It is, and remains, at all times and places the same indolent and poetical, irresolute and fervid, inquisitive, credulous, amiable, clever, but--from a political point of view--thoroughly useless nation; and therefore its fate has been always and everywhere the same.” The internal politics of Gaul seem to have been marked by a division between two parties, one the conservative party of the aristocratic knights, the other a nationalist and popular faction. Cæsar used these divisions for the furtherance of his scheme of conquest. He was not only a consummate general with an instinct for strategic points and huge combinations, but he was also a superb regimental officer in the making of soldiers. By the end of his ten years he had forged a small but invincible army devoted to his interests and entirely confident in his leadership. Personally, moreover, the Roman debauchee was the best soldier in the army. Physically he was a stranger to weariness or fatigue. He could travel immense distances with incredible rapidity, alone on horseback, or with a handful of followers. He seemed ubiquitous. In the battle, when his men wavered, he would leap down into the ranks, sword in hand, or snatch the standard from the hand of a centurion and fight among the foremost. No detail of fortification or commissariat escaped him, and he, more than any one else, showed the power of engineering in warfare. In the supreme battle against Pompeius he even carried his devotion to the spade beyond reasonable limits when he tried to circumvallate the much larger camp of his enemies. One of his most surprising exploits was when half Gaul, supposed to be pacified, rose in sudden revolt under Vercingetorix. With a much smaller army he chased the rebels into the fortress of Alesia, neglecting for the time all communication with his base, and fully aware that a still larger army would soon advance to the relief of the besieged. He therefore entrenched himself outside the gates of the city and kept off the relieving force with one hand while he continued the siege with the other. But while he was capable of brilliant strokes of audacity like this, he was also a cold and cautious organiser of victory, ready to meet his enemies on their own ground and with their own weapons.