206 
Corn. 
that our city could not subsist without provisions drawn from 
Egypt. This vain and proud nation boasted that, though con¬ 
quered, they nevertheless fed their conquerors; that, by means 
of their river, either abundance or scarcity were entirely at 
their own disposal. But we have now returned the Nile his 
own harvests, and given him back the provisions he sent us. 
Let the Egyptians be, then, convinced by their own expe¬ 
rience, that they are not necessary to us, and are only our 
vassals. Let them know that their ships do not so much 
bring us the provision we stand in need of, as the tribute which 
they owe us. And let them never forget that we can do with¬ 
out them, but that they can never do without us. This most 
fruitful province had been ruined, had it not worn the Roman 
chains. The Egyptians, in their sovereign, found a deliverer 
and a father. Astonished at the sight of their granaries filled 
without any labour of their own, they were at a loss to know 
to whom they owed this foreign and gratuitous plenty. The 
famine of a people, though at such a distance from us, though 
so speedily stopped, served only to let them feel the advan¬ 
tage of living under our empire. The Nile may, in other times, 
have diffused more plenty in Egypt, but never more glory 
upon us.” 
Despite this splendid harangue in favour of foreign despot¬ 
ism, for it was neither more nor less than that, Egypt had 
every reason to be proud of her productiveness in respect to 
corn ; and that both Rome and Constantinople well knew. 
It was the accusation brought against St. Athanasius, of his 
having threatened to impede in future the importation of 
corn into the latter city from Alexandria, which so greatly 
incensed the Emperor Constantine against him, that soveieign 
being well aware how much his capital had to rely upon the 
grain exported thither from Egypt. 
It has been said that an entire straw symbolized union , and 
the breaking of a straw rupture. The antiquity of this latter 
emblem is traced back to a very early period, and from an 
event recorded by ancient French chroniclers as occurring in 
922, in the reign of Charles the Simple, w T as evidently a cus¬ 
tomary and well-comprehended mode of procedure at that 
time. That monarch, defied by his most powerful vassals, 
and threatened by foreign foes, summoned a meeting of his 
