Children, before they were born, were doomed to the same unrelenting life of savage hate and bloodshed; and boys of tender years were brought by the mothers that bare them, before the bloody corpse of their father, and made to swear, with baby lips, undying vengeance and murderous retribution, so soon as their hands should be strong enough to grasp a gun, and their skill sufficient to point it home to the heart of the foe.
Thus the hand of every man was against his neighbour; and this not for serious causes only. Soon, the vendetta between different families began to arise from the most trivial causes. A man spoke slightingly of another man's friend or relative, or, maybe, his dog—a dispute occurred as to a date, a measurement, the opinions of a third. A hot word was spoken: out came the ready dagger, or the ever-loaded gun or pistol,—a human heart ceased beating, and a murderer fled to the maquis on the mountain side, or the caverns on the lonely rocks, and became thenceforth a pariah, issuing only to commit fresh murders, supported secretly by his relations, but never more known to the world at large; until at length a retributive bullet laid him low, or his hiding place was betrayed, and he miserably slain by the military police of his country.
This hydra-headed monster had grown to such an extent, that between the years 1770 and 1800, when the vendetta was at its height, some 7000 murders occurred, all on its account; and only the strenuous measures of the French government succeeded in checking the evil.
It was made penal for a man to carry a gun or any other weapon, except under certain restrictions, and in certain cases. This law continued in force for a few years, and worked so well that the number of violent deaths decreased almost to nil. But the law has been rescinded the last few years, and now again you see every man with his loaded gun. And the number of murders, although nothing like what it was in former times, yet has increased again greatly.
This inland region is specially the region of arms. You rarely meet a peasant without a gun strapped behind his shoulder, and a pistol or two in his vest; and our driver informed me that they are always carried loaded.
"With what?" I asked.
"With bullets, of course."
"To kill game?" asked I (knowing, however, that this was not the place for large game).
"Pour se defendre," said he, with a queer look.
"That means—to shoot one another as soon as a quarrel occurs?"