"It is unbridled ambition and inveterate cupidity, good old man. At first, allied to the Roman emperors from the time that Gaul became again a Roman province, the bishops succeeded by underhanded means to secure large endowments for themselves and their churches and to occupy the leading magistracies in the cities. That did not satisfy them; they counted upon being better able to dominate the barbarous Franks than the civilized Romans. They betrayed the Romans to the Franks. The latter came; Gaul was ravaged, pillaged and subjugated, and the bishops shared the plunder with the conquerors whom they speedily placed under their thumb through the fear of the devil. And so it happens that these sanctimonious men have become richer and more powerful under the Frankish than under the Roman rule. Now old Gaul has become their quarry jointly with the barbarians; they now possess vast domains, all manner of wealth, innumerable slaves--slaves that are so well chosen, trained and docile to the whip that an 'ecclesiastical slave' generally fetches twenty gold sous in the market, while other slaves fetch only twelve sous. Would you form an idea of the wealth of the bishops? This identical St. Remi, who baptised Clovis in the basilica of Reims, and thus approved him a worthy son of the holy Roman Church, was so fatly remunerated that he was able to pay five thousand pounds of silver by the weight for the domain of Epernay." "Oh! Thus to traffic in the blood of Gaul! It is horrible! It is shocking!" "Oh! That is still nothing, good father. Had you traveled as I have done over regions that were once so flourishing, and seen them now, ravaged and burned down by the Franks! Had you seen the bands of men, women and children, bound two by two, marching among the cattle and wagons heaped with booty of all sorts, that the barbarians drove before them after they conquered the country of Amiens, which I then happened to cross--had you seen that, you would have felt your heart bleed as mine did." "And where did they take those men, women and children whom they carried away as slaves?" "Alas! good mother, they took them to the banks of the Rhine, where the Franks keep a large market of Gallic flesh. All the barbarians of Germany who have not yet broken into our unhappy country, repair thither to supply themselves with slaves of our race--men, women and children." "And what becomes of those who remain in Gaul?" "The men of the fields are enslaved and made to cultivate under the rod of the Franks their own ancestral estates that King Clovis divided with his leaders, his old comrades in pillage and massacre, and whom he since has made dukes, marquises and counts of our country. But there are still some drops of generous blood left in the veins of old Gaul. Even if the rule of the Franks and the bishops is to endure, they will, at least, not enjoy their conquest in peace." "How so?" "Did you ever hear of the Bagaudy?" "Certainly, and praisefully, too."