The conquest by the Franks is an important event in Belgian history. Indeed, it is from the fifth century that the bilingualism and the ethnographical dualism of Belgium may be said to date. The Franks, composed of two tribes, the Salians and the Ripuarians, advanced from the north and the east into Belgium and occupied the country in such a way that the actual provinces of Flanders, Antwerp, Limburg, the larger part of Brabant, and Liège fell into their power. Farther south they did not enter Belgium: their march was stopped by a dense and extended forest which, in Southwestern and Central Belgium, constituted the continuation of the forests of the Ardennes. The forest in question was called Sylva Carbonaria, “Coal Wood,” and covered the largest part of the actual province of Hainaut, the seat of the modern Belgian coal industry. Behind the curtain of that forest the oldest inhabitants of the country, the Gallo-Romans, remained free from oppression by the invaders and retained their Latin culture and civilization. So Belgium was separated by the Sylva Carbonaria into two quite distinct parts: the northern part, occupied by the Franks, with their Teutonic culture and civilization; the southern part, occupied by the Gallo-Romans. A line was thus drawn dividing the Belgian people, and an ethnical and linguistic duality, destined to remain for centuries one of the main characteristics of the country, was established. Indeed, the Walloons[5] of today are the descendants of the old Gallo-Romans from behind the limits of the Sylva Carbonaria, and the Flemings of Northern Belgium are the descendants of the Franks. This line drawn in the fifth century has undergone little change in the course of ages and, although the famous coal wood disappeared many centuries ago, the separation between Walloons and Flemings has remained more or less apparent down to the present. In this case the Sylva Carbonaria played a part like that of the Alps in the case of the Romanches and the Italians of the Tessino, and that of the hills of Wales and Cornwall in the case of the Britons of England. The first king of the Franks known in history is Clodion, who conquered the countries of Tournai and Cambrai and established the seat of his realm in Tournai. It is in this town that his grave was discovered in 1653; the King was found buried, according to the customs of his people, together with his arms and royal ornaments; he was identified by the presence of a ring on which his likeness and his name were engraved. It was from Tournai that the famous descendant of Clodion, King Clodovech, started his campaign of further conquest that gave him possession of Northern France and, after the war against the Burgundians and the West-goths (506), the control of nearly the whole of their country. From this time on, the Frankish kings established their capital at Paris. Belgium is no longer associated with the recollection of their glorious deeds.