"The roads the family traveled on its trek east were busy ones. They crossed a region of age-old trade exchange between the Pyrenees and the plains, its economy now quickening as Toulouse intensified its role as a major center of redistribution."
Chap. 1, From Hendaye to Artigat, p. 8

"The spouses in the Rols-Guerre contract were unusually young. The work of historical demographer would have us expect them to be at least in their late teens, but Martin was only in his fourteenth year; and if Bertrande was as young as see said, her marriage was illicit by canon law."
Chap. 1, From Hendaye to Artigat, p. 16

"It was at this palace that the young peasant from Artigat must have become a lackey. He was now at the bottom of a world of important men, of aristocratic canons from the cathedral, great merchants from the Ayuntamiento of Burgos, newly arrived Jesuits...