That would be indeed a triumph
of science, and a boon to tortured humanity.
But after all, man is a worse enemy to man than any of the brute
forces of nature: and a more terrible scourge than mistral or
tempest swept over this land six hundred years ago, when it was,
perhaps, the happiest and the most civilized portion of Europe. This
was the scene of the Albigense Crusade: a tragedy of which the true
history will never, perhaps, be written. It was not merely a
persecution of real or supposed heretics; it was a national war,
embittered by the ancient jealousies of race, between the Frank
aristocracy of the north and the Gothic aristocracy of the south, who
had perhaps acquired, with their half-Roman, half-Saracen
civilization, mixtures both of Roman and of Saracen blood. As
"Aquitanians," "Provencaux,"--Roman Provincials, as they proudly
called themselves, speaking the Langue d'Oc, and looking down on the
northerners who spoke the Langue d'Oil as barbarians, they were in
those days guilty of the capital crime of being foreigners; and as
foreigners they were exterminated.
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