ao The Winning of the West 



the English already had a distinct national being; 

 when Charlemagne reigned, the French, as we use 

 the term to-day, had no national being whatever. 

 The Germans of the mainland merely overran the 

 countries that lay in their path; but the sea-rovers 

 who won England to a great extent actually dis- 

 placed the native Britons. The former were ab- 

 sorbed by the subject-races; the latter, on the con- 

 trary, slew or drove off or assimilated the original 

 inhabitants. Unlike all the other Germanic swarms, 

 the English took neither creed nor custom, neither 

 law nor speech, from their beaten foes. At the time 

 when the dynasty of the Capets had become firmly 

 established at Paris, France was merely part of a 

 country where Latinized Gauls and Basques were 

 ruled by Latinized Franks, Goths, Burgunds, and 

 Normans; but the people across the Channel then 

 showed little trace of Celtic or Romance influence. 

 It would be hard to say whether Vercingetorix or 

 Caesar, Clovis or Syagrius, has the better right to 

 stand as the prototype of a modern French general. 

 There is no such doubt in the other case. The 

 average Englishman, American, or Australian of 

 to-day who wishes to recall the feats of power with 

 which his race should be credited in the shadowy 

 dawn of its history, may go back to the half-myth- 

 ical glories of Hengist and Horsa, perhaps to the 

 deeds of Civilis the Batavian, or to those of the hero 

 of the Teutoburger fight, but certainly to the wars 

 neither of the Silurian chief Caractacus nor of his 

 conqueror, the after-time Emperor Vespasian. 



