Alas! my son, the history of our fathers will teach you that one day, three hundred years ago, another Gaul also marched before the triumphal chariot of a Roman Emperor, Caesar. That Gaul did not march in brilliant array, with audacious mien and with smiles for his vanquisher. That captive was loaded with chains, he was clad in rags, and was hardly able to walk; he was that day taken out of the dungeon where he had languished four years after having defended the freedom of Gaul inch by inch against the victorious armies of the great Caesar. That captive, one of the most heroic martyrs of our country and our independence, was called Vercingetorix, the Chief of the Hundred Valleys.
After the triumphal march of Caesar, the head of the valiant defender of Gaul was cut off.
After the triumphal march of Aurelian, Tetrik, the renegade who delivered his country to the foreigner, was led with pomp to a splendid palace, the price of his sacrilegious treason.
Let not the contrast cause you to despair of virtue, my son. The justice of Hesus is eternal. Traitors will receive their punishment.
EPILOGUE.
The narrative of my father Amael's great-grandfather Schanvoch on the events that transpired in Gaul—after the death of Victoria the Great, during the time that, living retiredly in Brittany on the fields of our ancestors that he bought back from a Roman colonist, he quietly spent his life with his son Alguen and his second wife Sampso—ends here.
While it is true that Gaul was again a province of Rome, nevertheless, all the practical franchises, that we reconquered so dearly by innumerable insurrections, and paid for with the blood of our fathers, have remained to us. None has dared, none will dare to deprive us of them. We shall preserve our laws and customs; we shall enjoy our full rights as citizens. Our incorporation with the Empire, the impost that we pay into the fisc, and our name of "Roman Gaul"—these are the only evidences of our dependence. Such a chain may not be heavy; but, light as it be, a chain it is. I doubt not that some day we shall be able to break it. The apprehensions that weighed upon my great-great-grandfather Schanvoch's mind and that continue to weigh upon mine do not arise from that quarter. No! The dangers that we apprehend—if faith is to be attached to the prediction made by Victoria upon her death-bed; the danger, that has filled us with dread for the future, rises from the once more swelling number of the Frankish hordes on the other side of the Rhine, and in the dark machinations of the bishops of the new religion.
My great-great-grandfather Schanvoch died peaceably in our house, situated near the sacred stones of Karnak. He left the narrative that he wrote, and the casque's lark, given him by Victoria, together with the previous narratives of our family and the relics that accompany them, to his son Alguen. After a long and peaceful life Alguen died, three hundred and forty years after our ancestress Genevieve saw Jesus of Nazareth perish on the cross. Alguen's son Roderik, my grandfather, inherited from his father both our family records and relics, and a quiet, peaceful and contented life, all of which he bequeathed to his son, my father Amael, who in turn bequeathed them to me, Gildas.
I then, Gildas, make this entry to-day in our family annals three hundred and seventy-five years after the death of Jesus. I feel sad on this occasion. My father had intended to add a few words to our family annals. He postponed doing so from day to day, seeing there was nothing that he desired to make particular mention of to our descendants, his life being the uneventful one of a quiet, industrious and obscure husbandman. Two days ago my father died. He died in our own house, near the stones of Karnak, after a short illness.
The frightful predictions of Victoria, the illustrious foster-sister of my ancestor Schanvoch, have not been verified. May they never be! Gaul continues a dependence of the Roman Emperors. Occasionally a traveler reaches these parts, penetrating into these remote regions of our old Armorica. From them we have learned that, in some of the other provinces there have been several popular uprisings of considerable strength and generally called "Bagaudies." These uprisings must have taken place shortly after the death of my ancestor Schanvoch. Brittany has remained free from the revolts of the "Bagauders." The region enjoys profound tranquility. The impost that we pay into the emperor's fisc is not too heavy. We live peacefully and free.