Chapter II: Epilogue: 191

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

A new breath blows through this story, the thirteenth of the Eugene Sue series, _The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages_. The epoch is the Thirteenth Century. The rudeness and coarseness of the period described in the preceding story--_The Pilgrim's Shell; or, Fergan the Quarryman_--now lies two centuries behind. Religious bigotry still reigns supreme, but it now is no more of the coarse nature typified by a Cuckoo Peter, it now partakes of the flavor of a Duke of Montfort; amours are no longer of the vulgar type of a Duke of Aquitaine, they now partake of the mental refinement of "Courts of Love." Music and poetry chasten the harsh lines of the Thirteenth Century and the season is prepared for the epoch described in the following novel--_The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion_--the age of chivalry. Nevertheless it was at this epoch that the religious persecutions of the Albigensians happened. The fell fanaticism of Montfort, the lawlessness of the clergy, and the dissoluteness of the nobility are woven into a narrative with Mylio the Trouvere and his brother Karvel, the type of religious purity, as the center figures of a story that has all the fascination of drama, in which tears and laughter, freedom and oppression alternate in rapid succession--a true picture of its times.

DANIEL DE LEON.

Milford, Conn., September, 1909.