tro le mura,
E corre, ed esce in altra parte fuore;
Ma fa un' isola prima, e v'assicura
Della citta una parte, e la migliore:
L'altre due (ch' in tre parti e la gran terra)
Di fuor la fossa, e dentro il fiume serra."

_Orlando Furioso_, Canto xiv.

Part I.: The Story

CHAPTER I

_Gallo-Roman Paris_

The mediaeval scribe in the fulness of a divinely-revealed cosmogony is
wont to begin his story at the creation of the world or at the
confusion of tongues, to trace the building of Troy by the descendants
of Japheth, and the foundation of his own native city by one of the
Trojan princes made a fugitive in Europe by proud Ilion's fall. Such,
he was very sure, was the origin of Padua, founded by Antenor and by
Priam, son of King Priam, whose grandson, yet another Priam, by his
great valour and wisdom became the monarch of a mighty people, called
from their fair hair, Galli or Gallici. And of the strong city built
on the little island in the Seine who could have been its founder but
the ravisher of fair Helen--Sir Paris himself? The naive etymology of
the time was evidence enough.

But the modern writer, as he compares the geographical position of the
capitals of Europe, is tempted to exclaim, _Cherchez le marchand!_ for
he perceives that their unknown founders were dominated by two
considerations--facilities for commerce and protection from enemies:
and before the era of the Roman road-makers, commerce meant facilities
for water carriage. As the early settlers in Britain sailed up the
Thames, they must have observed, where the river's bed begins somewhat
to narrow, a hill rising from the continuous expanse of marshes from
its mouth, easily defended on the east and west by those fortified
posts which, in subsequent times, became the Tower of London and
Barnard's Castle, and if we scan a map of France, we shall see that
the group of islands on and around which Paris now stands, lies in the
fruitful basin of the Seine, known as the Isle de France, near the
convergence of three rivers; for on the east the Marne, on the west
the Oise, and on the south the Yonne, discharge their waters into the
main stream on its way to the sea. In ancient times the great line of
Phoenician, Greek and Roman commerce followed northwards the valleys
of the Rhone and of the Saone, whose upper waters are divided from
those of the Yonne only by the plateau of Dijon and the calcareous
slopes of Burgundy. The Pari