a country, and to wish for it more and more
of freedom, glory, and prosperity; but one must be just towards one's own
times, and estimate at their true value advantages already acquired and
progress already accomplished. If one were suddenly carried twenty or
thirty centuries backward, into the midst of that which was then called
Gaul, one would not recognize France. The same mountains reared their
heads; the same plains stretched far and wide; the same rivers rolled on
their course. There is no alteration in the physical formation of the
country; but its aspect was very different. Instead of the fields all
trim with cultivation, and all covered with various produce, one would
see inaccessible morasses and vast forests, as yet uncleared, given up to