CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY. 



Major and Mamcrtinus Minor, Nazarius, Dropanius, and several Gauls from 

 Aquitaine. 



Eloquence had from the earliest period been held in great honour amongst 

 the Gauls. The ancient Gauls paid worship to Hercules, of whom they had 

 made the god of speech, and whom they represented in allegory as attacking 

 men with golden chains issuing from his mouth. Thus the art of oratory was 

 in their esteem the highest of all, and they were very fond of hearing good 

 speeches. This will explain why the Emperor Claudius instituted at Lyons 

 oratorical jousts, the defeated in which were compelled to efface with the 

 tongue their unsuccessful speeches, under penalty of being cast into the 

 Rhone. Juvenal and St. Jerome (Fig. 392) are agreed in recognising the 

 natural talent of the Gallic race for speaking. In the principal towns of 

 Gaul at Toulouse, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Troves, Besan9on, and Autun there 

 existed public schools of oratory, which produced thousands of orators, or 

 rather of rhetoricians, but which left no permanent record of civil or purely 

 literary eloquence. The reason was that a new stamp of eloquence, such as 

 paganism had never been able to inspire, was suddenly called into being with 

 the Christian religion. The pagan rhetoricians were awed into silence, like 

 the oracles of the false gods, at its first accents, and the pulpit of sacred 

 oratory henceforward stood alone in the midst of the ancient Forum. 



For centuries the art of oratory had no annals in political life, and 

 speaking, which held such a large place in the records of ancient history, 

 does not occupy more than a few pages in the histories of the early ages of 

 the French monarchy. Gregory of Tours, in his "History of the Francs," 

 makes it sufficiently clear that the warriors of these barbarian times set more 

 store by deeds than by words. King Clovis, when urging his warriors to 

 undertake fresh conquests, merely said to them, "It pains me to see the 

 Arians in possession of a part of Gaul. Let us march against them, with the 

 aid of God, and after we have vanquished them let us reduce the country into 

 our power." And the Franks forthwith prepared to undertake the campaign. 

 Mummolus, Count of Auxerre, and patrician of the troops of King Gontran, 

 said to the Saxons, who, after having devastated all the laud which they had 

 overrun, were about to cross the Rhone to invade the kingdom of Sigebert, 

 " You have depopulated the land of the King my master, carried off the crops 

 and the cattle, delivered the houses to the flames, cut down the olive-trees, 

 and rooted up the vines. You shall not set foot upon the other side of the 



