isigoths, Franks, Saracens, Normans,--Gascons against
Carlovingians, North against South, all had burned, raided, and
destroyed Gascony before the XI century. It is not surprising, then,
that there are found fewer traces of antiquity here than in Provence and
Languedoc. Even the few names of decimated cities which survived,
designated towns on new sites. Eauze, formerly on the Gelise, lay long
in ruins, and was finally re-built a kilometre inland. Lectoure and Auch
had long since retired from the river Gers and taken refuge on the hills
of their present situations, while other cities fell into complete ruin
and forgetfulness.

[Illustration: STATELY GOTHIC SPLENDOUR.--CONDOM.]

The year 1000, which followed these events, was that of the predicted
and expected end of the world. The extravagances of Christians at that
time are well known, the gifts of all property that were made to the
Church, the abandonment of worldly pursuits, the terrors of many, the
anxiety of the calmest, the emotional excesses which led people to live
in trees that they might be near to heaven when the "great trump" should
sound,--"Mundi fine appropinquante." But the trumpet did not sound, and
Raoul Glaber, a monk of the XI century, writes that all over Italy and
the Gaul of his day there was great haste to restore and re-build
churches, a general rivalry between towns and between countries, as to
which could build most remarkably. "This activity," says Quicherat, "may
show a desire to renew alliance with the Creator." It certainly proves
that the generation of the year 1000 had fresh and new architectural
ideas.

This was the period of recuperation and re-building for Gascony. The
monks of the VIII, IX, and X centuries had devoted themselves with zeal
and success to the cultivation of the soil. They had acquired fertile
fields, and desiring peace, they had placed themselves in positions
where their strength would defend them when their holy calling was not
respected. These monasteries were places of refuge and soon gave their
name and their protection to the towns and villages which began to
cluster about them. Except the declining settlements of Roman days,
Gascony had few towns in the X century; and many of her most important
cities of to-day owe their foundation, their existence, and their
prosperity to these Benedictine monasteries. Eauze regained its life
after the establishment of a convent, and in the XI, XII, and XIII
centuries, the Abb