ncesvalles by the Basques and exterminated to a man.

These Basques were the unconquerable mountain tribe of which we heard
so much in the early history of Spain. They had been on guard for
centuries, keeping the Franks back from the Pyrenees. They may have
been acting under Saracenic influence when they exterminated the
rear-guard of Charlemagne's army. But it was done, not because they
loved the Saracen, but because they had a hereditary hatred for the
Franks.

Mediaeval Europe never tired of hearing of the Great Charles' lament
over his Roland: "O thou right arm of my kingdom,--defender of the
Christians,--scourge of the Saracens! How can I behold thee dead, and
not die myself! Thou art exalted to the heavenly kingdom,--and I am
left alone, a poor miserable King!"

CHAPTER XII.

The tide which had flowed over southern Spain was a singular mixture
of religious fervor, of brutish humanity, and refinements of wisdom
and wickedness. No stranger and more composite elements were ever
thrown together. Permanence and peace were impossible. Nothing but
force could hold together elements so incongruous and antagonistic. As
soon as the hand of Abd-er-Rahman I. was removed disintegration began.
Clashing races, clans, and political parties had in a few years made
such havoc that it seemed as if the Omeyyad dynasty was crumbling.

It might have been an Arab who said "he cared not who made the laws
of his country, so he could write its songs." Learning, literature,
refinements of luxury and of art had taken possession of the land,
which seemed given up to the muses. When in 822 Abd-er-Rahman II.
reigned, he did not trouble himself about the laws of his crumbling
empire. The one man in whom he delighted was _Ziryab_. What Petronius
was to Nero,[A] and Beau Brummel to George IV., that was Ziryab to
the Sultan Abd-er-Rahman II., the elegant arbiter in matters of taste.
From the dishes which should be eaten to the clothes which should
be worn, he was the supreme judge; while at the same time he knew by
heart and could "like an angel sing" one thousand songs to his adoring
Sultan.

Even the Gothic Christians were seduced by these alluring refinements.
They felt contempt for their old Latin speech and for their
literature, with the tiresome asceticism it eternally preached. The
Christian ideal had grown to be one of penance and mortification of
the flesh, and to a few ardent souls these sensuous delights were an
open high