IJfth Januarij, 1919. 



FRONTIERS OF FRANCE. 



By Prof. Granville A. J. Cole, f.r.s., m.r.la. 



(Abstract by the Lecturer.) 



Ancient Ga-ul, the predecessor of Franco, received its 

 civilization from the spreading Roman Empire, and in turn 

 impressed that civilisation, and a speech of Latin origin, on 

 the Franks and Goths who seized upon the Roman lands. 

 The Goths sided with the Romans against the barbarous Huns, 

 and the dwellers in Gaul did much to maintain the traditions 

 of law and order transmitted to them by Roman rule. The 

 divisions of western Europe in the middle ages led to the 

 struggle between a growing kingdom of France on the one 

 hand and the English and the Burgundians on the other. The 

 frontiers of Fi-ance as we now know them were the dream of 

 the young peasant girl, Jeanne d'Arc. In her 19th year, by 

 faith and devotion to a visionary cause, deserted by her king 

 and martyred by the English, she had laid the foundations of a 

 united France. 



The Phocaeans brought Greek civilization to Massala 

 (Marseilles) in 600 B.C., and this harbour on the Mediterranean 

 frontier remained the great ])ort of entry for the Romans. The 

 Rh6ne valley west of it gave easy access to the interior, and 

 to-day Marseilles is the link between Paris and the colonial 

 lands of France in northern Africa. From it the French have 

 taken up the mantle of imperial Rome, and their heroic actions 

 on the Meuse and on the Somme have been discussed on the 

 steps of Tunisian mosques and supported by Moslem volunteers. 



The rampart of the Pyrenees forms a highly effective and 

 natural frontier between Fiance and the Iberian block, and 

 checked in critical centuries the progress of the Moorish Cali- 



