text:  True the Saxons yielded to the discipline and valour of a foreign race; true the barbarous hordes of the Elbe and the Saal were not the ancestors as any one who travels in the south of France can hardly fail to see of the majority of the present nation of the French: but the Normans and Saxons sprang from the same stock and the changes worked by Clovis and his warriors were so vast and durable (though in comparison with their conquered vassals they were numerically few ) that with the invasion of Hengist in the one case and the battle of Poictiers in the other the modern history of both countries may not improperly be said to have begun