"And their sons saw only ruins and misfortune! What has happened? The accursed stock of dethroned kings joins the stock of their former and no less accursed clients or seigneurs, and all of them, irritated at having been deposed of their authority, hope for restoration from the public misfortunes, and exploit with infamous perfidy our innate pride and lack of discipline, which, under the powerful influence of the druids, were being steadily corrected. The rivalries between province and province, long allayed, re-awakened; jealousies and hatreds sprang up anew; everywhere the structure of union began to crumble. For all this the kings do not re-ascend the throne. Many of their descendants are even judicially executed. But they have unchained internal feud. Civil war flares up. The more powerful provinces seek to subjugate the weaker. Thus, towards the end of the last century, the Marseillians, the descendants of the exiled Greeks to whom Gaul generously assigned the territory on which they built their town, sought to assume the role of sovereignty. The province rose against the town; finding herself in danger, Marseilles called the Romans to her aid. They came, not to sustain Marseilles in her contemplated iniquity, but to themselves take possession of the region, a purpose that they succeeded in, despite the prodigies of valor with which they were opposed. Established in Provence, the Romans built the town of Aix, and thus founded their first colony on our soil--" "Oh, a curse upon the Marseillians!" cried Joel. "It was thanks to those sons of Greeks that the Romans gained a foothold in Gaul!"