Mary MacGregor
The Story of France
language
(Quintessential Classics Nov. 21, 2015)
Long, long ago the land which we now call France was called Gaul.
Gaul was much larger than France is to-day, although north, south, and west France has the same boundaries now as Gaul had in the far-off days of which I am going to tell you.
What these boundaries are, many a geography lesson will have shown. But, lest you have forgotten, take a map of Europe, and you will see that on the north France has to protect her the English Channel, on the south she is guarded by the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees, while on her west roll the waters of the Atlantic. These mountains and waters were also the bulwarks of ancient Gaul.
It was on the east that Gaul stretched far beyond the boundaries of France, reaching to the Alps and to the swift-flowing river Rhine.
And it is of Gaul, as it was in those far-off days many centuries B.C., that I wish first to tell you.
The large tract of land called Gaul was then little more than a dreary waste of moor and marsh, with great forests, larger and gloomier than any you have ever seen.
Through these forests and marshlands terrible beasts prowled—wolves, bears, wild oxen. Herds of swine, too, fierce as any wolves, roamed through the marshes. These had been tamed enough to answer to their keepers horn.
As for the people who lived in Gaul in those days, they were almost as savage as the wild beasts. Half naked, they too, like the wolves and bears, wandered through the marshes and forests to seek for food...
Gaul was much larger than France is to-day, although north, south, and west France has the same boundaries now as Gaul had in the far-off days of which I am going to tell you.
What these boundaries are, many a geography lesson will have shown. But, lest you have forgotten, take a map of Europe, and you will see that on the north France has to protect her the English Channel, on the south she is guarded by the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees, while on her west roll the waters of the Atlantic. These mountains and waters were also the bulwarks of ancient Gaul.
It was on the east that Gaul stretched far beyond the boundaries of France, reaching to the Alps and to the swift-flowing river Rhine.
And it is of Gaul, as it was in those far-off days many centuries B.C., that I wish first to tell you.
The large tract of land called Gaul was then little more than a dreary waste of moor and marsh, with great forests, larger and gloomier than any you have ever seen.
Through these forests and marshlands terrible beasts prowled—wolves, bears, wild oxen. Herds of swine, too, fierce as any wolves, roamed through the marshes. These had been tamed enough to answer to their keepers horn.
As for the people who lived in Gaul in those days, they were almost as savage as the wild beasts. Half naked, they too, like the wolves and bears, wandered through the marshes and forests to seek for food...
- Pages
- 511
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