the Romanfh Language. 147 
tlie moft fober and beft authenticated, maintains that the 
vulgar Latin was undoubtedly the foundation of the Ro- 
mance ; but that much of the Celtic gradually infinuated 
itfelf in lpite of the policy of the Romans, who never 
failed to ufe all their endeavours in order to eftablifh 
their language wherever they fpread their arms. 
Among this variety of conjectures and acute contro- 
verlies, I find it however agreed on all hands, that the 
vocabulary of the Roman, and the idiom of the Celtic 
have chiefly contributed to the formation of the Gallic 
Romance, which is fufficient to prove that it partakes of 
a common origin with that of the Grifons. 
There are inconteftable proofs that this language was 
once univerfal all over France; and that this, and no,t 
immediately the Latin, hath been the parent of the Pro- 
vencal, and afterwards of the modern French, the Ita- 
lian, and the Spanifh. The oath taken by lewis the 
Germanic, in the year 842, in confirmation of an alli- 
ance between him and Charles the Bald, his brother, is 
a decifive proof of the general ufe of the Romance by 
the whole French nation at that time, and of their little 
knowledge of the Teutonic, which being the native 
tongue of lewis, would certainly have been ufed by him 
in this oath, had it been underftood by the French to 
whom he add refled himfelf. But nithardusw, a co- 
temporary writer and near relation to the contracting 
parties, informs us, that lewis took the oath in the Ro- 
mance language, in order that it might be underftood by 
( r ) du chesnEj Hift. Franc, tom. ii. p. 374. 
U 2 the 
