resedit’, we cannot fail to hear in it and in the phrase ‘our vanishing culture’ the tramp of the approaching barbarians. The contribution of Germanic to the peculiar character of Gallic Latin is traced by modern philology to the following spheres: proper nouns, weapons and military terms, administration and jurisdiction, animals and plants, terms of domestic economy, and, what is more, certain abstract names (_affre_, _hâte_, _guise_, _orgueil_, &c.), and a good number of adjectives and verbs.[136] Looking at this Germanic influence from the point of view of French, the decadence of Gallic in the fifth century and the preponderance of Germanic, to omit Latin for the moment, are accomplished facts. But from the point of view of the fourth and fifth centuries, what we find is that philologists have never clearly distinguished between those Germanic words which came in after the third-century invasions and those which were imported in the fifth century. The fact that most of the Germanic words recognized in French are Frankish seems to point to the conclusion that the most important German influence came with Chlodowig—i.e. after our period. Here, then, is a point which we would recommend for philological research: an estimation of the relative importance of Germanic influence in Gaul, after the third-century invasions and after those of the fifth. Sidonius has given us a few glimpses of Gothic life in Gaul towards the end of the fifth century. Theodoric, whose ‘civilitas’ he commends,[137] does not load his table with tasteless profusion: ‘maximum tunc pondus in verbis est’. And it is to his credit that in his case, ‘cibi arte, non pretio placent’.[138] A wise balance is kept: ‘videas ibi elegantiam Graecam, abundantiam Gallicanam, celeritatem Italam.’ He does not go in for those cheap amusements which were all too common as meal-time entertainments: there is no hydraulic organ, no choir, no flute, or lyre or performing girl.[139] If we take this with Salvian’s panegyrics on the morals of the Goths, it may not perhaps be unjustifiable to conclude that the Gothic element gave some stability to the moral education of Southern Gaul.