at the Frankish kingdom which once was Gaul, and to survey
the world of Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours, born both of them just
about a century later than Sidonius, in the 530s. For a moment when you
look at Fortunatus you think the world of the sixth century is the same
world as that in which Sidonius entertained his friends with epigrams
and tennis. Fortunatus, that versatile, gentle, genial, boot-licking
gourmet, who somehow managed to write two of the most magnificent hymns
of the Christian church, came from Italy on a visit to Gaul in 565 and
never left it again. He travelled all over the Frankish lands, in what
had been Germania as well as in what had been Gaul. From Trier to
Toulouse he made his way with ease by river and by road, and it might be
Ausonius again. Fortunatus too writes a poem on the Moselle; and there
is the same smiling countryside with terraced vineyards sloping down to
the quiet stream and the smoke of villas rising from the woods.
Fortunatus too made the round of the country houses, especially of the
sumptuous villas belonging to Leontius bishop of Bordeaux, a great
Gallo-Roman aristocrat, whose grandfather had been a friend of Sidonius.
The hot baths, the pillared porticos, the lawns sloping to the river,
are all there; the feasts are even more magnificent (they upset
Fortunatus's digestion badly) and the talk is still of literature. The
more intelligent of the barbarian lords have imitated this refined and
luxurious life as best they may. The Franks as well as the Gallo-Romans
welcome little eager Fortunatus; every count wants a set of Latin verses
dedicated to himself. It is plain that some of the old country house
life at least has survived. The Apollinaris set still enjoys its hot
baths and its tennis; as Dill puts it, the barbarian might rule the
land, but the laws of polite society would be administered as before.

But when you look again you realize that it is not the same. It is not
merely because we know that even these remnants of the social and
material civilization of Rome would soon themselves die away that the
tragedy of the sixth century looms so dark. It is because when we look
below the surface we see that the life has gone out of it all, the soul
that inflamed it is dead, nothing is now left but the empty shell. These
men welcome Fortunatus just because he comes from Italy, where the rot
has gone less far, where there still survives some reputation for
learning and for culture