The Fall of France

Abstract

‘As for the good things of this life and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both’ the righteous and the unrighteous. So wrote a well-known north African theologian of the fall of Rome in AD 410, an event which many observers attributed to the abandonment of ancient religious practices and beliefs in favour of Christianity. That they should do so was perhaps natural; it is always easier to claim betrayal than to admit defeat in the field of battle. Even Gibbon, who was judicious enough in assessing the causes of the fall of Rome, held that the main cause was ‘the domestic hostilities of the Romans themselves’, and implied that the city might not have fallen had it not been that, ‘At the hour of midnight, the Salarian gate was silently opened . . . ’ And what was said of the fall of Rome was also said of the fall of France.