That unhappy kingdom, torn by intestine conflict, naturally invited the ambition and the greediness of foreign powers.

Civil war had been its condition, with brief intervals, for a whole generation of mankind.

During the last few years, the sword had been never sheathed, while "the holy Confederacy" and the Bearnese struggled together for the mastery.

Religion was the mantle under which the chiefs on both sides concealed their real designs as they led on their followers year after year to the desperate conflict.
And their followers, the masses, were doubtless in earnest.

A great principle--the relation of man to his Maker and his condition in a future world as laid down by rival priesthoods--has in almost every stage of history had power to influence the multitude to fury and to deluge the world in blood.