GREGORY of Tours, an illustrious bishop and writer of the sixth century, was descended from a noble family in Auvergne. He was educated by his uncle Saint-Gal, or Gallus, bishop of Clermont; and distinguished himself so much by his learning and virtue, that in 573 he was chosen Bishop of Tours. He afterwards went to Rome to visit the tomb of the apostles, there contracted a friendship with Gregory the Great, and died in 593, at the age of fifty-four. His principal work is his Historia Francorum, or History of the Franks, divided into sixteen books, comprehending a period of 174 years from the establishment of the Franks in Gaul. It is written in Latin, which is not only grammatically barbarous, but without force, without expression, and, if we may be allowed the use of the term, without complexion. Gregory of Tours had read the Fathers, and acquired some knowledge of Roman literature; for he cites Virgil and Sallust, Pliny and Aulus Gellius. But the lan-
Gregory. guage, formerly so masculine and vigorous, had shared the fate of the civilization of which it was the type, and had fallen into a state of extreme debility and decay. Yet it had in it more of degradation than of barbarism. The Gothic tribes had not yet, by an intimate union, renovated the nations who had degenerated under the shattered yoke of the Roman empire. The victors oppressed the vanquished, without being as yet confounded with them.