intolerable. To regain their lost liberty all were eager for a general revolt. It was decided to begin at once in order to cut Cæsar off from his army in Gaul. When the question rose as to who should incur the danger of leading the way, the Carnutes undertook this duty. They first exacted a solemn pledge of support from their countrymen by the Gallic custom of mingling their standards, then, on the appointed day, under the leadership of Gutruatus and Conconnetodumnus, they gave the signal for the great revolt by murdering every Roman citizen they could find in their chief trading town on the Loire, Orléans. With the terrible struggle that ensued between the brilliant energy of Cæsar and the noble patriotism of Vercingetorix we are not here concerned. Suffice it to say that among his first acts of revenge Cæsar sacked and burned Orléans, the town of the Carnutes. Nothing daunted, the Carnutes furnished 12,000 men to the army raised to deliver Vercingetorix, who was holding Alise with desperate valour. On the fall of that town the Carnutes, in obedience to the advice of their leader, Gutruatus, entered into yet another league for their common deliverance from the yoke of their oppressor. They joined the Bituriges and other peoples of Gaul, but when Cæsar himself marched against them with his sixth and seventh legion they fled with their cattle into the woods. Yet, even in the secret retreats of their mighty forests, they were not safe from the hand of the Roman general. They were compelled to submit and to pass under the yoke, and their chief, Gutruatus, was beaten with rods until he died.

Thus the country of the Chartrains was absorbed into the Roman Empire, and it remained under the domination of Rome, reaping the fruits of that strong administration in the form of roads and good order and the minimum of oppression, until the coming, at the end of the fifth century, of Clovis, the Frankish hero.

Meanwhile, when Augustus gave laws to the conquests of Cæsar, he introduced a division of Gaul equally adapted to the progress of the legions, to the course of the rivers and to the principal national distinctions, which had comprehended above a hundred independent states. The Province in which Chartres (Autricum) now found itself embraced the country between the Loire and the Seine, and was styled Celtic Gaul, or, as it soon came to be known, Gallia Lugdunensis, borrowing its name from the celebrated colony of Lugdunum or Lyons. The principal towns of this Province were still Chartres, Dreux, and, above all, Orléans, to which the Emperor Aurelian was later on to give his name when he separated it from the territory of the Carnutes, and raised it to the rank of a city. For the rest, there were a great number of villages and strongholds even in Cæsar’s day scattered about in the clearings of the forest. These would increase in size and importance as the great Roman roads running from Dieppe to Dreux, from Rouen to Paris, and from Paris to Autun, were built, and as the country grew more settled. For Druidism, which had long shown itself a disturbing influence and an irreconcilable factor, was at length proscribed by Tiberius and Claudius, and thereafter, Dion Cassius assures us, the Loire could be navigated in as much security as the Po or Rhone. ‘The blue waters of the fair-haired Carnutan’ grew familiar, not only to the Roman merchant and official, but also to the Roman poet and traveller.[7]

But if the legend of the Druidical Virgin be indeed true, it would appear that the Druids, equally with the Romans, had done something to prepare the soil for the seed of Christianity. As to the first sowers of that seed there is some dispute, and also as to the first sowing, which some date from the first century, others from the third.

Whether Celtic Gaul was evangelised in the days of the Apostles or not, it is at least historically certain that as early as the middle of the second century the country was sufficiently provided with churches to form the principle theatre of the great persecution under Marcus Aurelius. And as Gaul was notoriously evangelised only piecemeal and slowly, and not by a sudden outburst of religious fervour, it is quite possible that the foundation of the Church of Chartres dates back from the first century. If this is so, it accords well with local traditions drawn from various sources, but agreeing in substance. For it is said[8] that S. Peter sent forth S. Savinian, S. Potentian and S. Albin to preach the Gospel to the Gallic nation. In the course of their mission they came to Sens and converted many virtuous heathen, amongst whom were Sérotin and Eodald. To these two, together with Potentian and Altin, Savinian, warned by a mysterious vision, gave this charge:—‘Take unto you,’ he said, ‘the shield of an unconquerable faith; go through the other towns of Gaul and banish all false superstition by preaching everywhere the truth of the Gospel.’ Leaving him, therefore, to organise the church at Sens, they set forth to Orléans, and thence, coming down that Roman road which is still known as the Chemin de César, they arrived at Chartres. There, perhaps, they found the altar of the Druids and the statue to the Virgin who should bear the Unknown God. Him declared they unto the people. As the word of the missionaries was supported by the miracles they wrought, and the saintly lives they led, a great part of the inhabitants believed on Christ. ‘When they saw this, the holy men of God consecrated a church dedicated to the glory of Mary, Mother of God, and built just within the walls of the town.’

The northern walls of Chartres, under the Romans, ran along the street du Cheval Blanc, where now the houses of the cloister stand. The site of the Church of S. Potentian may therefore be identified, as on other grounds we naturally should identify it, with that of the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre in the crypt of the Cathedral. To that impressive underchurch we will pay a visit at the end of this chapter, and endeavour to describe the various stages through which it has passed. But first we will trace the tragic history of these Christian pioneers.

The rapid advance of Christianity soon brought it into conflict with the Roman administration. Domitian decided to check it when it was observed to be spreading among the subject races in opposition to the State religion. It became the duty of governors in the Provinces to treat the refusal to worship the Emperor’s image as an act of sacrilege. There was a governor, Quirinus by name, who proceeded to execute his duty with truly Roman thoroughness and impartiality. He summoned the missionaries of what Tacitus called ‘that pernicious religion’ to his presence and demanded why they had brought hither the ignominy of their absurd doctrine. They answered him boldly, and bade him cease from the worship of idols and embrace the true faith. But Quirinus hardened his heart. He scourged and threw into prison three men ‘hated for their abominations, and known to the vulgar as Christians’; notorious, according to the great Roman historian, ‘for their hatred of the human race.’ Such cases of persecution as this, it should be remembered, were but occasional exceptions to the general tolerance of Roman administration. The Christians were punished, according to the Roman view, for their inflexible obstinacy, their unsocial habits and indiscreet enthusiasm, rather than for the mere holding of their peculiar