Gauls, Ancestors of the French: Between Political Myth and History

Abstract

The Celtic or Gallic civilisation was based on laws, norms and cus­toms that were transmitted orally from one generation to another within the Celtic communities. This is the reason why we have no written document left by the Gauls. Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico represents the only complete chronicles that have remained to testify indirectly to the Gallic civilisation. But the chronicles of Caesar refer only to the period of decline of the Gauls, when they were invaded by the Romans in the middle of the 1st century BC, whereby defeat marked the end of Gallic independence and the beginning of the process of romanisation of Gallic territories. The official history of Gallic society was confronted more with Celtic legends than with truthful documents. But sometimes, for political reasons, the official history takes myths for the facts, as it was the case in France under the Third Republic (1870–1940). The thesis on the Gauls as the ancestors of the French nation made the basis of the education system and served in the politics of the national unity in the name of republican ideals. Does that myth still remain? By referring to the historical, philological and anthropological papers, this research offers a critical analysis of the theory on the Gauls as the French ancestors, it offers a critical review of this French modern political myth and examines parallels between the Gallic and French spirit, in order to clear mythical and historical issues in our knowledge of the old Celtic/Gallic civilisation.