The northern third of France, that is above Paris, was inhabited in Cæsar’s time by the Belgæ, a Nordic people of the Cymric division of Celtic speech. They were largely of Teutonic blood and in fact should be regarded as the immediate forerunners of the Germans. They probably represent the early Teutons who had crossed from Sweden and adopted the Celtic speech of their Nordic kindred whom they found on the mainland. These Belgæ had followed the earlier Goidels across Germany into Britain and Gaul and were rapidly displacing their Nordic predecessors, who by this time were much weakened by mixture with the autochthones, when Rome appeared upon the scene and set a limit to their conquests by the Pax Romana. The Belgæ of the north of France and the Low Countries were the bravest of the peoples of Gaul, according to Cæsar’s oft-quoted remark, but the claim of the modern Belgians to descent from this race is without basis and rests solely on the fact that the present kingdom of Belgium, which only became independent and assumed its proud name in 1831, occupies a small and relatively unimportant corner of the land of the Belgæ. The Flemings of Belgium are Nordic Franks speaking a Low German tongue and the Walloons are Alpines whose language is an archaic French. The Belgæ and the Goidelic remnants of Nordic blood in the centre of Gaul taken together probably constituted only a small minority in blood of the population, but were everywhere the military and ruling classes. These Nordic elements were later reinforced by powerful Teutonic tribes, namely, Vandals, Visigoths, Alans, Saxons, Burgundians and, most important of all, the Franks of the lower Rhine, who founded modern France and made it for long centuries “_la grande nation_” of Christendom. The Frankish dynasties long after Charlemagne were of purely Teutonic blood and the aristocratic land owning and military classes down to the great Revolution were very largely of this type, which by the time of the creation of the Frankish kingdom had incorporated all the other Nordic elements of old Roman Gaul, both Gaulish and Belgic. The last invasion of Teutonic-speaking barbarians was that of the Danish Northmen, who were, of course, of unmixed Nordic blood and who conquered and settled Normandy in 911 A. D. No sooner had the barbarian invasions ceased than the ancient aboriginal blood strains, Mediterranean, Alpine and elements derived from Paleolithic times, began a slow and steady recovery. Step by step with the reappearance of these primitive and deep rooted stocks the Nordic element in France declined and with it the vigor of the nation. Even in Normandy the Alpines now tend to predominate and the French blonds are becoming more and more limited to the northeastern and eastern provinces.