The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn

"Yes, grandfather."

"Then we are descendants of the Gallic race?"

"Certainly."

"But we are Frenchmen. How do you account for that, my boy?"

"Simply this way – our country, our mother country, was not always called France."

"Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!" exclaimed the old man, taking the pipe out of his mouth. "How is that? France was not always called France?"

"No, grandfather. During ages immemorial our country was called Gaul, and was a republic, as glorious, as powerful, but happier, and twice as large as France during the Empire."

"The devil you say!"

"Unfortunately, about two thousand years ago – "

"Is that all? Two thousand years! How you do fling around the years, my boy!"

"Dissensions broke out in Gaul; the several provinces rose against one another – "

"Ah! That's ever the trouble! That was the very trick of the clergy and the royalists during the Revolution – "

"And so, grandfather, that befell to Gaul, centuries ago, that befell to France in 1814 and 1815."

"A foreign invasion!"

"Exactly. The Romans, once vanquished by Brennus, had in the meantime become powerful. They profited by the divisions among our fathers; and they invaded the land – "

"Exactly as the Cossacks and the Prussians invaded us!"

"Exactly so. But what the Cossack and Prussian Kings, the good friends of the Bourbons, did not dare to do – not that they lacked the wish – the Romans did. Despite a heroic resistance, our ancestors, ever brave as lions, but unfortunately divided, were reduced to slavery, as the Negroes are to-day in some colonies."

"Is such a thing possible!"

"Yes. They wore iron collars, bearing the initials of their masters, when those initials were not branded on their foreheads with a hot iron."

"Our fathers!" cried the old man, joining his hands with pain and indignation. "Our fathers!"

"And when they tried to run away, their masters had their noses and ears cropped, if not their hands and feet."

"Our fathers!"

"Other times their masters would cast them to wild beasts for amusement, or cause them to be put to death under frightful tortures if they refused to cultivate, under the conqueror's lash, the very lands that had belonged to them – "

"But listen," interposed the old man, gathering his recollections; "that puts me in mind of a song of our old friend, the friend of us poor folks – "

"The song of our Beranger, not so, grandfather —The Gallic Slaves?"

"Yes, my boy. It begins – let me see – yes – this is it:

"Some ancient Gauls, the wretched slaves,
One night, when all around were sleeping —

And the refrain ran:

"Poor Gauls, 'fore whom the world once trembled,
Let us drink to intoxication!"

Then it was our own fathers, the Gauls, that Beranger was referring to? Alas! Poor fellows, like so many others, no doubt, they took to drunkenness in order to forget their misfortunes."

"Yes, grandfather; but soon they realized that to forget one's sorrows does not deliver one therefrom; that to break the yoke is better."

"Right they were!"

"Accordingly, the Gauls, after innumerable insurrectionary efforts – "

"Well, my boy, meseems the method is not new, but ever is the right one. Ha! Ha!" added the old man, striking the bowl of his pipe with his nail. "Ha! Ha! Do you notice, George, sooner or later, it has to come to a Revolution – so it was in '89 – so it was in 1830 – so it may be to-morrow, perhaps!"

"Poor grandfather!" thought George to himself. "He little knows how near the truth he is."

And he proceeded aloud:

"Right you are! When it comes to the matter of freedom, the people must help themselves, and stick their own fingers into the dish – otherwise there will be only crumbs to pick, and the people will be robbed, as they were robbed eighteen years ago."

"And brazenly were they robbed, my poor boy! I saw it done, myself. I was there."

"Fortunately you know the proverb, grandfather —The scalded cat– enough said. The lesson will have been a good one. But to return to our Gauls. They did as you say – resorted to Revolution. She never leaves her children in the lurch. The latter, by dint of perseverance, of energy and of their own blood copiously poured out, succeeded in re-conquering a portion of their former freedom from the mailed hand of the Romans, who, moreover, had not un-christened Gaul, but only called her 'Roman' Gaul."

"Just as we to-day speak of French Algeria, I suppose?"

"Exactly so, grandfather."

"Well, thanks to God, our brave Gauls did, with the help of Insurrection, get back a little into the saddle! That soothes my blood somewhat."

"Oh, grandfather, wait, only wait!"

"Why?"

"What our fathers suffered was as nothing to what they were still to suffer."

"Think of it! And I thought they were out of the woods. What's it that happened to them?"

"Figure to yourself a horde of barbarians, semi-savages, named Franks. Thirteen or fourteen hundred years ago they emerged from the recesses of the forests of Germany. Genuine Cossacks they were, in their way. They fell upon the Roman armies. These, enervated by their conquest of Gaul, were rolled in the dust and driven out, and then the Frankish conquerors, in turn, took possession of our poor country. They stripped her even of her name. They called her France, after themselves, in token of possession."

"The brigands!" cried the old man. "I like the Romans better, by my faith! At least they left us our name."

"That's so. Besides, the Romans were, at least, the most civilized people then living, except for the barbarity of their system of slavery. They covered Gaul with magnificent structures, and will ye nil ye, they restored to our ancestors a part of their pristine freedom. The Franks, on the contrary, were, as I said, genuine Cossacks. Under their domination the Gauls had to start all over again."