II.
To make that fellowship apparent, at a glance, at least from certain points of view, I have devised the appended diagram. There you see represented, as it were, the streams of the history of our two nations from their farthest origins down to our own times. Please note the scale of centuries. See both streams rising about eight or six centuries before Christ in the same mountain—if I may say so figuratively—in the same mountain of the Celtic race. They spring, as you see, from the same source, and, though geographically divided, their waters remain a long time of the same colour—green in my draught.
SYMBOLIC DRAUGHT ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF FRANCO-BRITISH RELATIONS.
We have, on that point of their origins, very interesting and very numerous testimonies, chiefly in the contemporary Greek and Roman writers. Very striking in particular was the fellowship of ancient Britons and Gauls with regard to religion. If you open one—I may say any one—of our French history text-books, you will see that it begins exactly as one of yours, with the same story, and pictures, of Druids, priests, teachers, and judges—some of them bards; the same story of the solemn gathering of the mistletoe verdant in winter on the bare branches of oaks, symbol of the cardinal creed of the race: the immortality of the soul. Caesar, who had a Druid among his best friends, observes that the young Gauls who wanted to go deeper into the study of their religion generally used to go over to Britain in order to graduate, if I may say so, in this mysterious and lofty science.[1] It appears, therefore, that, though the Celts had passed originally from Gaul into Britain, yet Britain had become and remained the sanctuary of their common religion. Note that nothing of the sort was to be found elsewhere. Here we have characteristics of ancient Britain and ancient Gaul and of them alone. Now observe that though this Celtic colour is to be later on—in fact much later—modified by waters from other sources, yet it will never completely disappear. The Celtic element remains visible to our day in our two nations: you have your green Celtic fringe in Cornwall, Wales, part of Scotland, and the greater part of Ireland;—we have something of the kind in Brittany.