Where--I appeal to all the famous historians so graphically described by Rabelais--where do you find a trace of Mercury in Teutates now? He is beyond all doubt the great divinity of the Celts, but you found it more convenient to follow the interested views of the Roman writers. And yet {101}even if they were innocent of any design upon your credulity, might they not have been mistaken themselves? Are you not aware that Plutarch, conscientious Plutarch himself, after having witnessed the Feast of Tabernacles in Palestine, tells us gravely that the Jews worshipped Bacchus? You were not aware of it, come, confess it frankly! For I will confess to you, that I was not aware of it, myself, ten minutes ago; but Dr. Rosahl has just told me so. The good doctor is delighted at my discovery of the true meaning of _Teut-Tat-Es_; he thinks no etymological question of such importance ‘was ever more satisfactorily put and answered in the same breath. He advises me strongly to write a memoir on the subject, which he will undertake to bring to the notice of learned societies, and only suggests the expediency of leaving out any allusion to my old Breton nurse; but I am too conscientious a writer ever to omit quoting my authorities. Now, since I have mentioned Rabelais, let us “return to our lambs,” that is, to our Teutons. After the Roman conquest, the same transformation of native deities into classic gods continued in Germany. The sacred oak was changed into Jupiter, whom it represented symbolically; the Druidical altars became either Apollo or Diana; sometimes they were made to represent deities of inferior rank, nymphs, anything in fact. But these numerous {102}metamorphoses, made rather hastily, led to a curious mistake. The conquerors had met on the banks of the Weser a huge monolith, cut with an axe by simple and ignorant stone-carvers. It was called _Irmensul_. Like the Celtic Teutates, this Irmensul also attracted at certain fixed times an immense concourse of people. The Romans, appreciating the martial spirit of the natives, did not hesitate to declare that this was Mars, their god of war. Thereupon they paid it all possible honor, consecrating their weapons to the new deity, and offering countless propitiatory sacrifices. Now, who was this Irmensul? When Varus had invaded Germany, during the reign of Augustus, at the head of three legions, Arminius, a chieftain of the Cheruski (a Brunswicker, we would say nowadays), had surprised him, and completely surrounded his army in the marshes of Teutoburg, on the banks of the Weser. Every man of this army, whether a Roman or a warrior of the allied tribes wearing Roman livery, had perished by the sword. For eight days the bloody waters of the Weser had carried down more than thirty thousand dead bodies.