The Greatest Story in the World, Period 2 by Horace G. Hutchinson

Now, since the Franks occupied, for a while, so large an Empire, and / were the principal people to establish the Pope's power, let us see / what they did over this extent of Empire, what they made of it, what / it became under them.

For the most part, we must realise they came into territory, as they / moved westward, which had been conquered by the Romans and which had / again been conquered, from the Romans, by barbarians of the Gothic / tribes. So the Franks found a population partly Roman and partly / Gothic there, when they came. They found Roman laws as the principal / laws of the country, slightly altered, no doubt, by the Gothic / customs, but much as the Romans had established them. They found / cities built in the Roman way -- that is, within a square of walls, / with a gate in the centre of each wall and streets running straight / through from one gate to the other opposite to it. That was the / usual plan of the Roman cities, if the ground allowed of their / building in this way; and the roads went on through the surrounding / country, from one city to another, very straight, very well made, / turning as little as possible to right or left, and only turning this / little when a mountain over which, or a river through which, it was / impossible to carry the road came in the way.