France’s Parents And Grandparents

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31754, 10 August 1968, Page 4

France’s Parents And Grandparents

(Reviewed by F.D.)

Caesar To Charlemagne; The Beginnings of France. By Robert Latouche. Phoenix House. 382 pp. 195 Illustrations. Seven maps. Index.

Phoenix House, which has enriched the English-reading public with many good translations of notable European books, has done this service once more and has n no way diminished its reputation thereby. “Caesar to Charlemagne” was first published in French in 1965. This translation by Jennifer Nicholson reads like an original, and the fascinating plates skilfully adapted to the text give the work an added dimension.

Robert Latouche, a Sorbonne graduate, is Dean of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Grenoble. His interest is literary rather than historical. If Charles the Bald be considered the first French king, this book is a literary pre-history of the kingdom. The author is at pains to establish historical truth, but he does not dismiss the myths and legends of the era since a knowledge of them is quite necessary for a knowledge of French literature and culture.

For the Roman Conquest, Latouche relies on Caesar. The story of Vercingetorix is told in some detail since he is destined for the role of the country's first national hero. The description of his “scorched earth” policy sounds distinctly modern. When one reads the speeches placed in the mouth of the principals by Caesar, Tacitus and others, one gets some insight into form criticism which looms so large nowadays in the literary understanding of the Scriptures. It is interesting to notice what New Zealanders would consider Polynesian traits in the descriptions of the ancient

Gauls—their lore learnt by heart, the privileged position of the Druids, the sporadic appearance of prophets. After the crisis of the year 70, the enlightened policy of the Antonines brings about a peaceful and fruitful Romanisation based on the Emperor cult, religious syncretism and native involvement in regional ar 3 local administration.

The most informative part of the early book lies in the evidence for peace and prosperity in fourth-century Gaul after the chaos of the previous century and before the great barbarian raid of 406. The literature of the period is considerable and most attractive. The many quotations from Ausonius will whet the appetite of many a reader to know more about this self-revealing Christian humanist who is so proud of his native city of Bordeaux, who was tutor to the Emperor’s son at Treves, whose voluminous writings shed a bright light on the France of 16 centuries ago. Listen to his address to his wife while she was still alive:

Dear wife, as we have lived, so let us live and keep the names we took when first we wedded: let no day ever make us change in lapse of time: but I will be thy A Lad“ still and thou wilt be my “Lass.”

And long after her death he writes:

In youth I wept for you, robbed of my hopes in early years, and though these six and thirty years, unwedded, I have mourned, and mourn you still. Age has crept over me but yet I cannot lull my pain.

The coming of Christianity makes another curious story. A vigorous and heroic Christian community is revealed in Lyons in the year 177 when the letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne describe the savage persecution of great numbers of the faithful including the old Bishop Pothinus and the slave-girl Blandina. A Greek inscription

found at Autun in 1839 is almost the only other literary evidence for the presence of Christianity during the next century. The conversion of Constantine seems to have begun the mass conversion of Gaul.

Few people can have captured the imagination of his contemporaries as did St Martin, Bishop of Tours. His life introduces the reader to the work of Gregory of Tours whom Latouche considers a much under-rated man. Allowing for the childish credulity of the age, the author perceives genuine authenticity in the graphic personal anecdotes which fill the pages of Gregory’s main work, the History of the Franks. The Franks are, of course, a major theme of this book. Their first appearance in the third century is described and their constitution as guardians of the Rhine frontier by Julian is duly noted. The paramount importance of Clovis is well explained. This great chieftain took advantage of the power gap caused by the fall of the Western Empire in 476 to establish himself over the GalloRornans in 486 and after his baptism as a Catholic in 496 and his consequent winning of the support of the Bishops, “the only moral power still surviving, he proceeded almost as a crusader against the Arian King of the Visigoths, Aiaric 11, thus establishing a Catholic government over the Catholic masse* and pagan and Arian minorities of' the greatest territory of the West” The Emperor Anastasius recognised this by making the Frankish chief a Roman consul.

Before the sad story of Merovingian Gaul is detailed, the more melancholy account of the great invasions is given. Latouche discovers in the writings of the GalloRoman Bishop of Auvergne,

Sidonius Apollinaris, a part of France gravely disturbed by the Barbarian invasions but by no means destroyed by them. Since the towns were now fortresses, society had moved to the country. Sidonius on his country estate with its gardens had hot and cold baths seems to realise that he lives at the end of an ara. Speaking of the barbarian newcomers, he prays: “If we cannot keep them by treaty for the Roman State, we may at least hold them by religion for the Roman Church.”

Salvian, a priest of Treves living in Marseilles, gives another version of the times when he bitterly complains of injustice and corruption and explains how the poorer people are commending themselves to the protection of the rich, barterisg their freedom for security, thus revealing to posterity one of the beginnings of feudalism. The book ends by tracing the destiny of the Carolingians as they sought to defend and administer the kingdoms in the anarchy that followed the death of Dagobert in 639. With the Annales regni Francorum, Latouche finds once again a reasonably factual narrative of events from the death of Charles Martel in 741 to the alliance of Pepin the Short and Pope Zacharias ending in the papal authorisation of the annotating and coronation of the mayor of the palace by St Boniface in 750. A measure of the progress of the times in civilisation is the fact that Childeric is retired to a monastery instead of being strangled. All these trends in Western Europe lead to the mighty personality of Charlmagne and his acceptance of imperial dignity, at th* hands of the greatest moral authority in the world, on Christmas Day, 800. This book will introduce the general reader to many literary sources known to him. at most, by name. The copious illustrations furnish him with a commentary provided by art and archeology; and a most extensive and fascinating commentary it is. Three chapters have been added by the author to this English edition of his book giving glimpses of contemporary happenings in Britain. The most interesting of these tells of the arrival of British immigrants in Armorica, now known as Britanny, squeezed out by the Scots and the English from their home in Cornwall and nearby parts. It is always imprudent to ignore France, as some modem nations have learnt to their cost. Certainly, no-one can presume to understand Europe without giving a major place to that rich and populous area of the West which has contributed so much to the very notion of Europe. The literary selections and artistic reproductions presented by Robert Latouche is like the study of the parents and grandparent* of a great and powerful man. It is hard to see hew any man can be understood without such.