ABSTRACT
THE Dark Ages must have been darker in Provence than in any other quarter of the world. Belgium has been called the cockpit of Europe, but the triangle to the east of the Rhone was the stamping-ground for all the nations of the then-known world—the cockpit of humanity. There fought their battles in that unfortunate territory before the Western World tidied itself out into some sort of pattern, not merely Romans, Celts, Franks, Teutons, Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Celtiberians, but Africans, Asiatics, Arabs, Moors and Levantines who became generically known as Saracens and for centuries caused the more poignant troubles of a martyred country.
