The Roman conquest of Gaul was the first impetus given towards a coherent massing of the peoples. Formerly there had been many tribes and races, but the three divisions made by the Romans reduced things to a minimum. Cisalpine Gaul was that part where the inhabitants wore a sort of adaptation of the Roman toga. In Trans-Alpine Gaul, situated in the Rhône basin and along the Mediterranean between Italy and Spain, the inhabitants wore _braies_ or _bragues_--a sort of jacket extending down almost to the knees, a detail of dress which has evolved itself into the blouse, and perhaps even the great cloak of the mountaineers of the Pyrenees. The remainder of ancient Gaul was known as the country where the natives wore their long hair hanging,--literally the _Gaule chevelue_. Through the times of Cæsar the divisions became indifferently known by various names, until with Augustus there came to be four great divisions, the Narbonnaise, Aquitaine, Lyonnaise and Belgique. Towards the fifth century the Vascons, or Gascons, the ancient inhabitants of Spanish Cantabria, established themselves snugly in these well protected valleys of the Pyrenees. They warred with the Saracens, and for five centuries were in a continual uproar of battle and bloodshed. Among themselves, the dukes and counts of Gascogne quarrelled continuously, and disputed the sovereignty of the country with the Vicomtes de Béarn. In the ninth century a treaty was consummated which assured to Bernard, Comte d'Armagnac, the Comté de Gascogne, and to Gaston de Centulle the suzerainty of Béarn, while Navarre came by heritage to the Comtes de Champagne, and in the thirteenth century to Philippe-le-Bel as a dot with Jeanne, his wife. In the same manner it came to the house of Evreux through Jeanne II, daughter of Louis-le-Hutin. With the marriage of Blanche II, the grand-daughter of Jeanne II, Navarre passed to the king of Aragon and to Eléonore, and later with the Comté de Foix et de Bigorre and the Vicomté de Béarn, went to Jean, Sieur d'Albret, with whom the history of the kingdom is so commonly associated. Jean d'Albret II, by reason of his marriage with Catherine of Béarn, the heiress to the crown of Navarre, became joint ruler of the kingdom. He was a gentle, easy-going prince, liberal, but frivolous, and loved no serious occupation in life. He was popular to excess and dined, say the chronicles, "without ceremony, with any one who asked him," a custom which still obtains with many who are not descendants of a king of Navarre. He danced frequently in public with the wives and daughters of his subjects, a democratic proceeding which was not liked by his court, who told him that he "danced on a volcano." This in a measure was true, for he lost that part of the kingdom known as Spanish Navarre to Ferdinand of Aragon.