The mention of this expedition leads me to speak of a subject, which requires special explanation in order to avoid misunderstandings. You here have a national emigration with women and children, and this is most commonly the case with emigrating nations: a part of the nation sets out with all it possesses, and the part remaining behind comes under the dominion of the invaders. Emigrations are very rarely spontaneous, most of them are undertaken by the pressure and compulsion of other nations; pastoral tribes and those living on the chase alone form exceptions, as we see in the case of all the inhabitants of the steppes in Asia, who, in consequence of their mode of living, with all their property undertook long expeditions into countries many hundred miles off: witness the Scythians, who according to Herodotus took with them all they possessed on innumerable wagons, the Mongole and Tartar tribes, and the Huns. When a people immigrates, it very rarely happens that all the ancient inhabitants quit the country, most of them remain behind and submit to their new masters. But this is not by any means always a matter of choice. When a conquering people advances, under the hoofs of whose horses all life is destroyed, as was the case with the Huns and the hordes of Jinghis Khan, which burnt and murdered every thing before them (and the Gauls on their expedition into Greece did not act otherwise), every one who finds a place of safety, or hopes to find one, takes to flight. When the poor inhabitants of la Vendée fled from the armies of the Convention, the whole population crossed the Loire, carrying their women and children before them, and whoever could move broke up, and whoever was able carried his feebler relatives with him, so that the whole country was deserted. They met with opposition, and their migration could not proceed farther: if there had been small tribes on the frontiers of France, unable to offer them any resistance, the Vendéeans would have broken through, and sought a place to settle in. Such also was the case in most of the migrations of antiquity, as well as in the great migration of nations during the fourth and fifth centuries; and the Gallic and Sarmatian migrations were certainly not less important than they. When the Goths had been defeated by the Huns in Dacia on the Dniestr, they crossed the Danube in a body, and implored the Romans to receive and protect them in their empire; and their requests were granted. There are, however, a few instances of non-nomadic nations emigrating in a body without being pressed in any way. The most striking instance is that of the Helvetii, in the time of Caesar, a case which no one can doubt, and which is literally true: they emigrated, having been seduced by evil advisers, and even destroyed their own towns in the hope of conquering a country in which they might live as lords and nobles, and where they hoped to have vassals that would till the ground for them.