FRANCE. • n 353 



deep, which excited the police and government to cause the build- 

 ings of several quarters to be priv-ately propped up. AH the suburbs 

 of St. James's, Harpe-street, and even the street of Tournon, stand 

 upon the ancient quarries ; and pillars have been erected to support 

 the weight pf the houses ; but as the lofty buildings, towers, and 

 steeples, now tell the eye that what is seen in the air is wanting under 

 the feet, so it would not require a very violent shock to throw back 

 the stones to the places from whence they were raised. 



At Aries in Provence is an obelisk of oriental granite, 52 feet high, 

 and seven feet diameter at the base, and all but one stone. Roman' 

 temples and aqueducts are frequent in France. The most remarka- 

 ble are in Burgundy and Guienne ; the passage cut through the* mid- 

 dle of a ro'ck near Briancon in Dauphine is thought to be a Roman 

 work, if not of greater antiquity. The round buckler of massy silver,, 

 taken out of the Rhone in 1665, being twenty inches in diameter, and 

 weighing twenty-one pounds, containing the'story of Scipio's con- 

 tinence, is thought to be coeval with that great general. 



History. ...The history of no country is better authenticated than 

 that of France, and it is particularly interesting to an English reader. 

 This country, which was by the Romans called Transalpine Gaul, or 

 Gaul beyond the Alps, to distinguish it from Cisalpine Gaul on the 

 Italian side o'f the Alps, was probably peopled from Italy, to which it 

 lies contiguous. Like other European nations, it soon became a de- 

 sirable object to the ambitious Romans ; and, after a brave resist- 

 ance, was annexed to their empire, by the invincible arms of Julius 

 Caesar, about forty-eight years before Christ. Gaul continued in the 

 possession of the Romans, till the downfal of that empire in the fifth 

 century ; when it became a prey to the Goths, the Burgundians, and 

 the Franks, who subdued, but did not extirpate, the ancient natives. 

 The Franks, themselves, who gave it the name of France, or Frank- 

 enland, were a collection of several people inhabiting Germany; and 

 particularly the Salli, who lived on the banks of the river Sale, and 

 who cultivated the principles of jurisprudence better than their neigh- 

 bours. These Salli had a rule, which the rest of the Franks are said 

 to have adopted, and has been by the modern Franks applied to the 

 succession of the throne, excluding all females from the inheritance 

 of sovereignty, and is well known by the name of the Salic Law. 



The Franks and Burgundians, after establishing their power, and 

 reducing the original natives to a state of slavery, parcelled cut the 

 lands among their principal leaders ; and succeeding kings found it 

 necessary to confirm their privileges, allowing them to exercise sove- 

 reign authority in their respective governments, until they at length 

 assumed an independency, only acknowledging the king as their 

 head. This gave rise to those numerous principalities that were for- 

 merly in France, and to the several parliaments ; for every province 

 became, in its policy and government, an epitome of the, whole king- 

 dom ; and no laws Avere made, or taxes raised, without the concur- 

 rence of the grand council, consisting of the clergy and of the no- 

 bility. 



Thus, as in other European nations, immediately after the dissolu- 

 tion of the Roman empire, the first government in France seems to 

 have been a kind of mixed monarchy, and the power of their kings 

 extremely circumscribed and limited by the feudal barons. 



The first Christian monarch of the Franks (according to Daniel, 

 one of the best French historians) was Clovis, who began his reign 



Vol. I. Z z 



