03. Gaul a Roman Province

CHAPTER III. Gaul a Roman Province (B.C. 70 - 250 A.D.)

When Cæsar was made Consul, or chief ruler in Rome, he had no more time to attend to the Gauls; but many of the Romans stayed in Gaul, and built or conquered cities there, and lived under Roman laws. They taught the Gauls who lived near them to talk their own language, Latin; and most of the words which the French use now are so much like Latin that a person knowing one of these languages finds it a great help in understanding the other. The Gauls improved in many ways; they learned to dress like the Romans, to build their houses of stone and marble instead of wood and earth, and to make roads through their thick forests, so that it might be easy to go from one part of the country to another. Many schools and colleges were set up, and the Gauls learned to read Latin, and also studied law and science, and whatever else the Romans would teach them. Many Gauls changed their old names and took Roman ones.

When the Gauls began going to the Roman colleges, and reading Latin books, they left off caring to be taught by the Druids, for the Druids had no books, but learned everything by heart, and knew much less than the Romans. By degrees the people left off believing in the Druids and their old gods altogether, and determined to worship the same gods as the Romans; the Roman priests took for themselves the riches of the Druids, and the Druids hid themselves in wild parts of the country, and were at last forgotten by the people. In some parts of England and Ireland and France, we still see the circles of stones, or the curious piles of four stones, called cromlechs or dolmens, three stones standing round, and one lying on the top, which mark the places where the Druids sacrificed in old days.

The Gauls lived thus peacefully for about three hundred years; they came to be considered as Roman subjects, and the Romans helped them whenever they were attacked by any of the fierce German tribes who lived on the other side of the Rhine. These tribes were(, as I said before,) very wild and ignorant, loving nothing so well as war, and (apt sometimes) <liking especially> to come into Gaul and carry off anything they could find, food or goods or treasures, from the people. The most important thing that happened to the Gauls during this time was that many of them became Christians. Men came from Italy to teach them about the one God in whom we now believe, and many, both of the Romans and the Gauls, listened to them, believed what they said, and left off praying to idols and sacrificing to their gods. The other Gauls were at first angry at this change, drove the Christians out of the towns, and put some of them to death; but by degrees more and more of them began to believe the new teaching, till at last all the country became Christian.

Each city had a bishop, the old Roman temples were turned into churches, and figures of the Apostles were set up instead of the statues of the old Roman emperors. By this time every one had left off speaking the Gallic language, and the Gauls used a kind of bad Latin, which at last became French, a good deal like what is now spoken in France. The Gauls, during all these years, seemed to be growing more and more wise and happy, and to be improving in every way; but the people were really not happy, for the Romans (expected) <required> them to pay great sums of money, which were spent, not in Gaul, but in Rome, for the Roman emperor to pay his army <with>, or <to> use in whatever way he chose. The Gauls knew that it would be of no use to refuse to pay the money, for the Romans were stronger than they; but when they paid it they had very little left for themselves, and this made them dislike the Romans, who were themselves growing poorer and weaker, and less brave and wise, every year. Another reason for the unhappiness of the Gauls was that a great number of them were slaves, and were very badly treated by their masters, who often went away to amuse themselves at Rome or other great towns, leaving the poor slaves, with very little food and bad houses to live in, to work on their lands and make money for them to spend when they came back.