As to all those who are pleas’d with Fables, and have deduced the Original of the Franks from the Trojans, and from one Francion, a Son of Priam, we can only say, that they furnish Materials for Poets rather than Historians:  And among such, William Bellay deserves the first Place; who, tho’ he was a Person of singular Learning and extraordinary Ingenuity; yet in his Book, which treats of the Antiquities of Gallia and France, seems rather to have design’d a Romance, like that of Amadis, than a true History of the Francogallican Affairs.

* * * * *

CHAP.  V.

    Of the Name of the Franks, and their sundry Excursions;
    and what time they first began to establish a Kingdom in
    Gallia.

But I think it requisite that we should enquire a little more carefully into this Name of Franks; which, as we told you before, is not to be found in any of the ancient Descriptions of Germany.  That I may no longer detain the Reader in Suspence, it must needs be, that either the Nation of the Franks, by which such mighty things were done, was at first very obscure and mean, (as we see in Switz, an ordinary Village) yet because the first beginning of the Liberty of those Countries proceeded from thence, gave the name of Switzers to all the rest of the Cantons:  Or (which seems to me most probable) this Appellation had its Original from the Occasion; viz. When those that set up for the prime Leaders and Beginners, in recovering the publick Liberty, called themselves Franks; by which name the Germans understood such as were Free, and under no Servitude; as the Writers of that Nation do unanimously hold:  And therefore in ordinary Speech, by a Frank was meant a Freeman, by a Franchise, an Asylum, or Place of Refuge; and Francisare signified to restore to liberty and freedom.  The first Proof we shall give of this, is, what Procopius in his first Book of the Gothick Wars relates.  The Franks (says he) were anciently by a general name call’d Germans; but after they exceeded their Limits, they obtain’d the name of Franks:  Of the same Opinion I find Gregory of Tours, the Abbot of Ursperg; Sigibertus and Ado of Vienne, and Godfrey of Viterbo to have been, viz. That they had the Name of Franks from their freedom, and from their ferocity, (alluding to the sound, of the words Francos Feroces), because they refused to serve as Soldier under Valentinian the Emperor, and to pay Tribute as other Nations did.  A second Proof may be that of Cornelius Tacitus, who in his 20th Book, speaking of the Caninesates, whom we have formerly demonstrated to have been the