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150 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxviii saved and disturbed the monarchy, had supplanted his father in the station of count of Autun, and left a treasure of thirty- talents of gold and two hundred and fifty talents of silver. The fierce and illiterate Barbarians were excluded, during several generations, from the dignities, and even from the orders, of the church. 122 The clergy of Gaul consisted almost entirely of native Provincials ; the haughty Franks fell prostrate at the feet of their subjects, who were dignified with the episcopal char- acter ; and the power and riches which had been lost in war were insensibly recovered by superstition. 123 In all temporal affairs, the Theodosian Code was the universal law of the clergy ; but the Barbaric jurisprudence had liberally provided for their per- sonal safety : a sub-deacon was equivalent to two Franks ; the antrustion and priest were held in similar estimation ; and the life of a bishop was appreciated far above the common standard, at the price of nine hundred pieces of gold. 124 The Romans communicated to their conquerors the use of the Christian re- ligion and Latin language ; 125 but their language and their re- ligion had alike degenerated from the simple purity of the Augustan, and Apostolic, age. The progress of superstition and Barbarism was rapid and universal ; the worship of the saints concealed from vulgar eyes the God of the Christians ; and the rustic dialect of peasants and soldiers was corrupted by a Teu- tonic idiom and pronunciation. Yet such intercourse of sacred and social communion eradicated the distinctions of birth and victory ; and the nations of Gaul were gradually confounded under the name and government of the Franks. 11, &c). There was no count, besides the Patricius, in Provincia. The word also came to be used of the Merovingian dukes. For a count to become a Patricius was a promotion.] 122 See Fleury, Discours iii. sur l'Histoire Ecclesiastique. 123 The bishop of Tours himself has recorded the complaint of Chilperic, the grandson of Clovis. Ecce pauper remansit fiscus noster ; ecce divitise nostree ad ecclesias sunt translate ; nulli penitus nisi soli Episcopi regnant (1. vi. c. 46, in torn, ii. p. 291). 124 See the Ripuarian Code (tit. xxxvi., in torn. iv. p. 241). The Salic law does not provide for the safety of the clergy, and we might suppose, on the behalf of the more civilized tribe, that they had not foreseen such an impious act as the murder of a priest. Yet Preetextatus, archbishop of Rouen, was assassinated by the order of queen Fredegundis, before the altar (Greg. Turon. 1. viii. c. 31, in torn. ii. p. 326). 125 M. Bonamy (Mem. de l'Acad^mie des Inscriptions, torn. xxiv. p. 582-670) has ascertained the Lingua Romana Rustica, which, through the medium of the Romance, has gradually been polished into the actual form of the French language. Under the Carlovingian race, the kings and nobles of France still understood the dia- lect of their German ancestors.