The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, the Mother of the Camps

The first four volumes of Eugene Sue's series of historic novels -- collectively known as "The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages" -- are properly introductory to the wondrous drama in which, as indicated in the preface to the first story of the series, "one family, the descendants of a Gallic chief named Joel, typifies the oppressed; one family, the descendants of a Frankish chief named Neroweg, typifies the oppressor; and across and adown the ages, the successive struggles between oppressors and oppressed-the history of civilization -- is thus represented in a majestic allegory." That wondrous drama opens with this, the fifth of the stories - The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, the Mother of the Camps. Here, for the first time, does a descendant of Joel, the Breton chief, encounter a Neroweg, the representative of the conquering race. Here they cross swords for the first time, their descendants meeting again and again in the course of the subsequent narratives, almost always in deadly encounter, each typical of the advancing stage of civilization in which the succeeding encounters occur.