Terrific and most picturesque warriors were these Franks, according to the accounts that we have of them, very tall men and strong, with long red or fair hair. For defence they had a wicker shield, light so that they could move it quickly. One of their chief weapons was the throwing axe, with which they were very accurate and expert. They had bows and arrows and a long spear. They wore breeches, close fitting, as far down as the knee, and a tunic that was belted about the waist with a broad leather girdle adorned with metalwork of iron and silver. Brooches kept it fastened. Thus they came conquering; and the parent stock {50} remarked above all the rest of the conquering and invading barbarians, because they came to stay. Doubtless many of the others stayed also, but not as conquerors. There is one other tribe of barbarian invaders for us to notice--the Lombards. But I fear that you will be rather tired of all these different nations to whom I am introducing you. Their comings seem very confusing. It is difficult to remember which came before another and where they went and what they did. The biggest things done were, I suppose, first--though not first of all in point of time--that wonderful pilgrimage of the Vandals. That is perhaps the strangest story of all. Secondly, the invasion of the Visigoths, establishing their kingdom temporarily in South Gaul and more permanently in Spain, was really more important, because it was more lasting in the form that it gave to the great story. And then, thirdly, this Frankish dominion in Gaul is of great interest to us. It is the beginning of modern France. But they are very puzzling--the comings and the vanishings. A friend of mine gave me what we call a _memoria technica_, to help me, and you, in remembering the order in which the different nations of the barbarians came in from the east. You know what a _memoria technica_ is: some words easy to remember which recall to our minds something that we find difficult to remember. These words, as he gave them to me, are: "Visiting friends' houses very often frankly laborious." Do you see what that means? I am afraid he must have found himself rather bored, at times, when his friends were doing their best to entertain him. He does not seem to have been as grateful as he should have been. But the suggestion of the words is as follows: "Visiting" is for Visigoths, who were the {51} first to come west, in any force; then "friends" is for Franks--they came very early in the story of the barbarian invasions, but they came in much greater number later, as is indicated by the later "frankly." "Houses" is for those Huns, defeated at Chalons, "very," for the Vandals, "often" for the Ostrogoths, and "laborious" for the Lombards. [Illustration: THE IRON CROWN OF THE LOMBARDS. The iron part of this crown, supposed to have been forged from one of the nails of the Cross, is the narrow circlet embedded in its interior.]