"Because the cradle of our family, the fields and the homesteads of the first of our ancestors of whom these manuscripts make mention, were situated near the stones of Karnak. As you will see, that ancestor was named _Joel, en Brenn an Lignez an Karnak_, which, as you know, means _Joel, the chief of the tribe of Karnak_. He was the chief or patriarch, chosen by his tribe, or by his clan, as the Scotch call it."[12] "Accordingly," interjected George Duchene, "your name, father, the name of _Brenn_, means chief?" "Yes, my friend, that honorable appellation, attached to the name of each individual, to his baptismal name, as the saying is since the advent of Christianity, has in the course of time been transformed into a family name. The custom of family names does not begin to be generally observed among plebeian families until towards the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Century. In earlier days, the son of the first of our ancestors, for instance, whom I mentioned to you, was called _Guilhern, mab eus an Brenn_--Guilhern, the son of the chief--then _Kirio_, grandson of the chief, and so on. In the course of time the words grandson and great-grandson were suppressed, and the only name added to the word Brenn, which was corrupted into Lebrenn, was the baptismal one. Accordingly, almost all the names taken from a trade--as _Carpenter_, _Smith_, _Baker_, _Weaver_, _Miller_, etc., etc.--have their origin in some manual occupation, the designation of which has been converted in the course of time into a family appellation. These explanations may seem trivial; they nevertheless attest a grave and painful fact--the absence of a real family name with our brothers of the masses of the people. Alas! So long as they were slaves or serfs, could people who did not belong to themselves have a patronymic? Their masters dubbed them with bizarre and grotesque nicknames, as one gives to a horse or a dog such names as suit his whim. When the slave was sold to a new master he was dressed up in a new name. But, as you will see, in the measure that, thanks to their energetic and unflagging struggle, the oppressed arrived at a less servile state, the consciousness of their dignity as human beings developed apace. When, finally, they could have a name of their own and transmit the same to their children, however obscure, yet always honorable, it was a sign that they were slaves no longer, nor yet serfs, although still steeped in wretchedness. The conquest of a proper, or family name, has been, by reason of the duties it imposes and the rights that it gives, one of the longest steps taken by our ancestors in the direction of their complete emancipation. In the manuscripts that we are about to read you will encounter an admirable sentiment of the Gallic nationality and of its religious faith--a sentiment all the more irrepressible, all the more exaggerated, perhaps, by reason of the Roman and Frankish conquests being felt as galling yokes by those heroic men