The other towns of the federation also suffered from disturbances and
outbreaks, and then order was restored. Reforms were introduced into
institutions and great changes took place in habits and customs, but the
country never recovered the loss of its capital, and never regained its
former prosperity. Commerce and industry dwindled away, and civilization
abandoned those countries which for so long it bad preferred to all
others. They became insalubrious and sterile; the territory that had
supported so many millions of men became nothing more than a desert. On
the hill of Fort St. Michel wild horses cropped the coarse grass.

Days flowed by like water from the fountains, and the centuries passed
like drops falling from the ends of stalactites. Hunters came to chase
the bears upon the hills that covered the forgotten city; shepherds led
their flocks upon them; labourers turned up the soil with their ploughs;
gardeners cultivated their lettuces and grafted their pear trees. They
were not rich, and they had no arts. The walls of their cabins were
covered with old vines and roses, A goat-skin clothed their tanned
limbs, while their wives dressed themselves with the wool that they
themselves had spun. The goat-herds moulded little figures of men and
animals out of clay, or sang songs about the young girl who follows her
lover through woods or among the browsing goats while the pine trees
whisper together and the water utters its murmuring sound. The master of
the house grew angry with the beetles who devoured his figs; he planned
snares to protect his fowls from the velvet-tailed fox, and he poured
out wine for his neighbours saying:

"Drink! The flies have not spoilt my vintage; the vines were dry before
they came."

Then in the course of ages the wealth of the villages and the corn