“There remained only the two men D’Urtubie, bound to the principal arch, father and son, the son a little lower down.  When the father saw his child choking, he stretched out his arms with such force that a cord broke; but that was all, and the hemp cut into his flesh without his being able to get any further.  Those above, seeing that the youth’s eyes were rolling, while the veins on his forehead were purple and swollen, and that the water bubbled around him with his hiccough, called him baby, and asked why he had sucked so hard, and if nurse was not coming soon to put him to bed.  At this, the father cried out like a wolf, spat into the air at them, and called them butchers and cowards.  That offended them so, that they began throwing stones at him, with such sure aim that his white head was soon reddened and his right eye gushed out; it was small loss to him, for shortly after the mounting wave shut up the other.

“When the water was gone down, the mayor commanded that the five bodies, which hung with necks twisted and limp, should be left a testimony to the Basques that the water of Bayonne did come up to the bridge and that the toll was justly due from them.  He then returned home amidst the acclamations of his people, who were delighted that they had so good a mayor, a sensible man, a great lover of justice, quick in wise enterprises, and who rendered to every man his due.”

VI.

One asks where were the preceding ages of civilization.  Where was the influence of Babylonia and Egypt, of Athens and of Rome?  Here in mid-Europe, nearly two thousand years after Socrates, and in the second millenary of the white light of Christianity, men were like wolves, nay worse, rending their prey or each other not under the lashing of hunger but from very ferocity.

By way of contrast, take a fete given in Bayonne in happier years.  An account of it, garnered from old records, I translate from the French of Lagreze.[5] Elizabeth, sister of Charles IX and wife of Philip of Spain, was returning from the Baths of Cauterets and passing through the city; the fete was in her honor.  Charles was there, the King of France, with the queen-mother, Catherine de Medici; Marguerite of Valois, and her future husband, the young Henry of Navarre.

[5] LAGREZE:  La Societe et les Moeurs en Bearn.

“The place for the fete had been well chosen:  it was an isle of the Adour.  In the centre, a border of ancient oaks encircling a grassy glade framed it round into a kind of arboreal parlor.  Under the shade of these great trees, in the multitude of their leafy nooks, were disposed the tables.  That of royalty rose in the midst, elevated above all the rest; it was reached by four grassy steps.

“Decorated barges transported the guests to the enchanted isle; at their approach, in honor of the arrival, strains of soft music fell upon the ear.  The musicians represented Neptune, Arion, six tritons, three sirens, and numberless minor marine deities; the sirens chanted sweet songs of romance and chivalry, seeking to approve the fabled charm of siren voices.