was said to be more Roman than
Rome itself. The Roman remains are more perfect and more interesting--so
the late Dr. Whewell used to say--than any to be seen now in Italy; and
the old capital, Narbonne itself, was a complete museum of Roman
antiquities ere Francis I. destroyed it, in order to fortify the city
upon a modern system against the invading armies of Charles V. There
must be much Visigothic blood likewise in Languedoc; for the Visigothic
Kings held their courts there from the fifth century, until the time that
they were crushed by the invading Moors. Spanish blood, likewise, there
may be; for much of Languedoc was held in the early Middle Age by those
descendants of Eudes of Acquitaine who established themselves as kings of
Majorca and Arragon; and Languedoc did not become entirely French till
1349, when Philip le Bel bought Montpellier of those potentates. The
Moors, too, may have left some traces of their race behind. They held
the country from about A.D. 713 to 758, when they were finally expelled
by Charles Martel and Eudes. One sees to this day their towers of meagre
stone-work, perched on the grand Roman masonry of those old
amphitheatres, which they turned into fortresses. One may see, too--so
tradition holds--upon those very amphitheatres the stains of the fires
with which Charles Martel smoked them out; and one may see, too, or fancy
that one sees, in the aquiline features, the bright black eyes, the lithe
and graceful gestures, which are so common in Languedoc, some touch of
the old Mahommedan race, which passed like a flood over that Christian
land.

Whether or not the Moors left behind any traces of their blood, they left
behind, at least, traces of their learning; for the university of
Montpellier claimed to have been founded by Moors at a date of altogether
abysmal antiquity. They looked upon the Arabian physicians of the Middle
Age, on Avicenna and Averrhoes, as modern innovators, and derived their
parentage from certain mythic doctors of Cordova, who, when the Moors
were expelled from Spain in the eighth century, fled to Montpellier,
bringing with them traditions of that primeval science which had been
revealed to Adam while still in Paradise; and founded Montpellier, the
mother of all the universities in Europe. Nay, some went further still,
and told of Bengessaus and Ferragius, the physicians of Charlemagne, and
of Marilephus, chief physician of King Chilperic, and even--if a letter