. 33, in tom. ii. p. 41) would almost suffice to justify the
Abbe Dubos.]

[Footnote 60: The Franks, who probably used the mints of Treves, Lyons,
and Arles, imitated the coinage of the Roman emperors of seventy-two
solidi, or pieces, to the pound of gold. But as the Franks established
only a decuple proportion of gold and silver, ten shillings will be
a sufficient valuation of their solidus of gold. It was the common
standard of the Barbaric fines, and contained forty denarii, or silver
three pences. Twelve of these denarii made a solidus, or shilling, the
twentieth part of the ponderal and numeral livre, or pound of silver,
which has been so strangely reduced in modern France. See La Blanc,
Traite Historique des Monnoyes de France, p. 36-43, &c.]

[Footnote 61: Agathias, in tom. ii. p. 47. Gregory of Tours exhibits a
very different picture. Perhaps it would not be easy, within the same
historical space, to find more vice and less virtue. We are continually
shocked by the union of savage and corrupt manners.]

[Footnote 62: M. de Foncemagne has traced, in a correct and elegant
dissertation, (Mem. de l'Academie, tom. viii. p. 505-528,) the extent
and limits of the French monarchy.]

The Franks, or French, are the only people of Europe who can deduce
a perpetual succession from the conquerors of the Western empire. But
their conquest of Gaul was followed by ten centuries of anarchy and
ignorance. On the revival of learning, the students, who had been formed
in the schools of Athens and Rome, disdained their Barbarian ancestors;
and a long period elapsed before patient labor could provide the
requisite materials to satisfy, or rather to excite, the curiosity
of more enlightened times. [63] At length the eye of criticism
and philosophy was directed to the antiquities of France; but even
philosophers have been tainted by the contagion of prejudice and
passion. The most extreme and exclusive systems, of the personal
servitude of the Gauls, or of their voluntary and equal alliance with
the Franks, have been rashly conceived, and obstinately defended; and
the intemperate disputants have accused each other of conspiring against
the prerogative of the crown, the dignity of the nobles, or the freedom
of the people. Yet the sharp conflict has usefully exercised the
adverse powers of learning and genius; and each antagonist, alternately
vanquished and victorious has extirpated some ancient errors, and
established some interesti