Around of the year 395 a rhetoric depicts an scene where two gaul peasants discuss about the mortality of their flocks; one of
 them comments the virtue of "the Sign of the Cross, that God who ONLY is worshipped in large cities". (Riese, in Antologia
 Latina #893).

 In Gaul, St. Martin of Tours, between the years 375 and 400, destroyed a multitude of temples and images, and built churches
 and cloisters in their stead." (SCHAFF).

 There are the writtings of Sepultius Severus (b. 363 in Aquitania, died around 420), where he describes the life of the
 Pannonian Saint Martin of Tours, who meet between 392-397, and where also reports conversations had after his death
 (The Dialogues). Such sources are very important as to know the ethnic and religious situation of North France in the end
 of the IV Century, and to check how ethnicity and religion was attached:
 

 Gauls seen as other nation by Aquitanian natives (in Southwest of France; Aquitania was inhabited by Basque-like tribes,
 Celtic tribes, and descendents of Roman colons):

"When I [Severus] and a Gallic friend had assembled in one place, this Gaul being a man very dear to me, both on account
 of his remembrance of [Saint] Martin (for he had been one of his disciples), and on account of his own merits, my friend
 Postumianus joined us. [...] "For, as I suppose, you will not take amiss the presence of this friend of ours, the Gaul, who,
 as you perceive, rejoices with his whole heart over this arrival of yours, even as I do myself." [...] "Quite right," said
 Postumianus, "that Gaul will certainly be retained in our company"

 "For the love of eating is gluttony in the case of the Greeks, whereas among the Gauls it is owing to the nature they
 possess." Then exclaimed I, "You defend your nation, my Gallic friend, by means of rhetoric".

 "Assuredly," continues Postumianus, "I shall take care in future not to mention the abstinence of any one, in case the
 difficult example should quite offend our friends the Gauls."

 "But as you are wont to say, when you are accused of being too fond of eating, `We are Gauls,' so we, for our part, who
 dwell in this district [Aquitania] will never be reformed either by the example of Martin, or by your dissertations."

 "We," they reply [a crowd of Aquitanoroman monks], "heard yesterday that your friend the Gaul spent the whole day
 in narrating the virtues of Martin".
 

 Gaulish ethnic conscience:

 [The Gaul] says, "You act, Sulpitius, in a way like yourself, for you never miss any opportunity which is offered you
 of joking us on the subject of our fondness for eating.  But it is unkind of you to try to force us Gauls to live after the
 fashion of angels; ... we are, in one word, Gauls."

"There I saw what ye Gauls, perchance, may not believe -a pot boiling without fire- with the vegetables which were being
 got ready for our dinner: such is the power of the sun in that place [desert of Egypt] that it is sufficient for any cooks,
 even for preparing the dainties of the Gauls."

 And Decimus Magnus Ausonius (310, Bordeaux - 395), stablished in his poem "The Moselle" his Celtic credentials:
 "I, who am sprung of Viviscan [a Gallic tribe] stock, yet by old ties of guestship no stranger to the Belgae; I Ausonius,
 Roman in name, yet born and bred betwixt the frontiers of Gaul and high Pyrene [...]".

 Some years after this episode, the national Gaulish consicience revolted against the Roman rule: "Then the transrhenan
 barbares [refered here to Vandales and Alemans], invaded at their will such regions, compelling to the dwellers of the
 Britanic island and to some of the Celtic tribes [of France] about the necessity to be separated from the Empire of the Romans,
 to live by themselves without obeying more their laws. The peoples of Britany got then the weapons, afronting the danger
 for their interest, and freed their towns of the barbarians that infected them. All Armorica [actual Bretany, France] and
 other Gaulish regions, taking the exemple of the Britons, freed themselves in a similar way, hunting the Roman magistrates
 and creating at their will a national goverment among them."  [Zosimus in his "New History" relating the happenings
 of 406-409].

 The biographer of St. Elogius, in thye second mid of the seventh century wrote that at "Noyon, Eligius went to the vicus
 and preached as was his constant custom, the word of God with skillful constancy, denouncing all demonic games and wicked
 leapings and all remnants of inane superstitions as things to be thoroughly abominated. Some of the leading people in that
 place bore his preaching most grudgingly, resenting that he would upset their feasts and weaken their customs, which they
 deemed legitimate. [... ] So he went into the middle of a crowd of people and stood on a high place before the basilica where
 he began to preach urgently. Heatedly, he abjured the people that by turning their backs on his admonitions to salvation,
 they would be extremely threatened by diabolical phylacteries. Violently moved by this exhortation, the crowd answered him
 with shameful and impudent words, threatening him: "Never, Roman, however hard you try, shall you uproot our customs
 but we will attend our solemnities always and forever as we have done till now nor can any man forbid us our ancient and
 gratifying games." This identification as Roman is stricking since St. Eligius was born in the year 588 at Lemoges, in the
 middle of the Gaul... so that from this text it could be thought that there were yet Celtic natives (bilingual Latin-Celtic ?) and
 pure Romans (with monolingual Latin). But as before the autor explains that the saint "freed all alike, Romans, Gauls, Britons
 and Moors but particularly Saxons", such ethnic view would be confirmated since there were by sure Romans born in the
 Gaul.
 

 Gauls are yet divided between tribes:

 "You knew the too barbarous and, beyond measure, bloody ferocity of Avitianus, a former courtier. He enters the city of
 the Turones [the actual Tours, the tribe extended in the Touraine and Anjou] with a furious spirit, while rows of people,
 laden with chains, followed him with melancholy looks, orders various kinds of punishments to be got ready for
 slaying them [...]".

 "Claudiomagus [actual Clion-sur-Indre] is a village on the confines of the Bituriges [in the Berry region, capital Bourges]
 and the Turoni. The church there is celebrated for the piety of the saints, and is not less illustrious for the multitude of
 the holy virgins."

 "There was a certain village in the country of the Senones [at 75 km SE from Paris, their capital was the actual Sens] which
 was every year annoyed with hail. The inhabitants, constrained by an extreme of suffering, sought help from Martin [...]
 But Martin, having there offered up prayer, so completely freed the whole district from the prevailing plague, [...] But if any
 hearer, weak in faith, demands also witnesses to prove those things which we have said, I will bring forward, not one man,
 but many thousands, and  will even summon the whole region of the Senones to bear witness to the power which was
 experienced."

 "In a village of the Ambatienses [...]". May refer to a tribe near Nevers o to a tribe in the Picardie.

 "I shall also relate what took place in the village of the Aedui. When Martin was there overthrowing a temple, a multitude
 of rustic heathen rushed upon him in a frenzy of rage." [Life of St. Martin of Tours]. These Eduans dwelt in the region
 of Nivernais, their capital was the city of Bibracte.

 "In the meantime, as the barbarians were rushing within the two divisions of Gaul, Julian Caesar, [Julian the Apostate,
 who reigned between 361-363], bringing an army together at the city of the Vaugiones [the capital of the Vangiones was
 the ancient Borbetomagus and the actual Worms; the Vangiones were ethnic Belgians, no Gauls], began to distribute
 a donative to the soldiers." [Life of St. Martin of Tours].

 A century and half after, in the postumous biography of St. Vigor, who was between 516 and 537 bishop of Bayeux
 [Normandy], it states that the saint was born in "the province of the Atrebates", and also tells us that was "bishop of
 the city of the Baiocasses". The Atrebates was a Celtic tribe with Nemetacus / Arras as main city, were the Baiocasses
 were another celtic tribe of the Normandy.
 

 Gaulish tongue is used yet by the Gauls:

 "But when I reflect that I, a man of Gaul, am about to speak in the presence of natives of Aquitania [territory formed by
 the SW quater of geographic Gaul], I fear lest my somewhat rude form of speech should offend your too delicate ears."
 [...] "Certainly," replied Postumianus, "speak either in Celtic, or in Gaulish, if you prefer it, provided only you speak of
 Martin." This text implies that the Gaul used a form of Latin contaminated supposedly by Celtic, and that he was even
 capable to speak to both Aquitanoromans in Celtic.

 "[...] but Martin might be seen sitting on a rude little stool, such as those in use by the lowest of servants, which we
 Gallic country-people call tripets [original: "tripeccias", a Latinism from "tripedes" (three feet)], and which you men
 of learning, or those at least who are from Greece, call tripods."

 Ausonius, at the end of the IV Century wrote "The Classification of Famous Cities" (Ordo Ubium Nobilium), where for
 Narbone he said: "There where the Allobroges [Gaulish tribe] reach the Greian regions and where the peaks of the Alps
 close the Italian frontier, there where the snows of the Pyrenees divide us from Hispania, there where the Roine quickly
 sprouts from its native Leman and there where the countryside of Aquitania is attached by the Cevennes, till the territory
 of the Tectosages and the Belces [Gaulish tribes], of rustic reputation, all that was the Narbonense ! The First with a Latin
 name among the Gauls, you will dress the togue of a Latin proconsul. How to describe your ports, your mountains and
 lakes ? And your population so diverse in costumes and in language ? [the verses are in present].

 This same Ausonius, also at the end of the IV Century wrote "The Classification of Famous Cities" (Ordo Ubium Nobilium),
 where he wrote about a fountain of Bordeaux named Pario in Latin: "Hail, well of unknown source, saint, welldoer,
 transparent, green, deep, spouter, pure, shadowly ! Hail, genius of the city ! You that flows through a gorge, you who
 are named Divona in the language of the Celts ["Divona Celtarum lingua"], fountain placed at the rank of the gods ! [...]".
 The Celtic therm "divona" would correspond to the paralel Latin term "divina", of the gods; and maybe it received yet some
 sort of Celtic worship, in fact the Celts worshipped fountains.

 And from Sidonius Apollinaris we have this proof also: "I will not remind you that here [Clermont-Ferrand] you first played
 ball and cast the dice, here you first knew sport with hawk and hound, with horse and bow. I will forget that your schooldays
 brought us a veritable confluence of learners and the learned from all quarters, and that if our nobles were imbued with the
 love of eloquence and poetry, if they resolved to forsake the barbarous Celtic dialect, it was to your personality that they
 owed all. Nothing so kindled their universal regard for you as this, that you first made Romans of them and never allowed
 them to relapse again." [in his letter to his brother-in-law Ecdicius, written in 474; link ].

 A century after, the Byzantine chronicler Jordanes, stated in his "Origins and Deeds of the Goths" that "And so they
 [the Goths] met in the Catalaunian Plains [in the actual Champagne], which are also called Mauriacian, extending in length
 one hundred 'leuva', as the Gauls express it, and seventy in width. Now a Gallic 'leuva' measures a distance of fifteen hundred
 paces." This could be a sort of celtic supervivence yat.

 But the most late testimony about the Gaulish tongue comes from "The History of the Franks", written by Gregory of Tours:
 "[...] Chrocus the famous king of the Alemanni raised an army and overran the Gauls. [...] And coming to Clermont he set
 on fire, overthrew and destroyed that shrine which they call Vasso Galatæ in the Gallic tongue." [Book I, Chapter 32].
 Such "they" might correspond to the Celtic dwellers of Clermont-Ferrand since Gregory himself was born is such city,
 and that "they" used the Gaulish, means that surely it survived yet well in the countryside by 575, when the first book
 was written; in whichever case, the mention of the Celtic name needs to be understood as that the Celtics were enough
 important yet as to mention this fact.

 So as conclusion, after five centuries of Roman rule and romanization, the Gaulish tribes persisted, and the Gaulish
 language will be keept at least till the end of the VI Century.
 

 Paganism possibly majoritary among Gaulish soldiers and peasants by the end of the VI Century:

 "In the meantime, a state-conveyance, full of military men, was coming along the public highway.  But when the animals
 near the side beheld Martin in his shaggy garment, with a long black cloak over it, being alarmed, they swerved a little
 in the opposite direction. [...] And then they began to belabor Martin with whips and staves; [...] In the meantime,
 the soldiers having returned to their conveyance, after their fury was satisfied, urge the beasts to proceed in the
 direction in which they had been going.  But they all remained fixed to the spot, [...] The wretched men knew not what
 to do, and they could no longer conceal from themselves that, in some way or other, there was a higher power at work
 in the bosoms of these brutes, so that they were, in fact, restrained by the interposition of a deity." So the soldiers
 were guessing about the influence of a certain god... among other gods.

 "For some reason, I know not what, we were on our way to the town of the Carnutes [actual Chartres, the tribe extended
 over the Orleanais]. In the meantime, as we pass by a certain village most populous in inhabitants, an enormous crowd
 went forth to meet us, consisting entirely of heathen; for no one in that village was acquainted with a Christian. [...]
 He at once began to preach to the heathen the word of God, [...]".

 "In a village of the Ambatienses, that is in an old stronghold, which is now largely inhabited by brethren, you know there
 is a great idol-temple built up with labor. The building had been constructed of the most polished stones and furnished
 with turrets; and, rising on high in the form of a cone, it preserved the superstition of the place by the majesty of the
 work [...] Martin was prepared to throw down a pillar of immense size, on the top of which an idol stood [...]".

 "Nevertheless, because he [Martin] saw it was a rustic gathering [a burial], and when the linen clothes spread over the body
 were blown about by the action of the wind, he believed that some profane rites of sacrifice were being performed. This
 thought occurred to him, because it was the custom of the Gallic rustics in their wretched folly to carry about through the
 fields the images of demons veiled with a white covering. [...] But when the saintly man discovered that they were simply
 a band of peasants celebrating funeral rites, and not sacrifices to the gods, again raising his hand, he gave them the power
 of going away, and of lifting up the body." [Life of St. Martin of Tours].

 "Again, when in a certain village he had demolished a very ancient temple, and had set about cutting down a pine-tree, which
 stood close to the temple, the chief priest of that place, and a crowd of other heathens began to oppose him. [...] The
 well-known result [a miracle to save his own life] was that on that day salvation came to that region. For there was hardly
 one of that immense multitude of heathens who did not express a desire for the imposition of hands, and abandoning his
 impious errors, made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus. Certainly, before the times of Martin, very few, nay, almost none,
 in those regions had received the name of Christ; but through his virtues and example that name has prevailed to such an
 extent, that now there is no place thereabouts which is not filled either with very crowded churches or monasteries.
 For wherever he  destroyed heathen temples, there he used immediately to build either churches or monasteries."
 [Life of St. Martin of Tours].

 "But in a village which was named Leprosum, when he too wished to overthrow a temple which had acquired great wealth
 through the superstitious ideas entertained of its sanctity, a multitude of the heathen resisted him to such a degree that he
 was driven back not without bodily injury. [...] They then began to cry out openly and to confess that the God of Martin
 ought to be worshiped, and that the idols should be despised, which were not able to help them." [Life of St. Martin of Tours].

 "Very frequently, too, when the pagans were addressing him to the effect that he would not overthrow their temples, he so
 soothed and conciliated the minds of the heathen by his holy discourse that, the light of truth having been revealed to them,
 they themselves overthrew their own temples." [Life of St. Martin of Tours].

 Then as conclusion, it seems clear that the north of France was yet mainly heathen by the middle of the IV century; this
 case is striking since it is also clear that this region was deeply romanized by then and has a soft geography.

 Between 516 and 537, St Vigor was bishop for the Normand city of Bayeux; after his dead, his biographer tells us that he
 changed a pagan temple near the city were a goddess was worshipped in a Christian church... but that after that the opposition
 of the countrymen ceased under royal coaction, in whichever case the autor explains that the saint sppok at the Frankish
 king Childebert how "the Baiocassian country has been converted to the cult of God [Christianity] excepting those of Mount
 Phanus were  it was keept, under the trickery of the devil, the profane and demoniacal superstition [paganism]".

 Caesarius, bishop of the Provençal city of Arles, ordered the priests to preach in the country districts at the council of Vaison
 (529) (cf. canon 2)... one can arrive at the conclusion that if it was need to preach in the countryside, such countryside was still
 pagan. This same Caesarius, (bishop 502 -42), advised that some Arlesians did not work on Thursdays out of respect for
 Jupiter...

 Around the year 550 the inhumation replaced cremation in Northern France (p.e. in the grave yard of Hordain). It is a good
 temporal clue on how Christianity had a late success in the Galloroman countryside; moreover, we can conclude that at the
 same time the latinization was effectively completed then (as seen above).

 St. Gery (Latin Gaugericus) was bishop of Cambrai-Arras [Artois] since 585. Filled with apostolic zeal, Géry devoted his life
 to the extermination of the paganism which infected the district subject to his authority, and, since the worship of the old
 gods was deeply rooted in the souls of the barbarous peoples, the bishop destroyed or purchased the idols, which were
 the objects of their veneration. [Catholic Enc.]

 The next testimony comes from a Lombard anachoret that went to the region of Yvois (the county west of Louxembourg):
 "Then I came to the territory of Trèves and on the mountain where you [Gregory] are now built with my own hands the
 dwelling you see. I found here an image of Diana which the unbelieving people worshiped as a god. [...]
 And when a multitude began to flock to me from the neighboring villages I preached always that Diana was nothing,
 that her images and the worship which they thought it well to observe were nothing; and that the songs which they
 sang at their cups and wild debauches were disgraceful; but it was right to offer the sacrifice of praise to all-powerful
 God who made heaven and earth. I often prayed that the Lord would deign to hurl down the image and free the people
 from this error. And the Lord's mercy turned the rustic mind to listen to my words and to follow the Lord, abandoning
 their idols." [Related by the Lombard named Vulfilaic, and written by Gregory of Tours in the book VII, chapter 16
 around the year 591].

 The Bishop of Tour Pelagius is shocked to find that on the 7th of July 600, ‘that there are still in the diocese and neighbouring
 dioceses a great number of pagans still attached to the heathen cult and its false divinities, mainly in the land south of the
 Loire’.

 St. Valery (562-622), bishop of Rouen [Normandy], has an enormous tree worshipped by the peasants of the Bresle valley
 cut down.
 

 There was a period where the majority of Christians were also crypto-politheists and crypto-animists:

 At the II Concil of Orleans, held in the year 533, it was stigmatized those who come back to the idolatry and eat from the
 meat sacrificed to the gods. This was the first of a serie of canons against pagan survivals among nominal Christians,
 so that by the year 567, at the second council of Tours, all those caught in the forest and other wild places honouring
 pagan sites, stones, trees, and fountains were ordered to be excommunicated. Priests were encouraged to excommunicate
 also all those suspected of giving themselves to pagan rites, that is, unknown ceremonies to the church at pagan sites
 which consisted to offer sacrificed animals to the deceased. Eleven years after, in the council of Auxerre, it was reiterated
 the interdiction to disguise oneself in cow and deer skins on the occasion of the New Year’s celebrations. Also it was
 forbidden to perform lustration rites, lighting candles before holy wells, trees, and stones; and bread divining and the
 consultation of seers or consultation of oracle sticks. Such was the religious panorama in the future France: a mixture
 of religions according the interests of the moment, as happens nowadays in much of the Black Africa.

 In the biography of St. Columban (born in 540 - dead in 640) known as "The Life of St. Columban", we find that the Gaulish
 people was syncretic then, being there the Christianity a thin veil to conceal paganism: "Accordingly, they left Brittany
 [the saint and other monks] and proceeded into the Gallic lands. At that time, either because of the numerous enemies from
 all over, or on account of the carelessness of the bishops, the Christian faith had almost departed from that country. The
 creed alone remained. But the saving grace of penance and the longing to root out the lusts of the flesh were to be found
 only in a few. Everywhere that he went the noble man preached the Gospel. And it pleased the people because his teaching
 was adorned by eloquence and enforced by examples of virtue."

 The Bishop of Tours above mentioned (Pelagius I) also stated that he found difficult to have the 22nd canon observed
 (which forbides the offering of meats to the deceased), mostly in those villages where the pagans had embraced Christianity,
 thus making it very difficult to have the many pagan superstitions eradicated.

 More illustrative is the Epistle XI of Saint Gregory the Great [590-604] to Brunichild, Queen of the Franks: "As to this also
 we no less exhort you, that you should restrain the rest [those that aren't heretics] of your subjects under the control of
 discipline from sacrificing to idols, being worshippers of trees, or exhibiting sacrilegious sacrifices of the heads of animals;
 seeing that it has come to our ears that many of the Christians both resort to the churches and also (horrible to relate!) do not
 give up their worshipping of demons. But, since these things are altogether displeasing to our God, and He does not own
 divided minds, provide ye for their being salubriously restrained from these unlawful practices."

 Saint Eligius commited to the Christians of Noyon [a city 100 km north of Paris] to don't observe sacrilegious pagan customs;
 as to don't consult magicians, diviners, sorcerers or incantators; as to don't observe auguries as sneezing or bird's singing;
 or as to don't make images of animals; or to recite incantations; or to invoke the names of demons as Neptune, Orcus, Diana,
 or Minerva; or as to don't be devoted in sacred wells, trees or rocks; or as to don't hang phylacteries; or as to don't follow
 the horoscope; or as to don't seek to know the future; or as to don't believe that the stars, the moon or the sun might
 be adored as gods. Such exortations were made in the first half of the seventh century...

 Also there were more synods (in 626 and 627) were it was denounced the continuation of the observance of pagan feasts,
 but such councilar and synodal denunciations end by the middle of the seventh century, and with the growth of monastic
 establishments and episcopal sees, are powerful evidence for the real christianization of French population by 650-675;
 the next councils of the VIII century only will treat on the sanctions to impose to some heretic bishops and other too-much
 worldly priests.

 So in France, the pagan practices are clearly left in the VIII Century: as we can see, in 743 the Merovingian king Childeric III
 published an edict condemining the pagan and magic practices, but when Charlemagne pusblished his own edicts, it was
 to condemn the superstitions, the love filters, and the demoniacal invocations: paganism by then only survived as witchcraft.