It is hard to conceive clearly the fierce life of the Darker Ages. The
rough jostling, the discomfort and pitilessness, the utter animality of
it all,--it is hard to conceive it even inadequately. The curtest
historical sweep from then to now, shows how far the world has come. The
savage unrest of slum and faubourg to-day shows too how far the world
has yet to go. Not till civilization becomes more than a veneer, will it
lose its liability to crack.

The picture is not wholly dark. There were many of the humanities. There
was culture and thought and refinement, much of it of a high type. Light
and shade,--both were strongly limned. But in the mass, it was
barbarism. For the lower classes, occupation, brawling; mental
thermometer at zero; cruelty and greed the ethical code. "You should
feel here," declares Taine,[4] "what men felt six hundred years ago,
when they swarmed forth from their hovels, from their unpaved,
six-feet-wide streets, sinks of uncleanness, and reeking with fever and
leprosy; when their unclad bodies, undermined by famine, sent a thin
blood to their brutish brains; when wars, atrocious laws, and legends of
sorcery filled their dreams with vivid and melancholy images." Hear him
tell over one of the trenchant tales from the annals of Bayonne:

[4] _Tour Through the Pyrenees_; translated by J. SAFFORD FISKE, New
York: Henry Holt & Co.


V.

"Pé de Puyane was a brave man and a skillful sailor, who, in his day,
was Mayor of Bayonne and admiral; but he was harsh with his men, like
all who have managed vessels, and would any day rather fell a man than