[Illustration: Paris: The Seine and Bridges]
Editor of "Great Epochs in American History"Associate Editor of "The World's Famous Orations"and of "The Best of the World's Classics," etc.
Vol. III
France and the Netherlands
Part One
New York and London
The tourist bound for France lands either at Cherbourg, Havre, orBoulogne. At Cherbourg, he sees waters in which the "Kearsarge" sank the"Alabama"; at Havre a shelter in which, long before Caesar came to Gaul,ships, with home ports on the Seine, sought safety from the sea; and atBoulogne may recall the invading expedition to England, planned byNapoleon, but which never sailed.
From the Roman occupation, many Roman remains have survived in England,but these are far inferior in numbers and in state of preservation to theRoman remains found in France. Marseilles was not only an important Romanseaport, but its earliest foundations date perhaps from Phoenician times,and certainly do from the age when Greeks were building temples at Paestumand Girgenti. Rome got her first foothold in Marseilles as a consequenceof the Punic wars; and in 125 B.C. acquired a province (Provincia Romana)reaching from the Alps to the Rhone, and southward to the sea, with Aix asits first capital and Arles its second. Caesar in 58 B.C. found on theSeine a tribe of men called Parisii, whose chief village, Lutetia, stoodwhere now rises Notre Dame.
Lutetia afterward became a residence of Roman emperors. ConstantiusChlorus spent some time there, guarding the empire from Germans andBritons, while Julian the Apostate built there for himself a palace andextensive baths, of which remains still exist in Paris. In that palaceafterward lived Pepin le Bref ("mayor of the palace"), son of CharlesMartell, and father of the great Charles. Romans built there anamphitheater seating ten thousand people, of which remains are stillvisible.
Lyons was a great Roman city. Augustus first called it into vigorous life,his wish being to make it "a second Rome." From Lyons a system of roadsran out to all parts of Gaul. Claudius was born there; Caligula made itthe political and intellectual capital of Provincia; its people, under anedict of Caracalla, were made citizens of Rome. At Nimes was born theEmperor Antoninus. In Gaul, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian and Domitianwere made emperors. At Arles and Nîmes are Roman amphitheaters stillregularly put to use for combats between men and wild beasts--but the wildbeasts, instead of lions and tigers, are bulls. At Orange is a Romantheater of colossal proportions, in which a company from the ThéâtreFrançais annually presents classical dramas. The magnificent fortress cityof Carcassonne has foundation walls that were laid by Romans. Notre Dameof Paris occupies the site of a temple to Jupiter.
As with modern England, so with modern France; its people are a mixture ofmany races. To the southwest, in a remote age, came Iberians from Spain,to Provence, Ligurians from Italy; to the northeast, Germanic tribes; tothe northwest, Scandinavians; to the central parts, from the Seine to theGaronne, in the sixth century B.C., Gauls, who soon became the dominantrace, and so have remained until this day, masterful and fundamental. WhenCaesar came, there had grown up in Gaul a martial nobility, leaders of awarl