So do names survive their ideas.
What had not this tree seen since first it came green and tender as a cabbage above the soil, and stood at the mercy of the first hare or rabbit that should choose to cut short its frail existence! Since then eagles had perched on its crown, and wild boars fed without fear of man upon its acorns.

Troubadours had sung beneath it to lords and ladies seated round, or walking on the grass and commenting the minstrel's tales of love by exchange of amorous glances.

Mediaeval sculptors had taken its leaves, and wisely trusting to nature, had adorned churches with those leaves cut in stone.
It had seen a Norman duke conquer England, and English kings invade France and be crowned at Paris.

It had seen a girl put knights to the rout, and seen the warrior virgin burned by envious priests with common consent both of the curs she had defended and the curs she had defeated.
Why, in its old age it had seen the rise of printing, and the first dawn of national civilization in Europe.

It flourished and decayed in France; but it sprung in Gaul.