The Menapians and the Frisons, on the contrary, lost nothing of their spirit of commerce and industry.

The result of this diversity was a separation between the Franks and the Menapians.

While the latter, under the name of Armoricans, joined themselves more closely with the people who bordered the Channel, the Frisons associated themselves with the tribes settled on the limits of the German Ocean, and formed with them a connection celebrated under the title of the Saxon League.

Thus was formed on all points a union between the maritime races against the inland inhabitants; and their mutual antipathy became more and more developed as the decline of the Roman empire ended the former struggle between liberty and conquest.
The Netherlands now became the earliest theatre of an entirely new movement, the consequences of which were destined to affect the whole world.

This country was occupied toward the sea by a people wholly maritime, excepting the narrow space between the Rhine and the Vahal, of which the Salian Franks had become possessed.