Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/370

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THE DECLINE AND FALL [Augnsta Treveror- iun=Trier= Tr6Te8] Loire, under the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Bourdeaux. That metropolis, advantajreously situated for the trade of the ocean, was built in a regular and elegant form; and its numerous inhabitants were distinguished among the CJauls by their wealth, their learning, and the politeness of their mannere. The adjacent province, which has been fondly compared to the garden of Eden, is blessed with a fruitful soil and a temperate climate : the face of the country displayed the arts and the rewards of industry ; and the Goths, after their martial toils, luxuriously exhausted the rich vineyards of Aquitain.^"^ The Gothic limits were enlarged by the additional gift of some neighbouring dioceses ; and the successors of Alaric fixed their I'oyal residence at Toulouse, which included five populous quarters, or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls. About the same time, in tiie last years of the reign of Honorius, the Goths, the Burgundians, and the Franks obtained a permanent seat anti dominion in the pro- vinces of Gaul. The liberal grant of the usurper Jovinus to his Burgundian allies was confirmed by the lawful emperor ; the lands of the First, or Upper, Germany were ceded to those formidable Barbarians ; and they gradually occupied, either by conquest or treaty, the two provinces which still retain, with the titles of Duchi/ and of Couiitji, the national appellation of Burgundy.^" The Franks, the valiant and faithful allies of the Roman republic, were soon tempted to imitate the invadei-s, whom they had so bravely resisted. Treves, the capital of Gaul, was pillaged by their lawless bands ; and the humble colony, which they so long maintained in the district of Tox- andria, in Brabant, insensibly multiplied along the banks of the Meuse and Scheld, till their independent power filled the whole extent of the Second or Lower Germany. These facts may be sufficiently justified by historic evidence ; but the foundation of the French monarchy by Pharamond, the conquests, the laws, and even the existence, of that hero, have been justly arraigned by the impartial severity of modern criticism, i"'* 1^2 Ausonius (de Claris Urbibus, p. 257-262) celebrates Bourdeaux with the partial affection of a native. See in Salvian {de Guhern. Dei, p. 228. Paris, 1608) a florid description of the provinces of Aquiiain and N'ovempopulania. !•' Orosius (1. vii. c. 32, p. 550) commends the mildness and modesty of these Burgundians who treated their subjects of Gaul as their Christian brethren. Mas- ecu has illustrated the origin of their kingdom in the four first annotations at the end of his laborious History of the ancient Germans, vol. ii. p. 555-572, of the English translation. [For the ten Burgundies see Apjaendix i of Mr. Bryce's Holy Roman Empire. 1 i"-* See Mascou, 1. viii. c. 43, 44, 45. Except in a short and suspicious line of the Chronicle of Prosper (in torn. i. p. 638 [pseudo- Prosper ; see Monimsen, Chron.