"And what is left of those senseless battles, undertaken by the pride of the kings who then reigned over the Gauls?" the stranger proceeded looking around. "Have not the distant conquests slipped from us? Have not our implacable and ever more powerful enemies, the Romans, raised all the peoples against us? Have we not been compelled to abandon those useless possessions--Asia, Greece, Germany, Italy? That is the net result of so much heroism and so much blood! That is the pass to which we have been brought by the ambition of the kings, who usurped the power of the druids!" "To that I have nothing to say. You are right. There was no need of promenading so far away only to soil the soles of our shoes with the blood and the dust of foreign lands. But if I am not mistaken, it was at about that time that the sons of the brave Ritha Gaur, who had a blouse made for himself of the beards of the kings whom he shaved, seeing in these the butchers of the people and not its shepherds, overthrew the royalty." "Yes, thanks to the gods, an epoch of real grandeur, of peace and of prosperity succeeded the barren and bloody conquests of the kings. Disembarassed of its useless possessions, reduced to rational limits--its natural frontiers--the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Ocean--the republic of the Gauls became the queen and envy of the world. Its fertile soil, cultivated as we so well know how, produced everything in abundance; the rivers were covered with merchant vessels; gold, silver and copper mines increased its wealth every day; large cities rose everywhere. The druids, spreading light in all directions, preached union to the provinces, and set the example by convoking once a year in the center of Gaul solemn assemblies, at which the general interests of the country were considered. Each tribe, each canton, each town, elected its own magistrates; each province was a republic which, according to the druid plan, merged into the great Republic of the Gauls, and thus constituted one powerful body through the union of all." "The fathers of our grandfathers saw those happy days, friend guest."