P R E F A C E

BY THE AUTHOR.

The work now given to the Public was at first only undertaken as an amusement. The goal was only to relax the mind by walking from time to time in the vast field of Celtic Antiquities. Gradually, this amusement became a serious study.

Having had the occasion to convince myself that most modern authors who have spoken of the Celts knew them only very imperfectly, I believed that the Public would see with pleasure a thorough introduction to the ancient inhabitants of Gaul, Germany, and all the other regions that the Celts occupied. I wished to give a just idea of the manners and customs of these peoples, of their way of life, and especially of their Religion. This last was represented in a manner that is neither exact nor even faithful in an anonymous work This work is by Dom Jacques Martin, a Benedictine Monk of the Congregation of Saint Maur. which has as its title: The Religion of the Gauls See the judgment passed on this book on pages 30 to 37, and pages 6, 12, 13, 104 to 107, 110 to 114, and 124 of the Discourse on the Nature and Dogmas of the Gallic Religion., published in Paris by Saugrain the son, 1727, in two volumes.

To properly recognize the Celts in all these different respects, one must not consider them as they were when the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Romans entered their country, or when they had subdued a part of it. The commerce and domination of foreigners produced, as I will show, great changes in their laws, in their religion, and in general in their whole way of living. One must take these peoples in the

raw, if I dare use this term, and discover, if possible, what they were before having adopted foreign ideas and customs.

This is what determined me to take the History of the Celts as far back as the few remaining monuments allowed me to climb. But as the first epoch of this history, which begins in fabulous times and ends at the year of the taking of Rome by the Gauls, is not susceptible to a chronological order, I decided to follow the order of the subject matter. I aim to represent naturally the ancient simplicity, or, if one prefers, the ancient barbarity of the Celtic peoples. One will see them emerge from it successively, some sooner, others later, according to whether they were more or less neighboring to some civilized nation.

The matter is curious and interesting. Works dealing with antiquities pique the curiosity of the public. They are generally sought after, even when the medals and inscriptions they explain only revolve around particular facts that no one would inquire about if they had happened in our own time.

It is a matter here of knowing our fathers and our ancestors. We must know what we have inherited of their defects and their qualities. It will be good to observe in what we surpass them, and in what they were better than us. One will see with astonishment that even the peoples who pass for the most civilized in all Europe have not been able, until now, to rise above an infinity of prejudices and abuses which, for being ancient, are no less unreasonable.

The subject is, moreover, new. We know well enough the history and the ancient customs of the Egyptians, the Jews, the Chaldeans, and the Greeks. What we know of the peoples from whom we descend is reduced for the most part to