If you have read "The Story of Rome," and "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire," you can trace the still earlier changes in the old province of Gaul. The Franks had come westward, a bold association of German tribes, and in that fifth century when the Roman rule was overthrown, they swarmed over the frontiers and settled by hundreds and thousands in the conquered provinces. But, strange to say, as years went on they disappeared; not because they or their children went away again and left Gaul to itself, but because they adopted the ways and fashions of the country. They were still called Franks and a part of the country was called France even, but the two races were completely mixed together and the conquerors were as Gallic as the conquered. They even spoke the new language; it appears like an increase or strengthening of the Gallic race rather than a subjugation of it, and the coming of these Franks founded, not a new province of Germany, but the French nation. The language was changed a good deal, for of course many Frankish or German words were added, as Roman (or Romance) words had been added before, to the old Gallic, and other things were changed too. In fact we are not a bit surprised when we find that the German kings, Charlemagne's own descendants, were looked upon as foreigners, and some of the French leaders, the feudal lords and princes, [Pg056] opposed themselves to their monarchs. They were brave men and ready to fight for what they wanted. Charles the Fat could not keep himself on his unsteady throne, and in Rolf's day France was continually at war, sometimes at home, and almost always with the neighboring provinces and kingdoms. Rolf's contemporary, Charles the Simple, lost his kingship in 922, when his nobles revolted and put another leader in his place, who was called Hugh the Great, Count of Paris. Charles the Simple was kept a prisoner until he died, by a Count of Vermandois, of whom he had claimed protection, and whose daughter William Longsword had married.