The Faits des Romains

The Faits des Romains is not merely the earliest but arguably the most influential work of ancient historiography to appear during the

first phase of vernacular translations of classical texts. One characteristic to be noted at the outset is the novelty of its treatment of Roman history and of Caesar, which departed sharply from the topics hitherto addressed in the romans d'antiquité . In France, the first romans d'antiquité take their themes from Greek or Trojan history. The Roman d'Alexandre , the Roman de Thèbes , the Roman de Troie , and even less well known works like the Roman d'Apollonius de Tyr and the Roman d'Hector et Hercule are all set in the Greek or Trojan world. Even the Roman d'Enéas , the one exception to this rule, might be considered a continuation of the Trojan legend, as Aeneas and his Trojan remnant make their way through the world after the destruction of Troy.

Moreover, Caesar's appearance as a subject of Old French narrative clearly coincides in France with the emergence of prose historical narratives, in contrast to developments in Italy, where the use of Caesar as a literary subject preceded the legends of Alexander, Troy, and Thebes in verse compositions.^[49] The vernacular chronicle's novel focus on Caesar suggests that early-thirteenth-century writers turned to this period of ancient history with a specific political purpose, motivated by the historical developments outlined in chapter 1. Complementing a generalized desire to resuscitate clergie and chevalerie in the light of a new Roman historiography that stood for the idea of a resurgent and educated French aristocracy was a more specific political desire to recover precisely those phases of Roman history that could serve as analytical models for the confrontation between a centralized and a decentralized view of political authority. At issue in a Roman past centered on Caesar was the confrontation between late Republicanism and Caesarism, a confrontation that Philip Augustus was seen to have modeled by his very name: Augustus. In medieval France, the opposition between senatorial rule and imperial authority could be understood only in terms of a confrontation between the feudal aristocracy and centralized kingship. But precisely for this reason, the situation of France in the thirteenth century, if not an exact match, nonetheless resonated powerfully with this critical juncture of Roman history.

Looked at from this perspective, the choice of Caesar's rise to power and his threat to the Republican ideals of senatorial authority as a primary subject for the vernacular historiography of antiquity was hardly accidental. As would occur in later European historiography for similar reasons, the story of Caesar's destruction of the Roman Republic and the advent of imperial rule functioned as an analogue for contemporary history. Thus, it is perfectly clear that Caesar functions

in the Faits des Romains as an analogue for Philip Augustus—but not, as Jeanette M. A. Beer proposes, in order to legitimize Capetian territorial ambitions by presenting Julius Caesar's program of territorial expansion as a historical precedent for a French monarchy claiming to be heir to the Roman imperium .^[50] Rather, Caesar is a pejorative analogue of the French king, who, like his Roman predecessor, weakened advisement and made the monarchy less a consultative and more an absolutist form of rulership, thereby moving it closer to the imperial model furnished by Caesar.

To be sure, Caesar himself never attained imperial status, having been cut down by Brutus before he could bring to a successful conclusion his seizure of the Roman polity. But by the Middle Ages, Julius as Roman general and military leader and Caesar as emperor are collapsed into a single imperial image. In the thirteenth century, "Caesar" means emperor, a fact that renders intelligible the author's use of Suetonius as an overall frame for the Faits des Romains . In Suetonius's Vitae , medieval readers found a negative representation of Caesarism, seen as an overall phenomenon (despite Suetonius's relatively benign treatment of Julius) leading inexorably to Nero and Tiberius. The translation of Lucan in the second half of the Faits des Romains merely strengthens this interpretive tendency, since in Lucan there appears an absolute fusion between Caesar and Nero. This collapsing of Caesar and the pejorative imperial tradition that was his long-term legacy to the Roman world thus adds another level of anachronism to the Faits des Romains , one already embedded in the historical sources selected for presentation.

The Faits des Romains survives in some fifty-nine manuscripts, of which eleven date from the thirteenth century, eighteen from the fourteenth, and thirty from the fifteenth—compelling testimony to the popularity that it achieved and sustained throughout the High Middle Ages, for which it served as a basic manual of lay culture. Although the author announced at the beginning of the book that he intended to trace a vast tableau of Roman history from the time of Julius Caesar to the reign of Domitian, with Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars as his obvious model, he did not realize this design. Instead of the planned history of the twelve emperors, he offers only that of Julius Caesar, terminating the work with the death of the Republican conspirators against Caesar—that is, in the last chapter of Suetonius's Vita . The work was originally called Li fet des Romains, compilé ensemble de Salluste, et de Suetoine et de Lucan ,^[51] but later copyists,

finding this title both unduly long and inadequately descriptive of the material treated, changed it in subsequent manuscripts to Le livre de Julius César, Comment Julius César regna et conquist plusieurs terres, Le granz afaires dou livre de Juille César, La vraie histoire de Julius César , and the like, tituli that better reflected the scope of the work.^[52]

The identity of the author of the Faits des Romains remains unknown, for none of the extant manuscripts bears his name, nor does internal evidence allow for speculation. As Flutre indicates, he was assuredly a cleric, who knew the rules of rhetoric and who reveals throughout his history the influence of the schools, not least in his utilization of scholastic glosses (scholies ) on Lucan.^[53] But whether this means, as Guenée has suggested, that he was aiming primarily at a clerical audience is, perhaps, a different question. Focusing on the learned character of the sources consulted by the anonymous author, Guenée concluded that the Faits des Romains was "l'oeuvre savante d'un clerc nourri de la culture historique qu'offraient les écoles en général et celle d'Orléans en particulier, dont ni le sujet ni la conception n'étaient particulirement propres à séduire, en 1214, des laïques."^[54] ç The basis for Guenée's opinion is the immediate use made of the Faits des Romains by subsequent authors, such as Jean de Thuin in his Hystore de Jules César , a work Guenée also characterizes as learned in inspiration and execution, dependent on Jean's access to rare texts and glosses such as those from the school of Orleans, to which he refers several times and which would have been available to him in Paris. The same argument applies to Brunetto Latini, who was living and teaching in Paris after his exile from Florence at the time that he composed his Trésor , in which several passages borrowed from the Faits des Romains are present. On these grounds, Guenée asserts that for the first fifty years of its existence, the Faits des Romains "restent essentiellement ce qu'ils étaient d'abord, une oeuvre universitaire."^[55] Only in the second half of the thirteenth century, he claims, did the Faits des Romains achieve a wider audience, primarily (although not exclusively) among the nobility of northern France and, in particular, Flanders, where its employment by Baudouin d'Avesnes for the composition of his Chronique created a secondary center of diffusion.

The pattern of manuscript diffusion on which Guenée's thesis rests is beyond question. Even so, it is reasonable to ask why a cleric, writing for a university audience, should have laboriously rewritten this material not only in French (which clerics could have enjoyed as easily as the laity), but in the epic and courtly styles to which, in principle,

a clerical, university audience would have been hostile. Why systematically deform learned texts for a learned audience in ways inimical to their tastes and interests ? Moreover, if copies of the Faits des Romains did not proliferate in the north of France until the middle of the century, perhaps the reason lies in the virtually simultaneous appearance of the Histoire ancienne (ca. 1220), a work identifying itself as the product of aristocratic patronage, which may in part have satisfied the aristocracy's demand for ancient history. Judging from the literary styles employed by the anonymous author, his obvious familiarity with chansons de geste and Old French romans , his persistent refiguration of the classical past in the image of medieval chivalric society, and his avowed desire to instruct the laity in the exercise of authority, there seems little reason to reject the notion that at least one important audience that he envisaged was the nobility of northern France, among whom, in fact, the Faits des Romains had a substantial success.

If the authorship of the Faits des Romains remains elusive, the date of its composition is relatively easy to determine from a scattering of interpolated remarks. The work must have been written after 1211, since it mentions as still standing a Roman amphitheater, les arènes , whose construction the author mistakenly attributes to Chilperic. The amphitheater was situated on the Left Bank of Paris between the abbeys of Sainte-Geneviève and Saint-Victor and lay in the path of the city walls with which Philip Augustus was encircling Paris in the early years of the thirteenth century: "de ce theaitre duroit encore une partie en estant au jor que li rois Phelipes conmena Paris a ceindre de mur par devers Petit Pont" (of this amphitheater there still remained a part standing in the days when King Philip began to encircle Paris with walls [in the section] around the Petit Pont).^[56] ç According to Guillaume le Breton, this part of the construction of the left-bank enceinte was begun in 1211.^[57]

It also seems likely that the Faits was completed before July 1214, the date of the battle of Bouvines, at which a coalition of Anglo-Norman, Flemish, and German forces was defeated by Philip Augustus. This conclusion emerges from an allusion that the author makes, in the midst of describing the horrors visited upon Rome by the wars between Marius and Sulla, to a planned invasion of France by English and Norman forces, aided by the excommunicated emperor, Otto IV—a plan he derides as misguided:

Totes eures que il me membre de ceste chose, je tieng por fox et Anglois et Normanz, qui ont fole esperance et quident que Octes li escomeniez, que Diex et seinte Eglise ont degité, doie France envaïr par itel gent.^[58]

Whenever I am reminded of this matter, I hold as foolish both the English and the Normans, who have vain hopes and believe that Otto, the excommunicated, whom God and Holy Church have set aside, could invade France with such people.

Otto was excommunicated by Innocent III in June of 1210 and joined the coalition in mid-1213. Since the reference to the invasion occurs toward the middle of the work, it seems reasonable to fix the composition of the Faits des Romains in the years 1213 and 1214,^[59] which makes the Faits des Romains the oldest extant vernacular translation of ancient authors.

The author not only is well informed about the rumors of war preceding the battle of Bouvines, but also claims to have seen King Philip Augustus. Reporting from Suetonius that Sulla had once warned the Senate to beware of the young Caesar, "that boy with the loose clothes" (literally, "badly belted": le valet mau ceint ), he draws a comparison to Philip Augustus as mau pingnié when he was young, and demonstrates his awareness that the king was illiterate as well as disheveled:

Quant ge lis de Juilles Cesar que Luces Silla l'apeloit le valet mau ceint, si me membre de monseignor Phelipe le roi de France, que l'en pooit bien apeler le valet mau pingnié quant il estoit joenes, car il estoit torjors hericiez. Ne il n'a pas mains de sens en lui que il ot en Juilles Cesar, fors seulement de letres, ne n'a pas meins eü affere que Juilles ot; et encontre ce que Juilles fu letfez, est li rois sanz malice, car la letreüre aguisa Juilles a meint malice.^[60]

When I read that Lucius Sulla called Julius Caesar "the boy badly belted," I am reminded of my lord Philip the king of France, whom one might well have called "the boy ill combed" when he was young, because he was always disheveled. Nor did he possess less sense in him than there was in Julius Caesar, with the exception of [learning in] letters, nor did he accomplish less than Julius; and in contrast to Julius, who was literate, the king was without malice, for literacy goaded Julius to a great deal of malice.

Although Beer argues from the presence of this comparison in the Faits that the anonymous author must have been a royal partisan, the passage itself indicates only that at one time in his life he had seen the ill-combed king and that he excused royal illiteracy on the (somewhat strained) grounds that literary attainments had made Caesar vicious. He equally reveals a knowledge of Parisian topography, especially the Left Bank, and displays a rather precise understanding of the ecclesiastical divisions of France, as well as of the countryside of the

Île-de-France.^[61] All these indications firmly locate the author in Paris and its environs, although they tell us little else.

In compiling his history, the anonymous translator employed the main Latin sources of ancient history popular in the West, to which he added a series of medieval works on which he drew for amplifications, explanations, and incidental material. The Faits des Romains is made up of successive translations of Suetonius's Life of Caesar ; Sallust's Catiline Conspiracy ; Caesar's Commentaries on the War of the Gauls , with the continuation by Hirtius; and Lucan's Bellum civile , or, as it was more familiarly known, Pharsalia .

Rather than simply following Suetonius's Life , however, the compiler uses Suetonius as a frame for the insertion of the principal texts to be translated. The prologue is loosely based on the first chapter of Sallust, to which the author adds his own reflections on the nature of Roman history and the lessons to be learned from it. It is followed by a chapter on Roman magistracies taken from Book 9 of Isidore of Seville's Etymologies . Clearly, the anonymous author feared that his audience would not be sufficiently acquainted with the Roman political system to follow the maneuverings of Caesar's political career. Only then does he begin a "life" of Caesar, using Suetonius to recount Caesar's birth and early youth, and the beginning of his military and official career through the Roman cursus honorum of questor, aedile, pontifex, and praetor.

Since Caesar was praetor during the Catiline conspiracy, the author inserts a complete translation of Sallust's Catilina before returning to Suetonius's account of Caesar's election as consul and his subsequent alliance with Pompey. After a series of digressive episodes that treat Pompey's military exploits against the Jews and the formation of the Triumvirate by Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, he returns to his main theme and takes up the story of Caesar's conquest of Gaul, based on Caesar's Gallic Wars —although he fails to recognize the work as Caesar's own and attributes it instead to "Celsus."

In this first section, once the anonymous compiler begins his translation of the Gallic Wars , he remains for the most part faithful to the original text in its narrative development. Although there are numerous additions, moral comments, fictive elaborations of battles, glosses on place-names, and changes in the names of the Gallic peoples against whom Caesar wages war, only one major interpolation interrupts Caesar's account. A long and curious episode is intercalated between chapters 29 and 30 of Book 8, in which the author narrates a presumed combat between Caesar and the Gallic leader Drappés

Brenno, during which Caesar was captured but subsequently escaped with the aid of another Gallic chieftain. The singularity of this episode in light of the relative rarity of changes to the Latin account in this part of the Faits des Romains gives it an importance out of proportion to its relatively short length.

Once Gaul is subdued, Caesar returns to Rome to claim a triumph, but this is denied him because of Pompey's jealous machinations. For the author of the Faits des Romains , the Senate's refusal to grant Caesar the right to celebrate a triumph for his conquest of Gaul provides the casus belli —the "achoisons de la bataille"—between Caesar and Pompey. The political struggle over Caesar's triumph, the account of which derives variously from Suetonius, Lucan, and some remarks of the author's own, concludes part one of the Faits des Romains and serves as a bridge to the next major section, which is the account of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey.

Part two, which the majority of manuscripts entitle "Le livre de Lucan," inaugurates the author's use of the Pharsalia , although the initial chapters describing Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon come from Suetonius, mixed with passages from Lucan. The account of the civil war begins with Lucan's Book 3, where Lucan enumerates the peoples who sided with Pompey. At this point the translator introduces an account of the voyage to Paradise made by two lieutenants of Alexander, the Alexandri Magni iter ad Paradisium . The Iter was a narrative of Hebrew origin, known in the West by a Latin work that seems to have been redacted in the first half of the twelfth century and that appears in certain versions of the Roman d'Alexandre .^[62] This anonymous translator's treatment of the material, however, differs from any of the standard sources.

After this, Lucan's account is followed through to its end with the deaths of Pompey and Cato and the war of Alexandria. Since Lucan's poem remained unfinished, however, the concluding sections of the translator's account of the civil war are based, though loosely, on the continuations of Caesar's Commentaries , the Bellurn Alexandrinum, Bellum Africae , and Bellurn Hispaniense . Into the account of Caesar's expedition to Alexandria the author interpolates a veritable romance between Caesar and Cleopatra and rewrites the history of Cleopatra, who is besieged by Achilles in the tower of the Phare. The eunuch Ganymede is metamorphosed into an Egyptian knight, who rescues from prison Arsinoé, the sister of Cleopatra and Ptolemy, and then seizes the throne by marrying her. Finally, the battles of Thapsus and Munda, against Juba and the sons of Pompey, respectively, are pure

inventions in the style of chansons de geste , in which the author's poetic and fantastical elaborations overwhelm the little that derives from Latin authors. The end of the Faits des Romains returns to Suetonius, chapters 37-89, and offers an assessment of Caesar's achievements and character, moral and personal, terminating with an account of Caesar's death.^[63]

To these principal texts the author added episodes, etymologies, and descriptions taken from Isidore of Seville's Etymologies , Josephus's War of the Jews , Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History and Epistolae , and Peter Comester's History of the Maccabees , as well as a brief segment concerning Cato from St. Augustine's City of God , which he mentions by name. Perhaps the most important of the secondary texts that he employed were learned scholies (glosses and commentary) on Lucan's Pharsalia , which Berthe Marti has identified as written by Master Arnulfus of Orleans.^[64] He also cites briefly from the Bible, Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid and interpolates the episode from the Alexandri Magni iter ad Paradisium mentioned above. He occasionally takes the opportunity to christianize the sites to which his story carries him, commenting on biblical events and personages whose histories overlie the classical past.^[65] His borrowing from medieval sources includes Geoffrey of Monmouth, either directly or through the vernacular adaptations of Geoffrey by Wace; the Roman de Thbes ; and the Roman d'Alexandre , the latter in particular for the description of Caesar's horse, which is modeled on Bucephalus. Although their origins are impossible to identify, there are also long explanatory digressions^[66] ç and extensive interpolated scenes of battle executed in an epic style, all of which combine to make the translator the third most important "author" represented in the compilation.^[67]

The author/translator's approach to his sources varies widely throughout the course of the Faits . The additions to and subtractions from the Latin sources do not operate evenly across the body of works presented. Although the translation of Caesar's Gallic Wars , with the noted exceptions, is a relatively straightforward affair, where the most consistent distortion of the original text takes the form of epic toning and the substitution of medieval for Roman names, the translation of Lucan is handled differently. In part, this difference is due to the quite distinct character of the two works. Caesar's account of the conquest of Gaul fit easily into the framework of medieval narratives of exemplary battles and heroic encounters between enemies. But Lucan's long and difficult verse epic, laden with mythological allusions, poetic figures, philosophical reflections, and obscure references to Roman political factions, posed quite a different problem, both in terms of the

linguistic resources required for translation and in the Latin author's narrative procedures, which included frequent astrological and mythological digressions, moral apostrophes, and political laments. Although Lucan enjoyed considerable popularity in the Middle Ages as a historian and a source of aphorisms,^[68] a direct rendering of Lucan lay just barely within the realm of a thirteenth-century vernacular writer's literary competence to translate and a medieval audience's capacity to comprehend. Not surprisingly, then, this part of the Faits des Romains exhibits much greater independence from its source than do, for example, the translations of Caesar and Suetonius, possessing the highest degree of both deletion and interpolation of episodes.

The author justifies his rewriting of his received material and the use of additional material, whether from other sources or from his own imagination, on the grounds of the inadequacy of his Latin models. When translating Lucan, for example, he is tempted to elaborate, since "Lucans s'em passe d elecques si briement, que nus ne puet savoir certain ordre de l'estoire par chose que il en die" (Lucan passes over this so briefly, that one is unable to know for certain the order of events by the things he says of it). Unfortunately, Sallust provided little help at this point in the narrative, which dealt with the war of Alexandria, for he "meïsmes n'en redist qui a conter face" (similarly fails to say anything that might furnish subject matter to recount). Although the author seeks to augment the deficiencies of Lucan and Sallust here by referring to the works of "Herodotus et Berosus, dui hystoriographe qui touchierent en lor estoires cest passage, en dient plus et auques s'acordent" (two historiographers who in their histories touch upon this passage, say more, and agree somewhat), it is impossible to identify any part of Herodotus or Berosius (a contemporary of Alexander the Great, fragments of whose Chaldaica had passed into Josephus) relevant to his discussion.^[69] It seems likely, then, that the citation of "authors" is a false invocation of "authority" to conceal the author's own inventions.

The translator's departure from the sources for the sake of epic interpolation is similarly justified, for example in his account of the battle of Pharsalia, with the remark that "il i ot meinte bele joste et meint beau cop feru, dont Lucans ne parole pas; mes nos les escriverons einsi con nos les avons trovez es autres tretiez, en un livre meïsmes que Cesar fist de ses fez, et en Suetoine et aillors" (there were many fine jousts and many a fine blow delivered, of which Lucan does not speak; but we shall write about them as we have found them in other treatises, in a book that Caesar himself wrote of his deeds, and in Suetonius and elsewhere).^[70] Despite the careful enumeration of alternative

authorities, the ensuing narrative is a fictive elaboration in epic style based solely on the author's knowledge and deployment of the epic modes of Old French chansons de geste . For the most part, however, such epic additions are inserted without comment and so thoroughly woven into the fabric of the text as to fuse seamlessly with the Latin account. This is an ancient world in which antagonists in battle routinely engage in single combat with one another; where famous Roman fighters, such as Scipio at the battle of Thapsus, appear as a "biaus chevaliers, adroiz et boens" (handsome knight, agile and good);^[71] in which Gneus, the son of Pompey, does battle with Caesar to avenge the death of his father, who was, he proclaims, "pleins de totes bontez, loiax chevaliers adurez et vassaux feelz vers sa cité et vers son païs" (full of all goodness, a loyal, experienced knight and a vassal faithful to his city and to his country);^[72] where, at the naval battle before Marseille, the father of Argus is extolled in feudal terms as a man "qui avoit esté si preuz en sa jovente que il ne trovoit son paraill en vaselage n'a pié n'a cheval. Il estoit roes afebloiez de viellece, mes essamples de chevalerie estoit a cels qui le veoient et connoissoient" (who had been so preu in his youth that he did not find his equal in vassalage, neither on foot nor mounted. He was then enfeebled by old age, but he offered an example of chivalry to those who saw and knew him);^[73] and where Caesar and Cleopatra fall into each other's arms with all the conventional passion of medieval romance lovers. To the uninitiated reader or hearer, ignorant of the original Latin source, ancient history as construed by the Faits des Romains must have seemed of a piece with the whole corpus of medieval literature traditionally sung and recounted in aristocratic circles, but now graced with the superior authority of prestigious ancient auctores and a classical literary pedigree. It therefore lent to chivalric culture the inherent legitimacy of antiquity without disturbing its essential ideological contours or ethical apparatus.

Viewed as a whole, the Faits des Romains reads less as a "life" of Caesar than as an inquiry into the roots and consequences of military and political ambition. Although he uses the frame provided by Suetonius, the author concentrates his attention on the military exploits generated by the Roman conquest of Gaul and the ensuing civil war. In his treatment, these events are causally related, since he believes that the Senate's denial of a triumph to Caesar for his successes in Gaul propelled the Roman general into open conflict with the state. Despite the employment of a wide variety of sources, both ancient and medieval, the two main sections formed by the translation of Caesar's

Bellum Gallicum and Lucan's Bellum civile take up fully 84 percent of the translated work. In both sections, the principal issue over which war is waged is liberty: the liberty of the Gauls in the face of Roman subjugation; the liberty of Romans in the face of Caesar's overweening political ambitions. As we shall see, the "wisdom" that the Faits des Romains seeks to promote turns, at its core, on the question of the untrammeled exercise of military and political power on the part of greedy and ruthless rulers. Insofar as Caesar emerges triumphant from both series of engagements, his success spells the death of liberty, a death mirrored in Caesar's own moral decline, which in turn, as handled by the anonymous translator, signifies the disruption of the values of the Roman world.

The Translation of Caesar

Caesar's Gallic Wars was a work of self-promotion in which the Roman general advertised the greatness and utility of his war against the Gauls both as a personal triumph due to his exceptional military talents and as a potential benefit for the Roman world. To this end, Caesar sought to present the populations he subjected as worthy adversaries whose integration into the Roman world could be effected without undue strain. A notable feature of the Gallic Wars , indeed, is the fact that for Caesar, the "French" (that is, the Gauls) are barbarian allies, whereas the Britons and Germans (Saxons) are the "real" barbarians, whose absorption by Roman civilization appears scarcely possible.^[74] Unlike the other "barbarian" peoples confronted by the Roman legions, the Gauls were civilizable.^[75] In Caesar's Gallic Wars , they are depicted, if not on a par with the Romans, at least as worthy of forcible inclusion within the Roman political and military orbit. Since the anonymous translator worked on his text in the years 1213-1214, the distinction that Caesar had drawn in the Gallic Wars between the "French" and the "Saxons" and "Britons"—whose thirteenth-century descendants were at that moment in deadly alliance against Philip Augustus—conformed to the structure of political alignments in western Europe and may explain why Caesar's tale of conquest over the Gauls was less unpalatable to a prospective French audience than might otherwise be thought.

However, Caesar also was compelled to account for the difficulties that he encountered in subduing various Gallic peoples and for the persistence of revolts against Roman domination, even after the defeat and return of Vercingetorix. To do so, he resorted to an unflattering picture of the inherent instability, inconstancy, and impulsiveness of

the Gauls, as well as their ferocity and credulity, apparent in their tendency to credit unfounded rumors, which continually led them into perfidious and faithless acts ranging from the breaking of treaties to outright rebellion. In translating the Gallic Wars , the thirteenth-century author systematically reworked the Caesarian image of the Gauls in ways favorable to the "French," who were their nominal equivalents. But this reinterpretation of Franco-Gallic "national" character did not extend to all the peoples that Caesar had termed "Gauls," nor was it applicable to the other barbarian tribes that had fallen victim to his sword and to his pen. The exclusionary tactics of rewriting that guided the author of the Faits des Romains is compelling testimony to the cultural and political agendas that he harbored and cannot be attributed simply to the desire to "modernize" his source in order to elucidate the text and enhance its didactic efficacy.

The "Gaul" that the thirteenth-century translator constructs is neither Roman Gaul as presented by Caesar nor precisely contemporary France under Philip Augustus. It is a Gaul seen from the perspective of Paris, not Rome; "beyond the Alps," in the Faits des Romains , designates Italy, not France.^[76] The primary characteristic of this "new" Gaul is its size, for the author prefaces Caesar's famous statement concerning the tripartite division of Gaul by stressing that France in the days of Julius Caesar "estoit molt granz" (was very large).^[77] It is a Gaul that includes Savoy—"toz cil dou païs de la estoient apeléz François et toz li païs estoit apelez France a cel tens" (all those from that country were called French and all the country was called France at that time)^[78] —and Trier, which "a ce jor estoit la plus poissanz de France entre les autres citez en chevalerie, et gent de pié i avoit a foison" (in that day was the most powerful among the cities of France in chivalry, and it [also] had foot soldiers in abundance).^[79] Yet it is also a Gaul thoroughly familiar to a thirteenth-century audience, in which the ancient cities and inhabitants of the north are metamorphosed into classical avatars of medieval French society. Caesar's Aquitani thus are identified as the Poitevins, the Morini as the Flemish, the Cantabri as the Gascons, and the Allobroges as the Burgundians. But they are all, as the translator notes at the beginning of his work, one people: "li messagier borguenon ou françois, tot est un" (Burgundian or French messengers, they are all one).^[80]

More prevalent still is the identification of the French according to the cities they inhabit, a process that has the dual effect of reinscribing the ancient geography of Gaul as France and of reconstituting the adversaries against whom Caesar struggled as members of urban regions

rather than tribal entities. No longer the tribal barbari of the Gallic Wars , the "Franois" are, like the Romans, a people who live in the city; hence they are "civilized" in the root sense of the word, all traces of "barbarism" effaced by the culturally neutral urban designations. Caesar's legions set forth to do battle against "cil de Rains," "cil de Biauves," and "cil de Soissons," all of whom are "François." Vercingetorix "de Clermont," seeking to raise an army to contend with the Romans, dispatches his messengers "partout as citez de France et manda que se tenissent en foi et en loiauté" (throughout the cities of France and commanded that they bind themselves in faith and loyalty). Responding to his call were "cil de Sens, de Paris, de Poitiers, de Caors, de Tors, d'Angiers, de Limoges et des autres citez."^[81] ç Normans and Nivernais, Burgundians and Bretons, pass through these pages as emblematic representatives of the antiquity of France's geographic and social identity and the continuity of her political community.

Despite the overall tendency to homogenize past and present, pagan and Christian, Galli and Franci , the anonymous author nonetheless draws some fine distinctions in his treatment of the various populations he has assimilated to the "Franois." As a rule, "li François" seen as an ensemble are excused from the opprobrium that Caesar had heaped on them for their "légèreté." Although the translator acknowledges that Caesar placed little trust in the French—"por ce que il sot que François estoient appareillié a guerroier et a prendre noviax conselz tote jor, il se fioit petit en els" (because he knew that the French were always prepared to make war and to take new counsel, he had little faith in them)—their readiness to do battle and follow counsel hardly replicates Caesar's charge of pusillanimity, and Caesar's allegation of the notorious infirmitatem Gallorum veritus in the Latin text is simply suppressed. At worst, the French can be accused of overfrequent councils and of responding indiscriminately to interested rumor from passing merchants and travelers: "Lors prenoient conseill selonc ce que il ooient, a tel chief de foiz qui tornoit a lor nuisement, car li trespassant ne lor responnoient pas toz jors verité, mes selonc ce que il cuidoient que fust a lor plesir" (They took counsel according to what they heard, such that it often turned out to their harm, since passersby did not always answer [their inquiries] with the truth, but rather with what they thought would please them).^[82] ç

Similarly, where Caesar claims that his Gallic auxiliaries inform upon their countrymen, the translator says in passing only that "espies i estoient" (there were spies), thus removing suspicions of treachery. Rather than fickle or treacherous, the inhabitants of France are

portrayed as fierce warriors, committed to preserving their liberty. "Cil de Biauvés" are "de grant pooir et de tres grant fierté" (of great power and very fierce).^[83] Those from Nevers are "home dur, cruel et de grant vertu, qui mout blasmoient toz cels de France qui rendu s'estoient en la main des Romains et avoient gitee arriere l'ancienne vertu de lor païs" (hard men, cruel and of great strength, who greatly blamed all those of France who had surrendered themselves to the hands of the Romans and had thrown away the ancient virtue of their country); the "Belges" are characterized as "soverain conbateor estoient en tote France" (sovereign fighters in all France), as are the Poitevins "qui bon conbateor furent et orent beles armes" (who were good fighters and bore excellent arms); the Champenois "sevent assez de fonde et de trere et de lancier" (were well acquainted with the use of a fronde and with the sword and lance).^[84] Indeed, for the author of the Faits des Romains , "tote France estoient preste a bataille autresi con par nature" (all France was prepared to do battle, as if by nature),^[85] exhibiting exceptional courage, the ability to withstand hardship, and a love of competition. Pride of place among them goes to the inhabitants of the Île-de-France and the "Parisis," "cil de la riviere de Sainne, ou li boen chevalier sont par nature et li hardi torneieor et meillor des autres" (those from the Seine river, where good knights are by nature, and bold tourneyers, better than the others).^[86] It is in "cels de France," the author remarks in an addition to the Latin text, that Caesar places his greatest trust: "por for hardement, car plus les avoit esprovez aspres et estables en totes batailles" (for their bravery, for he had found them courageous and steadfast in all battles).^[87]

Yet, as Mireille Schmidt-Chazan has demonstrated, the translator's excision or mitigation of Caesar's criticisms is not total. He often lets stand isolated adverse judgments in the Latin text. But rather than apply them to the French as a whole, he reserves them for particular peoples from well-defined regions.^[88] Thus, amid the general praise of the French for their warlike virtue, the Auvergnats are decried as "menteor . . . par nature et faignent que il sont frere as Romains et as Latins por ce que il vindrent de Troie" (liars . . . by nature, and they pretend that they are brothers to the Romans and Latins because they came from Troy).^[89] In the same way, the scope of Caesar's remark on the return of the Aedui to Vercingetorix's rebellion—an act of betrayal that Caesar attributed to their having "treated frivolous hearsay as assured fact: some were influenced by avarice, others by anger and the recklessness which is specially characteristic of their race"^[90] —is restricted by the translator to apply to "cil d'Ostum" who

en furent si esmeü, c'onques n'i ot espace d'enquerre en nule verité, ainz alerent li un par avarice, li autres par ire, li autre[s] par folie, de croi[e]re tot quanque il ooient, car de nature avoient que il creïssent ce et coi de legier.^[91]

were so [easily] moved, that they never had time [lit. space] to inquire into the truth; thus some proceeded from avarice, others from anger, others from folly, to believe everything they heard, for it was their nature to easily believe this and that.

And this despite the fact that Caesar had always held "cil d'Ostum" in the highest honor "por la foi qu'il avoient enciennement gardee vers Romains" (for the fealty that they had in ancient times maintained toward the Romans).^[92]

Among the French, some come in for especially pointed criticism. For example, the Normans, alone among the "Franois," are said to lack courage in battle. The author transforms a rather bland comment of Caesar's on the Unelles—as being, like the Gauls, prompt in taking up arms, but lacking strength and resolve in sustaining reverses—into a direct attack on the Normans:

Si con dit Juliens, autresi come Normenz estoient prest a movoir barate et noise por petit, ensement il perdoient les cuers et les vertuz lues que il avoient une aversité d'aucun meschief.^[93]

As Julius says, just as the Normans were ready to engage in treachery and tumults for very little cause, in the same way they lost heart and virtue as soon as they experienced a calamity of any misfortune.

The inability to persevere in enterprises rashly begun, a characteristic that Caesar attributes to the Gauls as a whole, is here shifted to the Normans, once again replicating in the ancient past the configurations and sentiments of thirteenth-century France at a moment of "national" struggle between the French and Normans, only recently conquered by Philip Augustus (in 1204-1205) and still suspect as potential allies for the Anglo-German coalition of 1213-1214.

Without doubt, however, the main target of the author's selective revisions of Caesar's account is the Germans, generally designated by the names of "Tyois" or "Sesnes." They alone merit the appellation of barbari , and they invariably appear in the text as a people "bar-bares et sauvages"—even when the Latin source refers only to "Germans."^[94] The Germans who inhabit the territories beyond the Rhine appear in the Faits des Romains as cruel and ferocious beyond sense, a "gens forsené,"^[95] habituated to thievery in their pursuit of plunder ("come genz qui estoient usé de larrecins et de roberies"),^[96]

who (rather surprisingly, given the general tenor of the Latin text on the warlike character of the Germans) are of less military value even than the "Hermines" ("mout meins a redoter que Hermines ne autres genz" [much less to be feared than the Hermines or other peoples])^[97] —a disparaging phrase added to Caesar's account and referring to the Armenians defeated by Sulla. The Saxons are presented as "genz qui n'avoient loisir de conseill prendre ne de lor armes saisir" (a people who do not have the leisure to take counsel nor to bear arms). In place of the military valor that distinguishes the "François," Saxons resort to ruse (barate ) and trickery (tricherie ).^[98] The Germans are a race of cowards ("ne sont pas de grant hardement"), and the Normans and English are unwise to ally themselves against the French with "such people," as the author interjects in an appreciation of the current political situation in France: "je tieng por fox et Anglois et Normanz, qui ont fole esperance et quident que Octes li escomeniez . . . doie France envaïr par itel genz" (I hold as foolish both the English and the Normans, who have vain hopes and think that Otto the excommunicated . . . could invade France with such people).^[99] France, on the other hand, is a society where

li chevalier . . . estoient toz jors en guerre et en bataille. Acostumé l'avoient avant la venue Cesar, car chascun an assilloient autrui, ou il se deffendoient de cels qui venoient sur els.

the knights . . . were always engaged in war and in battle. They were accustomed to it before Caesar's advent, for each assailed the other, or defended themselves against those who attacked them.

In France, the exercise of war is not conducted merely for plunder, as among the Germans. Rather,

qui plus estoit riches, plus avoit mesniee et serjanz environ soi. Qui plus pooit avoir grant conpaignie et de sa table et de sa meson, plus avoit, ce li sembloit, honor et cortoisie et grace.^[100]

he who was richer had more of an entourage and sergeants around him. He who was able to maintain a great company, both of his table and his household, had, so it seemed, greater honor and courtesy and grace.

As in the present, so in the past; as in the past, so in the present. The essential character of French society is chivalric, a world in which riches, honor, courtoisie , and favor are and always have been the determinants of social position and personal virtue. The transferral of the represented world of medieval chivalry to the ancient origins of

the French people comes full circle and authorizes its continuance in the present. Because the French have always been a people distinguished by military prowess and valor, they will overcome the threatened coalition, just as surely as the Germans, the roots of whose cowardice burrow deep into the distant past, will suffer defeat. In the end, it is the maintenance of their ancienne vertu of military strength and moral honor that guarantees the liberty of "li Franois."

The crucial role of chivalric prowess in sustaining "French" liberty emerges most distinctively in the Faits in its treatment of the conflicts between Caesar and a series of Gallic leaders, whose meaning in the vernacular text takes on political and ethical dimensions absent from Caesar's narrative. The anonymous thirteenth-century translator consistently rewrites his Latin source to eliminate any suspicion of Gallic subordination toward Rome, both during the successive military confrontations and even, finally, in defeat.^[101] Whether allies or enemies, the "François" are always treated as free peoples, routinely called for consultation to Caesar's numerous colloquies, and accorded the respect and fear due worthy adversaries. As handled in the Faits des Romains , the war between the Romans and the Gauls is a struggle between equal opponents, one fighting for domination and territorial expansion, the other striving to preserve its ancient liberty. Against Caesar's efforts to subjugate the Gauls, the "French" oppose a deep and perduring desire for autonomy that fuels their ferocity in the face of aggression. At times, the desire for liberty may even lead them to ally with the Romans. Thus the "François" applaud Caesar's conquest of the Helvetians, which they attribute not to Caesar's desire to avenge the shame that the Helvetians had visited upon the Romans in defeating Lucius Cassius, but to Caesar's recognition of the "conmun profit de tote France":

car li Helveois n'avoient guerpiz lor leus, qui plein estoit de tot bien, fors que por metre desoz lor piez tote France si grant come ele estoit en .iij. parties, et por estre seignor de tot et fere dou païs a lor volenté^[102] ç

because the Helvetians left their spot, which was full of good things, only to subjugate [lit. place beneath their feet] all France, as great as she was in three parts, and in order to be lord of everything and to do what they wanted with the country.

Similarly, the French request Caesar's aid against the "Sesnes," who, under King Ariovistus, threaten to cross the Rhine in order that "il porront les Franois chacier de tote France" (they could chase the

French out of France), knowing full well that Ariovistus "veust avoir sor els cruel seignorie" (wished to exercise cruel lordship over them).^[103]

But the most persistent threat to Gallic liberty comes from Caesar himself. When confronted with the specter of subjection to Rome, "Franois" of every sort and from every region relentlessly resist. Whereas Caesar found the continuous rebellion of the Gauls to be proof of their instability and inconstancy, the author of the Faits presents it as proof of their absolute commitment to preserving their autonomy. Thus the cities of Brittany, although subdued and in principle pacified, nonetheless rise up against the Roman victors, because "mielz se voloient abandoner a tote fortune que remanoir ou servage as Romains" (they preferred to abandon themselves to the whims of fortune rather than to remain in bondage to the Romans).^[104] ç Indeed, Caesar was forced to conclude that "tote France pres s'apareilloit a movoir guerre, por ce meesmement que chascuns huem aime franchise par nature et het lien de servage" (almost all France was prepared to go to war, because each man loves liberty by nature and hates any tie of dependency).^[105]Franchise , which in the romans d'antiquité tended to signify "nobility of character," "goodness," or "speech that bears witness to a noble heart"—all important qualities of the perfect courtly knight^[106] —here takes on a decided inflection in the direction of "freedom." In the Faits des Romains , it is at one and the same time a condition strenuously defended by the French, a rallying cry for rebellion, and a structure of argumentation.

Thus Convictolitavis, on whom Caesar had conferred the leadership of "cil d'Ostum," determined to join the revolt against the Romans because, although "voirs est que je doi assez a Cesar por le bien que il m'a fet; mes je doi plus a comune franchise" (it is true that I owe Caesar much for the good that he has done me; but I owe more to the common liberty). And it is on this basis that he persuades the Aeduan messengers to join the ranks of the rebelling peoples of France in behalf of their "common liberty."^[107] The guardians of the "common liberty" of the "François" are the Gallic tribal chieftains, here transformed into regional princes, against whom Caesar wages pitiless war but who emerge in their opposition to Roman aggression as national heroes fighting for the ancient liberties and customs of their followers. From first to last, they are treated as disinterested partisans of French freedom, who struggle against overwhelming odds to sustain traditional forms of Gallic self-government, waging war for causes both just and deeply embedded in the French past. To so present France's

ancient rulers required the anonymous author of the Faits des Romains to revise considerably the picture that Caesar had painted of them. The underlying political preoccupations that guided his work emerge clearly in the ways that he redraws Caesar's image of Gallic tribal leaders as greedy, ambitious, and untrustworthy and refigures them as legitimate champions of "French" national honor and liberty.

The Gallic Opposition

The first of the Gallic chieftains subjected to the author's legitimizing revisions is Dumnorix, of the "païs d'Ostum." In Caesar's account, Dumnorix was a notorious farmer of taxes who used the revenues from that enterprise to bribe his way to influence and a position of dominance among the Aedui, whom he was inciting to revolt against the Romans. According to Caesar:

For several years, it was said, he had contracted at a low price for the customs and all the rest of the Aeduan taxes, for the simple reason that when he made a bid none durst bid against him. By this means he had at once increased his own prosperity and acquired ample resources for bribery; he maintained a considerable body of horses permanently at his own charges, and kept them about his own person; not only in his own but even in neighboring states his power was extensive.^[108]

In place of this unflattering portrait, the author of the Faits des Romains depicts Dumnorix as a brave and powerful leader, who had won his followers' favor and cemented their loyalty by his capacity for "biau parler":

Ce estoit Domnorix qui estoit si hardiz et de si grant pooir el pueple que nus n'osoit rien contre lui, car il avoit si la grace de toz par sa liberalité et par sa largece et par sa franchise et par son biau parler, que tuit le suivoient et voloient ce que il voloit.

This was Dumnorix, who was extremely bold and possessed such great power over the people that no one dared to do anything against him, because he had so won the favor of all by his liberality and by his largesse and by his nobility of character [franchise ] and fine speech, that everyone followed him and wished what he wished.

Although this Dumnorix also farms taxes, he does so not to bribe his way to influence, but to have

de quoi il pooit granz largeces fere por la gent atrere a s'amor et por baer a noveles honors par assentement del pueple; et grant nombre de chevalerie avoit toz jors entor soi, que il meintenoit en totes choses de son avoir.^[109]

the wherewithal to distribute great largesse in order to attract the love of the people and to aspire to new honors by the assent of the people; and he always had a great number of knights around him, whom he maintained in all things at his own expense.

He is an ideal medieval ruler, liberal with largece , eager for honors that are conferred upon him by the "assent of the people," whose favor and love he wins through that "fine speech" (biau parler ) so essential, as Jean de Thuin noted, to the preservation of correct order in the chivalric world. He exhorts his followers to support the resistance, only to be cut down, dying with the cry upon his lips: "Je sui frans, et de franche cité" (I am free and from a free city).^[110]

In this thirteenth-century vision of the ancient world of Gaul, the leader acts on the promptings of his followers, among whom he figures as a primus inter pares and whose wishes and counsels he is required to implement. Hence Ambiorix excuses himself from leading the Eburones in an attack against Caesar's troops sent to winter among his people on the grounds that he was bound by "French" custom to execute their demands, even against his better judgment, for in France ruler and subjects are contractually implicated in each other's "seignorie" and required to abide by the counsel of the majority:

"et ce que je ai fet d'assaillir les tentes romaines n'a pas esté par ma volonté ne par mon jugement, ainz le m'a fet fere li pueples, qui a autretant de seignorie sor moi come je ai sor lui, car itex est nostre costume."

"and what I did in attacking the tents of the Romans was not according to my own wishes nor my judgment, but I was made to do it by the people, who have as much lordship over me as I have over them, for such is our custom."

The fact that all the French together had decided to attack Caesar's legions wherever they were wintering only provided further incentive to join the rebellion, since

ce estoit le comuns conselz de France d'assaillir totes les legions Cesar. . .. Ne li uns Franois ne puet escondire s'aide a l'autre a cest besoign, car cist conselz est de conmune franchise·^[111] ç

it was the common counsel of France to attack all Caesar's legions. . .. No Frenchman could refuse his aid to another in this need, for this counsel concerned the common liberty·

Counsel and consent are the twin pillars on which the franchise of the French stands or falls. They constitute the main vectors along which

the lines of force in Gallic society run, its governing principles of cohesion and strength, and hence the essential elements that define its historical character. Consent to the common causes of liberty arrived at through deliberation in council cannot be refused, for the historical destiny of "li Franois" depends on adherence to the collective will of the princes.

The princes' title to leadership derives ultimately from their personal fortitude and valor, for it is, in this sense, their "chivalric" prowess that validates their ability to rule. The author of the Faits des Romains embellishes his history with innumerable micro-narratives of heroic valor among lesser figures, whose feats of bravery, recounted in heavily accented epic tones, contribute to the overall patterning of the narrative in epic style. Thus, in a small episode that recalls the actions of Roland at the battle of Roncevaux, Corbeus, the leader of the Beauvaisins (Bellovaci), although already defeated in battle, refuses to give up:

Mes en nule maniere dou monde Corbeus ne vost le chanp guerpir, ne foïr n'ou bois n'aillors, ne partir soi de la bataille, n'estre menez ace qu'il se vossist rendre par nul enortement de Romains; ainz le veïst l'en plus tier que lion plaier, abatre et ocirre plusors a tas devant soi. Tant que Romain nel porent plus sosfrir de mautalent, anois li lancerent tant darz qu'il le ferirent parmi le corset fu abatuz sanz relever. Mes bien si fu avant contenuz come vertueus dux.^[112] ç

In no way in the world did Corbeus wish to quit the field, or to flee into the woods or elsewhere, nor to remove himself from the battle, nor to be led to surrender by any urging of the Romans; rather one could see him, prouder than a lion, attack, strike, and kill several in a pile before him. To such an extent that the Romans in their anger could no longer endure it; therefore they threw so many javelins at him that they pierced him throughout his body and he was struck down without being able to get up again. But how well he had conducted himself before this as a virtuous leader.

Similarly, Vertiscus, "li princes de Rains," insisted on leading his host into battle despite his great age, which made it difficult for him to mount his horse:

Il ne vost pas sosfrir que si chevalier alassent bataillier sanz lui, ne par viellece ne s'estoit escussez qu'il n'eüst receüe la provosté des chevaliers guier. [ . . . He was considered] le prince prevost de tote la chevalerie de Renciens.^[113]

He could not stand to have his knights go into battle without him, nor did he excuse himself by reason of old age from receiving the

charge of commanding the knights. [ . . . He was considered] the principal leader of all the chivalry of Reims.

The stories of even such minor princes as Corbeus and Vertiscus, taken from Caesar's account but consistently rewritten in language borrowed from the lexicon of medieval chivalry, build upon one another to heighten the sense of cyclical return and discursive recurrence that is an essential part of the narrative and historiographical strategies of the Faits des Romains . Narrative repetition creates a vast epic tableau out of alien classical matiére that reinscribes its meaning for a medieval audience as a past that it makes its own. Ancient history becomes the ground of an ideology of chivalric identity whose distant origins tacitly argue the authentic status of the aristocracy's claim to a historical mission as warriors and leaders of France. The princes whose blood has been spilt since the beginning of time for the liberty of France are the true representatives of the ancient peoples of France. Their actions, guided by the common accord of leaders and followers in council, provide the paradigm of a French society governed according to ancient customs, offering a heritage of valor, honor, prowess, and virtue in the service of franchise that is the historical meaning and mandate of a specifically "French" antiquity.

Even more do the histories of ancient Gaul's emblematic chieftains such as Vercingetorix and—for the author of the Faits des Romains —Drappés Brenno disclose the contours of a French past potentially capable of reviving a lost world of aristocratic potency and chivalric virtue. In his account of the exploits of Vercingetorix and Drappés Brenno, the author of the Faits des Romains offers his thirteenth-century audience of readers and listeners a rectified history of ancient Gaul aimed at redeeming contemporary chivalric society.

Vercingetorix was not yet in the thirteenth century the national hero that nineteenth-century Frenchmen were to make of him, but he figured in the Gallic Wars as the principal Gallic chieftain fomenting revolt against Caesar. Caesar's depiction of Vercingetorix was a complicated admixture of admiration for his military skills, frustration with the continual rebellions that he excited and led, and scorn for the motley character of the followers that he admitted into his host, which Caesar disdains as "a levy of beggars and outcasts."^[114] Curiously, the author of the Faits des Romains lets stand Caesar's adverse judgment on Vercingetorix's army and, if anything, darkens the picture, describing the warriors as a ragbag "de povres, d'eschis, d'endetez, de gent desperee, qui plus amoit guerre que pes" (of the poor, deprived, indebted, of desperate people, who loved war more than peace).^[115]

Vercingetorix is moved to wage war, according to Caesar and our vernacular author, by a combination of personal ambition and "entencion de comune franchise recovrer" (intention to recover the common liberty). The narrative of his uprisings repeatedly raises questions about the nature of the Gallic leader's personal motives and goals, questions initiated by Caesar and allowed to linger in the vernacular text.^[116] To the extent that the author of the Faits corrects the history of Gallic revolt against Caesar under Vercingetorix, his emendations of the past do not so much revise the image of the Gallic leader as reinterpret the global character of French rebellion and its meaning within the history of resistance to Roman domination.

In Caesar's view, Gallic princes had seized the opportunity created by his departure for Italy to sow discord among the people, already "chafing at their subjection to the sovereignty of Rome." In particular, he pointed to their alarm at the execution of Acco, chief of the Senones, and their concern that a similar fate might befall them.^[117] In Caesar's eyes, then, Gallic motivation for the renewal of war derived from a combination of resentment over their defeat and subjugation to Roman rule and self-interested fear for their personal safety. The French author, in contrast, mitigates Caesar's judgment by adding that, although the French were afraid that Acco's cruel death at Caesar's hands "porroit avenir a chascun de nos" (could happen to each of us), more important was their belief that "tote France est en aventure . . . or si parra qui metra sa teste en aventure por conmune franchise recovrer" (the fate of France is in the balance . . . now it will be clear who is willing to place his head at risk in order to recover the common liberty). Indeed, so little did the French fear for their lives that they collectively determined that

il voloient mielz estre tuit ocis em bataille, eta greignor honor lor torneroit, que il ne recovrassent la gloire de bataille que lor ancessor avoient eüe jadis.^[118]

they would prefer all to be killed in battle, and it would redound more greatly to their honor, rather than not recover the glory of battle that their ancestors formerly had.

Ancestral honor and glory require the prosecution of war in the name of liberty, not for the sake of personal security, but for "le conmun salu de France."^[119] In answering Vercingetorix's call to arms, the "Franéois" are responding to the imperatives of ancestry and the traditions of national honor by which liberty and glory have been sustained in the past. Vercingetorix is merely an instrument selected to

lead the French to their historical destiny, an imperfect bearer of their aspirations for autonomy, perhaps, but in his military cunning a worthy opponent to Caesar's legions and, as the princes acclaim him, a "sovrains dux."^[120]

Strikingly, Vercingetorix never acts alone. He is a chosen leader, "esleüz a prince eta comandeor par le conmun otroi des citez" (elected as prince and commander by the common consent of the cities) and bound by the common counsel of the other princes. His lordship (seignorie ) and authority to command are established by election. The author of the Faits des Romains insists on the collective nature of decisions made in council in the conduct of war:

Chascun marin fesoit [Vercingetorix] venir a soi princes et connoistables de tote s'ost por prendre conseill de tel atirement come au jor covenoit.^[121]

Each morning [Vercingetorix] had the princes and constables of all his host come to him in order to take counsel concerning the disposition of affairs that was necessary that day.

So compelling is the cause of national franchise that even those who allied with Caesar in the past join their compatriots against the Romans. Thus Commius, who loyally assisted Caesar in his wars in Britain and as a reward received Flanders and Thérouanne, nonetheless enters the fray on the side of French liberty:

Neporquant tote France fu si a un acort de lor franchise venchier et ravoir et de recovrer 10r premeraine gloire de bataille, qu'il ne men-bra onques a nului d'amor ne de bienfet que Cesar lor eüst let, ainz avoient tuit boene volenté de metre lor corset lor avoirs en ceste guerre fornir.^[122]

Nevertheless, all France was of such an accord to avenge and repossess their freedom and recover their original glory of battle that no one remembered the love or benefits that Caesar had brought them; rather, they all wished to offer their bodies and goods for the prosecution of this war.

The war is fought in epic style, knight against knight, matching the proece, vertu , and hatdement of each.^[123] The French appetite for war is excited by "la memoire de l'encienne vertu des François" (the memory of the ancient virtue of the French). And it is precisely this memory that drives the Romans to conquer the French and deprive them of their laws, customs, and franchise . In the eyes of the French, the Romans seek nothing less than

par envie de nostre boene renomee que nos avons toz jors eüe par noz victoires, demorer en noz heritages et acuivertir nos et tolir nostre franchise.^[124]

out of envy of our good repute that we have always had by virtue of our victories, to dwell in our heritages and to enslave us and take away our liberty.

Although finally defeated in battle by Caesar, the French remain faithful to their ancestral traditions of liberty. Caesar recognizes only too well that if he left France to winter after subduing Vercingetorix, the French would rise up again, for

ne cuidoient Franois que ja i eüst cité qui volontiers ne s'entremeïst et preïst fes sor soi de sa franchise vanchier.^[125] ç

the French did not believe that there was any city that would not willingly join in and take it upon itself to avenge its liberty.

Whatever the cost, freedom in France is to be defended, for in freedom lies the sole guarantee for the preservation of ancestral honor.

It is in the author's treatment of Vercingetorix's surrender to Caesar that his greatest changes to this section of the Latin source occur, changes consistent with the image of French history as the history of liberty that shapes his corrected vision of France's ancient past. Caesar's account emphasizes the final submission of the French in a ritual laying down of arms tantamount to an act of obeisance before a sovereign ruler. Caesar ordered the arms to be delivered up and the chiefs to be brought to him. Upon their arrival he was seated at the front of the camp, and the leaders approached him there: "Vercingetorix was surrendered, arms were thrown down."^[126] The persistent use of the passive voice in the Caesarian text underscores the impotence of the "pacified" rebels, who no longer control their own deeds but are compelled to respond to the commands of others. The loss of franchise is a loss of agency, of the capacity to govern oneself.

In contrast, the author of the Faits des Romains converts Vercingetorix's final act of submission into a ritual of volition in which Vercingetorix se rendit (rendered himself) to Caesar, sovereign to sovereign, the agent of his self-surrender. It is, as Mireille Schmidt-Chazan remarks, a small detail, "mais combien révélateur de son souci de ne pas voir ternie si peu que ce soit l'image des Franais."^[127] ç In surrendering himself, Vercingetorix recovers the agency that Caesar had sought to take from him. The laying down of arms does not entail the loss of autonomy, only a momentary abandonment of the contest.

Caesar may set limits to French freedom of action, but he cannot destroy for all time their franchise .

To the degree that the story of Vercingetorix's resistance to Roman domination encodes the history of France as the history of French franchise , its meaning within the Faits des Romains lies within a semantic field of extraordinary breadth and complexity. Franchise is at once a status; a collection of personal attributes designating the inner qualities of nobility of character, virtue, and speech indicative of a noble heart; and an eponym for the French, who as Franci are francs (free, noble, etc.).^[128] The social semantics of franchise move between these significations, drawing together into a single etymological and semantic lineage nobility of birth and status, nobility of moral being associated with high birth (i.e., courage, pride, prowess, liberality, etc.), propriety of speech, free status, and ethnic identity. To be French is to claim a legacy of personal characteristics and of ethical and linguistic propriety that replicates the semantic lineage of franchise . Given that the medieval inflections of franchise are socially coded to the highest degree, the history of France's ancient struggle for franchise (liberty) becomes, in the Faits des Romains , the history of the nobility, embodying in the ancient past a range of authoritative meanings associated with franchise as the social attribute and social prerogative of a class destined by ancestry, moral attainment, and exemplary gestes to be the guardians of the nation's honor. In light of the semantic fluidity within franchise between the senses of status, freedom, and autonomy, the effect of the author's insistent representation of the Gallic struggle against Caesar as the struggle for liberty is to recode the ancient past of the Gauls as the story of aristocratic autonomy. Resistance to Roman domination constitutes a legacy authorizing resistance to any attempt, past or present, to deprive the nobility of their rightful spheres of autonomous action, whether political, territorial, or sociomoral. The history of French liberty validates the aristocracy's struggle to preserve its autonomy in the face of any and all threats from above, including those of present-day rulers, that seek to deprive it of the franchise that is the defining mark of its status and character as a social class.

If Vercingetorix himself is a problematic figure, inappropriate in the eyes of the thirteenth-century translator as a representative of the full conspectus of chivalric values, the significance of his deeds nonetheless adequately articulates the necessary relations, semantically embedded in the term franchise , among status, rights, property, propriety, and autonomy that the genetic logic of lineage in the Middle Ages associ-

ated with a "free" (franc ) nobility. In Drappés Brenno the author of the Faits des Romains was to find an opportunity to complete his vision of a "corrected past," and it is in this figure that the moral failings inherent in Vercingetorix are rectified.

The author interpolates the episode concerning Drappés Brenno between chapters 29 and 30 of Book 8, at the conclusion of the Gallic Wars , where it figures as the closing act of French resistance before the definitive submission of Gaul to Caesar. Placed after the defeat of Vercingetorix, as the climax of the Gallic struggle against the threat of subjugation to Rome, the interpolation revises and reverses the history of French defeat at the hands of the Romans, for it demonstrates the temporary character of that defeat and the undying fidelity to the pursuit of liberty that motivates French action.

The source of the episode is a passage in Hirtius's continuation of Caesar, in which he identifies Drappés as a Senonian who, at the first outbreak of the revolt in Gaul, "had collected desperadoes from anywhere and everywhere, calling slaves to liberty, summoning exiles from every state, and harboring brigands."^[129] From the perspective of the Latin text, then, Drappés is no more appropriate a bearer of the traditions of French chivalry than Vercingetorix. If anything, his host transgresses more profoundly the principal boundaries of class and "national" identity in medieval society, for whom few social distinctions were greater than the barriers separating those who were slave and free, or those who possessed membership in a legal community and those who did not. The fact that the translator selects Drappés rather than Vercingetorix as the "national" hero of the ancient "François" would seem to be due to Drappés's position at the conclusion of the narrative, where he serves as both the finale and the final word on the character and meaning of France's ancestral past. Thus, whereas the pejorative implications of Vercingetorix's assembled host of "poor, dispossessed, and indebted" followers are allowed to stand, the author completely rewrites the account of Drappés from the inside out, effacing any trace of social or martial disabilities in him or in the French warriors who joined his army.

In Hirtius's version, Drappés sought to invade Provence but was routed and imprisoned under the walls of Uxellodunum, where he died of starvation. Using Drappés's campaign as a narrative frame, the author of the Faits des Romains reverses the sequence of events and their meaning. The "defection" of the Gauls is converted to a war:^[130] the French campaign in Provence is answered by Caesar's in Sens, making French resistance to the Romans an act of defense. No longer

composed of liberated slaves, exiles, and brigands, Drappés's army is a proper host of soudoiers , which he amasses "de partout . . . de privez et d'estranges."^[131]

The battle between Drappés and Caesar is joined with all the traditional flourishes of epic encounters and, following the conventions of chansons de geste , takes the form of single combat. Caesar initiates the attack, hotly demanding engagement, while Drappés, equally avid for action, holds back in order to protect his host "come boens pastres qui se met entre les leus et ses oailles quant il les voit chacier" (like a good shepherd who places himself between the wolves and his sheep when he sees them being hunted). The pastoral metaphor places the leader of the Senonians within the traditions of Christian knighthood, whereas Caesar exhibits a rash and intemperate appetite for war, thereby, in Drappés's view, undermining the legitimacy of his lordship:

Huem qui vehe le cors a un seul chevalier ne doit terre tenir n'avoir droit en ost mener n'en chevalerie governer.^[132]

A man who charges against a single knight should not hold land nor have the right to lead the host or to govern chivalry.

A long and vividly recounted series of thrusts and counter-thrusts ensues. At one point, when Drappés removes with a single blow a part of Caesar's scalp, he mocks the Roman's baldness, enraging Caesar, "qui mout estoit irez quant il ooit ramentevoir sa chauveté, si fu molt eschaufez quant il oï l'eschar Drappés" (who was very angry when he saw his baldness revealed; and he became very heated when he heard Drappés's jeer). From that moment, Caesar determines to kill Drappés, "qui tant de mal li avoit fet" (who had done him so much harm).^[133] Whereas Drappés fights to protect his people and further the cause of French franchise , Caesar is driven by hatred of the enemy and a desire for revenge.

For once in this wholly fictitious account, the French remain undefeated. Instead, Caesar is captured and imprisoned in Sens. He is helped to escape by Cadorix, a knight of Melun who owed his life to Caesar, for Caesar had once protected him in the past when he led an embassy to Rome. In saving Caesar, Cadorix repays a debt of honor; his actions do not constitute a betrayal of the French, however unfortunate their consequences. And unfortunate they are, as Drappés recognizes:

"Eschapez m'est," dist Drappés, "par mescheance. Se il fust pris, tote France eüst sa franchise recovree."^[134]

"He escaped me," said Drappés, "by ill luck. If he had been taken, all France would have recovered her freedom."

Although Drappés endeavors to trick Caesar once more into capture, the effort fails. He and his companion Lucterius retreat from Sens, which is taken by Caesar and granted to Cadorix, whom Caesar designates as prince et seignor . Drappés is subsequently defeated at the siege of Alise (Uxellodunum) by Gaius Canines and taken prisoner. But even in defeat, he denies Caesar the final satisfaction of killing him. Rather than submit to Roman domination and vengeance, Drappés starves himself and, in a final act of self-mastery, "se lessa en ceste maniere de faim morir" (in this way let himself die of hunger).^[135]

Throughout the account, the author of the Faits des Romains emphasizes the chivalric qualities that make Drappés a worthy leader of the French and a fearless antagonist to Caesar. His prowess, heroism, and concern for his followers contrast sharply with the cruelty and démesure with which Caesar pursues him. The preservation of Gallic liberty is opposed to Roman ruthlessness, the national hero to the "bald" conqueror. The narrative leaves little room for doubt concerning the inherent justice of the French cause, and Drappés's final act of suicide, which replicates and exaggerates Vercingetorix's assumption of agency in surrender, leaves unresolved the question of whether the French, under suitable leadership, might have escaped subjection to Rome. It thus interrogates the whole structure of Caesar's text, with its implicit assumption of the legitimacy of Roman conquest over Gaul as a civilizing mission.

Drappés himself is endowed with an entirely new status and lineage, one that connects him to a long tradition of ancient and medieval resistance to Rome. He is the "sire of Sens," bons chevaliers et hardiz , a descendant of "Brenne le premerain" (a name retrieved either from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain or from Wace's Roman de Brut ),^[136]

dont tot li prince de Sens retenoient les nons, que chascuns avoit non Brenno, ci com cist Drappés Brenno, et li autre qui furent jusqu'au tens Artur; car veritablement cil Brenno qui fu au tens Artu ne fu pas li premerains dont la citez de Sens fu renomee, mes uns autres qui assist Rome et la prist jusqu'au Capitoile au tens Camillus qui fut conciles de Rome anois que Marius et Silla fussent.^[137] ç

of which all the princes of Sens kept the name, since each one had the name Brenno, like this Drappés Brenno, and the others who lived

up to the time of Arthur; for truly this Brenno who lived in Arthur's time was not the first, on account of whom the city of Sens was renowned, but the one who attacked Rome and took the city up to the Capitol in the time of Camillus who was consul of Rome before Marius and Sulla.

In Drappés is revived the spirit of the first "Brenne." Like the "Brenne" who preceded him and the "Brenne" who will come after him in the time of Arthur, he opposes Roman domination. The sword he wields is inherited from the first Brenne, founder of the line and conqueror of Rome, and with it he, like Arthur, is empowered to perform feats of bravery and prowess that fulfill the imperatives of his lineage. Even Caesar, engaged in mortal combat with the leader of the Senonians, recognizes the revival of ancestral fortitude in him, proclaiming:

En non Dieu, il samble que Brenno li premiers soit resucitez. Se cist vivoit longues, je cuit que il vodroit le Capitoile ancore asseoir une foiz.^[138]

In God's name, it seems as if Brenne the first were revived. If this one were to live a long life, I think that he would once again besiege the Capitol.

The associative logic of lineage here gathers into a single thread a tightly braided structure of argument. Drappés, as the lineal descendant of "Brenne le premerain," not only bears within him the moral and chivalric traditions of his own lineage, whose actions he replicates, but looks forward to "li autre Brenne," historically associated with Arthur, who similarly conducts a nearly successful campaign against the Roman emperor Lucius. The allusion to Brenne and Arthur in Drappés's fictionalized genealogy reinterprets Drappés's deeds in terms of the later working out of the historical precedents they embody, and associates with him the legitimacy and ideal value ascribed by medieval romance to Arthur's legendary realm. With the mention of the Arthurian world, the legitimizing process comes full circle; ancient and medieval pasts fuse through the workings of descent as two faces of a single history that constantly throw back their reflections to one another, multiplying, as in facing mirrors, the repeated images of the other. Because of this reciprocity of vision, the narrative of events is submitted to a process of reinterpretation in which meaning incessantly circulates within the enclosed reflexivity of past and present.

The authorial act of interpolation in the Faits des Romains represents an intervention in history. The anonymous writer's revision of

Caesar's text is also a re-visioning of the past in light of the present and generates the same circularity of inscribed meaning. As authorial heir to the Latin source he translates, he repositions himself with respect to the textual legacy that he is endeavoring to pass down to contemporary society; he textually enacts the process of mastery over the past achieved in the refiguration of ancient history in the image of chivalric society. The story of Drappés's resistance to Caesar, thus, functions simultaneously on a variety of literary, interpretive, and historiographical levels. It rectifies the legacy of the past as handed down in the Caesarian text; it reinscribes the past within the legitimizing ideology of genealogy; it refigures the past in the image of the present.

The revision of the past that the translator effects in his reworking of Caesar's text does not only affect the interpretation of the interpolated episode concerning Drappés Brenno; it carries over as well to the meaning of the Gallic wars in their entirety. The definitive submission of the Gauls following Drappés's suicide is revised to emphasize the continued independence of the French and their social and political parity with the Romans. Hirtius had stressed the ease with which Caesar secured his conquest of Gaul: "by addressing the states in terms of honor, by bestowing ample presents upon the chiefs, by imposing no new burdens, he easily kept Gaul at peace after the exhaustion of so many defeats, under improved conditions of obedience."^[139] The translator, in contrast, proclaims that Caesar's sole intent by these acts is to maintain the cities of France in peace and love.^[140] Caesar does not compel the surrender of the French princes; rather, he calls them together in council, where he speaks to them cortoisement and gives them riches dons as befits an ally. He acts, that is, like the ideal courtly ruler toward his princes, respectful of their rights and liberal with largesse, by means of which he legitimizes his rule. Instead of submitting to Caesar, the French voluntarily accede to his rule,

et por ce qu'il le troverent douz et debonaire et sanz grevement au derrien, il les tint assez plus legierement en pes.^[141]

and because they found him gentle and merciful and in the end without cause for blame, he maintained them all the more easily in peace.

French national honor and independence are preserved.

Ironically, the final narrative of the Faits des Romains calls into question the very basis of this historical scheme even as it unfolds. The textual revisions that the author imposes on the conclusion to the

Gallic wars profoundly contradict the overall thrust of the historiographical argument developed up to this point in the Old French translation. To the extent that the author of the Faits des Romains had "corrected" his Latin source in order to offer French history as the history of liberty, he had opposed to the French desire to maintain their franchise the ruthless ambition of the Romans and Caesar's insatiable appetite for territorial expansion. Although the narrative denouement preserves the "liberty" of the French by construing their surrender as an act of voluntary submission, it does so at the price of reconfiguring the image of Caesar, who emerges in this final act as a courtly ruler whom it is honorable to serve. The "voluntary" submission of Gaul becomes thereby an act of incorporation into the wider orbit of Rome, a position that conceptually undermines the idea of French freedom, unmasking it as the loss of autonomy.

By rewriting the final subjugation of the Gauls as an act of alliance, the author of the Faits des Romains creates an interpretive impasse, in which the contradictions generated by his narrative and ideological goals subvert the historical framework that he had elaborated. And this interpretive impasse discloses the discrepancies within aristocratic ideology itself between the desire for autonomy and the realities of monarchical government. As in the case of their ancient ancestors, the fiction of the nobles' voluntary adherence to royal authority, consented to in open council, seeks to mantle the deeper historical reality of decline and the necessity to submit to the centralizing policies of a newly powerful king. The fantasy of French franchise as a legacy of noble status, rights of lordship, and chivalric honor is fractured by the inconsistency entailed in its articulation. Casting French submission to Caesar as an act of voluntary self-surrender reveals the gap between ideological assertion and political reality.

The "corrected" past cannot, in the end, rectify the historical situation of the aristocracy, for it bears within it the same contradictions in ideology and aspirations. The alternative vision to an unpalatable present that the past re-visions merely reenacts the loss of autonomy and sense of alienation that it attempts, in vain, to dissimulate. The lack of coherence in the historical narrative discursively replicates the contradictions of aristocratic life and underscores the inability of history to recuperate a pristine state of aristocratic freedom and authority. The failure of the ancient past to overcome the burdens of the present betrays the limitations of history, just as the submission of the "Franois" to Roman domination bespeaks the impossibility of sustaining liberty in the face of superior force. The past cannot redeem

the present, for it is too deeply marred by the contradictions of the contemporary world. The redemptive language of history is condemned to repeat again and again the terms of its own failure. The writing of history is compromised by the very conditions of the possibility of its production. The vernacular history of France's ancient past, in the end, discloses the very brokenness of contemporary experience that it disavows.

In recounting the earliest struggles of the "Franois" to secure their existence within a historical space understood as France, the Faits des Romains functions equally as a "livre des origines," as Mireille Schmidt-Chazan has called it,^[142] ç and as the story of national resistance to illegitimate attempts by powerful rulers to restrict and undermine the natural, because ancient, freedom and autonomy of the "Françcois." Understood as an allegory of contemporary society, the message of the Faits des Romains is that aristocratic resistance to royal centralization is historically authorized as the principal means to preserve the liberty of the French people.

That the author of the Faits meant his history of France's ancient past to be read in this way is confirmed by his treatment of Caesar in the translation of Lucan's Pharsalia that follows the Gallic Wars . At the same time, the translation of Lucan, found also in Jean de Thuin's Hystore de Jules César , which uses the Faits des Romains but offers a strikingly different image of the Roman emperor, addresses the question of the role of the hero in history, a question central to chivalric ideology. To the degree that the chivalric past is a heroic past, the paradigmatic value of heroic deeds and figures was critical to the attempt to ground aristocratic ideology in a legitimizing and usable past. The heroic character of medieval chivalry emerges in the vernacular histories of the Faits des Romains and the Hystore de Jules César as a problem around which the sociomoral character of aristocratic life is both organized and interrogated. Thus, it is to the issue of the heroic in an-dent historiography that we must now turn.