eals, nobler far
than those which fed the ancient faith and polity. The Christian
bishops were everywhere filling the empty curule chairs in the cities
and provinces of Gaul. At the end of the sixth century, society lived
in the Church and by the Church, and the sees of the archbishops and
bishops corresponded to the Roman administrative divisions. All that
was best in the old Gallo-Roman aristocracy was drawn into her bosom,
for she was the one power making for unity and good government. From
one end of the land to the other the bishops visited and corresponded
with each other. They alone had communion of ideas, common sentiments
and common interests. St. Gregory, bishop of Tours, was the son of a
senator; St. Germain of Auxerre was a man of noble lineage, who had
already exercised high public functions before he was made a bishop;
St. Germain of Autun was ever on the move, now in Brittany, now at
Paris, now at Arles, to crush heresy, to threaten a barbarian
potentate, or to sear the conscience and, if need were, ban the person
of a guilty Christian king.

By the end of the sixth century two hundred and thirty-eight monastic
institutions had been founded in Gaul, and from the sixth to the
eighth century, eighty-three churches were built. The monasteries were
so many nurseries of the industry, knowledge and learning which had
not perished in the barbarian invasions; so many cities of refuge from
violence and rapine, where the few who thirsted after righteousness
and burned with charity might find shelter and protection. "Every
letter traced on paper," said an old abbot, "is a blow to the devil."
The ecclesiastical and monastic schools took the place of the
destroyed Roman day-schools, and whatever modicum of learning the
Frankish courts could boast of, was due to the monks and nuns of their
time; for some at least of these potentates when not absorbed in the
gratification of their lusts, their vengeance, greed or ambition,
were possessed by nobler instincts.

[Illustration: ST. GERMAIN DES PRES.]

To St. Germain of Autun, made bishop in 555, Paris owes one of her
earliest ecclesiastical foundations. His influence over Childebert,
king of Paris, was great. He obtained an order that those who refused
to destroy pagan idols in their possession were to answer to the
king, and when Childebert and his warriors, seized by an irresistible
fighting impulse, marched into Spain, and were bought off the siege
and sack of Sarago