ut Fortune seemed determined that he should have great
opportunities for the display of his military genius, and, when Asia had
been subdued by Pompey, "conferred what remained to be done in Europe
upon Caesar." The attempt of the Helvetii to leave their homes in the
Alps for new dwelling-places in Gaul served him as an occasion for war.
As they were crossing the Arar [now Saone] he attacked and routed them,
later defeated them again, and at last drove them back to their own
country.

The story of the long war, with its various campaigns, has become
familiar to the world's readers through the masterly account of Caesar
himself, known to "every schoolboy" who advances to the dignity of
classical studies. In the end the country between the Pyrenees and the
Rhine was subjugated, and for several centuries it remained a Roman
province.

At the time when the history is taken up in the following narrative by
Napoleon III, the great rebellion, B.C. 52, had sustained a heavy blow
in the surrender of Alesia, and the capture of the heroic chief and
leader of the insurrection, Vercingetorix, whom Caesar exhibited in his
triumph at Rome, B.C. 46, and then caused to be put to death.

The distinguished author of the article says he wrote "for the purpose
of proving that when Providence raises up such men as Caesar,
Charlemagne, and Napoleon it is to trace out to peoples the path they
ought to follow, to stamp with the seal of their genius a new era, and
to accomplish in a few years the work of many centuries." The work was
prepared [_vide Manual of Historical Literature_: Adams] with the utmost
care--a care which extended in some instances to special surveys, to
insure perfect accuracy in the descriptions, etc.)

The capture of Alesia and that of Vercingetorix, in spite of the united
efforts of all Gaul, naturally gave Caesar hopes of a general
submission; and he therefore believed that he could leave his army
during the winter to rest quietly in its quarters from the hard labors
which had lasted without interruption during the whole of the past
summer. But the spirit of insurrection was not extinct among the Gauls;
and convinced by experience that whatever might be their number they
could not in a body cope with troops inured to war, they resolved, by
partial insurrections raised on all points at once, to divide the
attention and the forces of the Romans as their only chance of resisting
them with advantage.

Caesar was unwil