There are incontestable proofs that this language was once universal all
over France; and that this, and not immediately the Latin, has been the
parent of the Provencal, and afterwards of the modern French, the
Italian, and the Spanish. The oath taken by Lewis the Germanic, in the
year 842, in confirmation of an alliance between him and Charles the
Bald his brother, is a decisive proof of the general use of the Romance
by the whole French nation at that time, and of their little knowledge
of the Teutonic, which being the native tongue of Lewis, would certainly
have been used by him, in this oath, had it been understood by the
French to whom he addressed himself. But Nithardus,[AP] a contemporary
writer and near relation to the contracting parties, informs us, that
Lewis took the oath in the Romance language, in order that it might be
understood by the French nobility who were the subjects of Charles; and
that they, in their turn, entered into reciprocal engagements in _their
own language_, which the same author again declares to have been the
Romance, and not the Teutonic; although one would imagine that, had they
at all understood this latter tongue, they could not but have used it
upon this occasion, in return for the condescension of Lewis.
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