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 enjoy the scanty privileges of freemen. Many of the most devoted Druids doubtless fled to remote places, and exercised their arts in secret, in order to maintain a precarious living; so that the sound of the anvil in caves and forest fastnesses, would alone denote the dwelling-place of those Druid priests, who had become fugitives to avoid the degradation of slavery. The Druidical monopoly in the arts was abolished by the Romans, who established large manufactories of arms in eight different parts of Gaul, and in them the slaves fabricated weapons for their conquerors. When these bondsmen contrived to obtain their liberty, they then worked on their own account, and with the trading class formed a bourgeoisie who dwelt in the towns; but they were so heavily taxed and kept under that they never attained any position. Only the nobles who had given in