s in the country; an
intelligent bourgeoisie created large industries in the interior, and
fitted out the first navy of the times at their own cost, and Spanish
products were more sought after than any other in all the ports
of Europe. There were towns then as populous as any of the modern
capitals; whole populations devoted themselves to weaving different
kinds of stuffs, and everything was cultivated on the soil of the
Peninsula.

The Catholic kings marked the apogee of national strength, but it was
the beginning also of its decadence. Their reign was great because the
flow of energy begun in the Middle Ages lasted till their times; but
it was execrable, because their tortuous policy turned Spain from the
right way, rousing in us religious fanaticism and the ambition of
universal empire. Two or three centuries ahead of the rest of Europe,
Spain was for the world of those days what England is for our own
times. If we had followed the same policy of religious toleration, of
fusion of races, of industrial and agricultural work in preference to
military enterprises, where should we not be now?

Gabriel asked this question, interrupting his ardent description of
the past.

"The Renaissance," continued Luna, "was more Spanish than Italian. In
Italy the literature of antiquity, and Greco-Roman art revived, but
the Renaissance was not entirely literary. The Renaissance represents
the springing into life of a new and cultivated society, with arts
and manufactures, armies and, scientific knowledge, etc. And who
accomplished this but Spain, that Arab-Hebrew-Christian Spain of the
Catholic kings? The Gran Capitan taught the world the art of modern
warfare; Pedro Navarro was a wonderful engineer; the Spanish troops
were the first to use firearms, and they created also the infantry,
making war democratic, as it gave the people the superiority over the
noble horsemen clad in armour; finally, it was Spain who discovered
America."

"And does all this seem little to you?" interrupted Don Antolin. "Do
you not exactly agree with what I said? We have never seen so much
power and greatness united in Spain as in the times of those kings,
who with reason some call the Catholics."

"I agree that it was a grand period of our history; the last that was
really glorious, the last gleam that flashed before that Spain, who
alone walked in the right way, was extinguished. But before their
deaths the Catholic kings commenced the decadence by d