13 
LAND 5: W A T E R 
May 4, 1916 
Britain's Kinship with France 
By Arthur L. Salmon 
IN tlic first great historic invasion of Britain, the 
Ivcriiians and Celts were defeated by the tinest 
civilisation that the Western world had then to 
ofier, that (jf the Latins. But when the Teutonic 
hordes came battering at our gates, it was the lower 
civilisation that triumphed, at least for a time. Not only 
had the Celts their own spiritual culture and something 
more than a veneer of Christianity ; but it had not been 
for nothing that the Roman occupation had endured 
for four centuries. But Celticism was hopelessly dis- 
united, and it never presented a single front to the 
enemy ; its resistance was always tribal, never national. 
Even so, it was only conquered piecemeal, and not that 
entirely ; Wales, West \\'alcs. and the North almost 
wholly escaped. France, at tliis moment our dear friend 
and ally, had also suffered from barbaric invasion, but 
had taken a hrmer hold of Latin civilisation, so that her 
influence was able to convert herce Norsemen into the 
comparatively refined and art-loving Normans who 
were later to convey their culture to England. 
A False Idea 
It is especially interesting at this time to draw atten- 
tion to Britain's links with France, and to undo in part the 
mischief wrought by the Teutonising historians of a past 
generation, who tried to represent modern England as 
little more than a German colony. That idea is false 
both in spirit and in detail. We need not under-estimate 
the robust force of the Teutonic elements, or their part 
in fonning the typical British character ; but the fact 
remains that our racial achievement is a blend of at 
least three main constituents, that of the Celt, the Latin, 
and the Teuton. Where England's gift to the world is 
probably greatest, in literature, the prevailing elements 
are without doubt the Celtic and the Latin ; in successful 
colonising we derive from Rome, in commerce from 
Germany. 
When it comes to actual race, it is probable that our 
connection with France is at least as close as with 
Teutonism ; at the present moment it would seem that 
our nearest European affinities are to be found with 
France and with Scandinavian Teutonism rather than 
that now controlled by the pernicious hegemony of 
Prussia. To cross from Cornwall to Brittany, even now 
is scarcely like a change of country ; a few centuries 
since it would not have meant a change of language. 
Breton speech is the sole living analogue of old Cornish, 
a Cymric tongue akin to Welsh, differing from the 
Gaelic of Ireland and North Britain. 
In romance we are linked to the Continent by the 
Arthurian cycle, purely British in its inception if not in 
its development, and to this day a far more potent force 
in our literature than the Teutonic Beowulf or Lay of 
the Nibelungs. When Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his 
history of the Britons he went to Brittany for his details, 
fabulous as these generally were ; they were a common 
heritage, but, less disturbed by constant strife, the 
Bretons had best preserved them. Crossing to Brittany, 
we find the familiar names of Domiwnia, our Devon, 
Cnnwuaillcs, our Cornwall, and Leon, obviously connected 
with the lost, perhaps not wholly mythic, land of Lyonesse. 
From very early times there had been a close inter- 
colonising between south Britain and Armorica ; not 
only so, but we know that tiie British founded a colony 
around the mouths of the Rhine, while the tribes of 
Belga; in Britain obviously connect us with the Belgium 
that has won our admiring sympathies. As early as 
the year 316 there seems to have been a colony of Welsh- 
men in Brittany ; but the exodus from British shores of 
which we know most was that which followed the Saxon 
encroaclunents, when the British were being j)ushcd 
further and further westward by ruthless Teutons. 
The coast-region of northern France afterwards known 
as Brittany or Little Britain had been almost depopu- 
lated bv furious incursions of Frisian and kindred tribes, 
and being an isolated deserted region, it offered naturally 
a tempting haven for the distracted Cymry who migrated 
in large numbers during the fifth and sixth centuries. 
In a life of S. Winwaloe, whose name we find not only in 
the Cornish Landewednac and Gunwalloe, but in the 
Breton Landevenec, that " the sons of the Britons 
crossing the sea landed on these shores at the period when 
the barbarian Saxons conquered the isle. These children 
of a loved race established themselves in this country 
happy to find repose after so many griefs." 
Strong traces of the community of the races occupying 
these opposite coasts of the Channel survive not only 
in speech and place-name, in legend, superstition, and 
folk-drama, but in saint-lore ; the saints of Wales, 
Cornwall, Brittany, are very largely a common familw 
The librarian of the Louvre once drew attention to tlie 
fact that all the saints of ancinf Breton parishes were, 
with a single exception, British ; which of course docs 
not mean that they were all born within the British isles. 
Only a few names need be mentioned. S. Budoc. an 
abbot in the isle of Lauret, left his name to the mother- 
parish of Falmouth ; S. Non, mother of the famous 
Welsh S. David, founded churches both in Cornwall 
and Devon, but retreated to Brittany before her death. S. 
Ronan. who did great things in Brittany, is identified 
with the Ruan or Rumon of Cornwall and Devon ; visitors 
to F'owey will find his name at Polruan. There was also 
S. Samson, a most energetic and militant saint, whose 
traces are very definite in Wales, Cornwall, Scilly and 
the Channel Islands ; he landed at Dol and became a 
notable man not only throughout Armorica but even at 
Paris. S. Mawes or Modez appears to have been an 
Irishman who first settled in Cornwall and then crossed 
the Channel, leaving his name to one of the Brehat islands ; 
S. Malo was apparently \\'elsh by birth. 
Cymric and Gaelic Saints 
While paying all due respect to the especially Cymri^ 
saints who came from South Britain, we have to remember 
that the Gaelic saints of Ireland and North Britain did 
their full share in bringing Christianity to northern F'rance, 
and did even more in taking it farther still across the 
('ontinent. Lovers of literature as well as of arclueology 
know how close is the connection between Brittany and 
all the Cymric parts of Britain ; while the kinship with 
Ireland is not quite so close, because the Irish belonged to 
a different branch of the Celtic family. Renan, himself a 
Breton, paid special attention to this kinship — a kinship 
so near that it has been asserted that Breton onion- 
sellers can make themselves understood by the Welsh, as 
they certainly could in Cornwall while Cornish remained a 
living language. 
It has been so dinned into us that we are a Teutonic 
people, that something of the reverse side is a welcome 
relief. It is certain that our spiritual relationships have 
been rather with the Celts and the Latin peoples. Ob- 
viously none of our great writers reveal this Teutonic 
ascendancy, with the doubtful exception of Carlyle, who 
tortured a spirit very largely Celtic into Teuton "violence 
of expression, to his own loss. 
It is impossible to unravel differing threads of race in 
the woof of national character and national utterance ; 
we must be willing to give Teutonism its fair place, but 
an unfair supremacy has been claimed for it, and against 
this we are brought to rebel, none too soon. Neither 
intellectually nor ph\sically are the British people, even 
those most narrowly styled English, an insular colony of 
Germans. This may be said with all true recognition of 
whatever has been good in Germanism, which it would 
be mere pettiness to disavow. 
Felicity, having no home ties, went out to South .\frica 
and adopted journHJisni as a profession, hence The Phases 
of J-clkilv, by Olga Kacster and Jessica Grove ((icorgc 
.Mien aud Unwin, Os.), a certain man, Hromley to wit, 
supplies the element of romance for a rather diluted l<ive 
story, aud misunderstandings spin out the romance to the last 
chapter. The authors .know their Cape Town and have also 
definite acquaintance with the veldt ; hence a readable and 
by no means uniittractive little storv, rather more concerned 
with Africa than with Felicity. 
