Henry M. Baird · 55 of 379

CHAPTER I · An age of blood.

Yet, by the side or these manifestations of a growing appreciation of art, science, and letters, it must be confessed that there were indications, no less distinct, of a lamentable neglect of moral training, and of a state of manners scarcely raised above that of uncivilized communities of men. It was still an age of blood. The pages of chronicles, both public and private, teem with proofs of the insignificant value set upon human life and happiness. In many parts of France the peasant rarely enjoyed quiet for even a few consecutive months. Organized bands of robbers, familiarly known as "Mauvais Garçons," infested whole provinces, and laid towns and villages under contribution. Not unfrequently two or three hundred men were to be found in a single band, and the robberies, outrages, and murders they committed defy recital. Often the miscreants were aventuriers, or volunteers whose employers had failed to furnish them their stipulated pay, and who avenged their losses by exactions levied upon the unfortunate peasantry. Indeed, if we may believe the almost incredible statements of one of the laws enacted for their suppression, they had been known to carry by assault even walled cities, and to exercise against the miserable inhabitants cruelty such as disgraces the very name of man.