that filled the fields were pillaged by barbarian invaders. The country
changed its masters several times. The conquerors built castles upon the
hills; cultivation increased; mills, forges, tanneries, and looms were
established; roads were opened through the woods and over the marshes;
the river was covered with boats. The hamlets became large villages and
joining together formed a town which protected itself by deep trenches
and lofty walls. Later, becoming the capital of a great State, it found
itself straitened within its now useless ramparts and it converted them
into grass-covered walks.

It grew very rich and large beyond measure. The houses were never high
enough to satisfy the people; they kept on making them still higher
and built them of thirty or forty storeys, with offices, shops, banks,
societies one above another; they dug cellars and tunnels ever deeper
downwards. Fifteen millions of men laboured in the giant town.