"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—"