[26] "De Bello Gallico," book vii. chap. iv.
[27] Which he speaks of as a mark of folly, in just the same tone as an Anglicised Hibernian does of the Irish-speaking of the native Celts. His words are worth quoting:--"Antiquæ stultitiæ usque hodie manent vestigia. Unum est quod inferimus, et promissum in exordio reddimus, Galatas excepto sermone Græco quo omnis Oriens loquitur propriam linguam eamdem pene habere quam Treviros, nec referre si aliqua exinde corrumperint, cum et Aphri Phœnicum linguam nonnullâ ex parte mutaverint, et ipsa Latinitas et regionibus quotidie mutetur et tempore." His insinuation that they spoke their own language badly is also thoroughly Anglo-Hibernian, reminding one very much of Sir William Petty and others. _See_ Jerome's preface to his "Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians," book vii. p. 429. Migne's edition. In another passage he is more complimentary, and calls them the Conquerors of the East and West--"Gallo-græcia [_i.e._, Galatia] in qua consederunt Orientis Occidentisque victores." _See_ his "Epistle to Rusticus," book i. p. 935. Migne.
[28] Although Celtic has so long disappeared out of France with the exception of Armorica, it has left its traces deeply behind it upon the French language. This is also true even of linguistic sounds. "Tous les sons simples du français se retrouvent dans le breton, et tous ceux du breton à l'exception d'un seul (le _ch_ ou le _χ_) sont aussi dans notre langue: l'_u_ et l'_e_ très-ouvert, l'_e_ muet si rare partout ailleurs, le _j_ pur inconnu à toute l'Europe, les deux sons mouillés du _n_ et du _l_ (comme dans les mots bataille et dignité) sont communs à la langue française et aux idiomes celtiques," says Demogeot. Even in French customary law there are "distinct and numerous traces" of old Gaulish habits and legislation, as Laferrière has pointed out in his history of the civil law of Rome and France. Nor is this to be in the least wondered at, when we remember that nineteen-twentieths of the modern French blood is computed to be that of the aboriginal races--Aquitanians, Celts, and Belgæ; whilst out of the remaining twentieth "the descendants of the Teutonic invaders--Franks, Burgundians, Goths, and Normans doubtless contributed a more numerous element to the population than the Romans, who, though fewer in number than any of the others, imposed their language on the whole country" (_see_ Taylor's "Origin of the Aryans," p. 204). The bulk of the French nation is probably pre-Celtic. The modern Frenchman does not at all resemble the Gallic type as described by the Greek and Roman writers.