Chapter 2

Three days later, in the evening, while Marc was undressing in the bedroom, Genevi�ve being already in bed, he told her that he had received an urgent letter from Salvan, who wished to see him on the morrow, Sunday.

'No doubt it is about that crucifix which I removed from the classroom,' the young man added. 'Some parents have complained, it seems; and very likely there will be a great to-do. But I anticipated it.'

Genevi�ve, whose head lay deep in her pillow, returned no answer. But when Marc was in bed and the light was extinguished, he was delightfully surprised to find her casting her arms about him, and whispering in his ear: 'I spoke to you harshly the other day; and, it's true, I don't think as you do about religion or about the affair; but I still love you very dearly, I love you with all my heart.'

Marc felt the more moved by these words as, since the recent dispute, his wife had turned her back upon him, as though in token of conjugal rupture.

'And as you are going to have trouble,' she continued softly, 'I don't want you to think me angry. One's ideas may differ, but all the same one may love one another very much—is it not so? And if you are mine, I am still yours, my dear, dear husband.'

On hearing her speak like that he clasped her to him with passionate eagerness. 'Ah! my dear wife, as long as you love me, as long as you are mine,' said he, 'I shall fear nought of the terrible threats around us.'

She yielded to his embrace, quivering, transported by the joy of love which was essential to her being. And there came a moment of perfect communion, irresistible reconciliation. The good understanding of a young couple, united by love, is only seriously threatened when some divergency of that love arises. As long as they are swayed by passion one for the other, they remain in agreement athwart the worst mishaps. He who would part them must first of all destroy their mutual passion.

When Marc gave Genevi�ve a last kiss before both fell asleep, he thought it well to reassure her: 'I shall act very prudently in this affair, I promise you,' said he. 'You know too that I am moderate and reasonable at bottom.'

'Ah! do as you please,' she answered prettily. 'All I ask is that you should come back to me, and that we should still love each other.'

On the morrow the young man repaired to Beaumont, quite enlivened by his wife's ardent affection. He derived fresh courage from it, and thus it was with a smiling face and the demeanour of a combatant that he entered Salvan's private room at the Training College. But the first words spoken by the director, after they had shaken hands in a friendly way, surprised and embarrassed him.

'I say, my good fellow,' Salvan began, 'so it seems that you have at last discovered the new fact, the long-sought proof of our poor Simon's innocence, which will enable one to apply for the revision of his trial?'

Marc, who had anticipated an immediate explanation on the subject of the crucifix, remained for a moment silent, wondering whether he ought to tell the truth even to Salvan. At last, seeking his words, he said slowly: 'The new fact ... no, I have nothing decisive as yet.'

But Salvan did not notice his hesitation. 'That is what I thought,' he rejoined, 'for you would have warned me, eh? Nevertheless, there is a rumour of some discovery made by you, a document of capital importance, placed in your hands by chance, something like a sword of Damocles which you are said to hold over the heads of the real culprit and his accomplices, the whole clerical gang of the region.'

Marc listened, full of stupefaction. Who could have spoken? How was it that S�bastien's confession and his mother's visit had become known? How was it that particulars had been spread abroad, modified and exaggerated as they passed from mouth to mouth? The young man suddenly made up his mind to tell the truth to Salvan; he felt it necessary to confide in that worthy and sensible friend and adviser, on whom he placed so much reliance. So he told him how he knew that a copy-slip, similar to the one brought forward in evidence against Simon, had been taken from the Brothers' school, and how it had been destroyed.

Salvan, who was deeply moved, rose from his chair. 'It was the proof we needed!' he exclaimed. 'But you act rightly in remaining silent since we hold no material evidence. One must wait.... At present, however, I understand the disquietude, the covert alarm, which for some days past I have detected among our adversaries. Some words may have escaped you or the boy, or his mother, and chance words often go far; or else some mysterious agency may have placed the secret in circulation, misrepresenting the facts. In any case the culprit and his accomplices have certainly felt the ground quaking beneath them; and, naturally, they are alarmed, for they will have to defend their crime.'

Then, passing to the subject which had prompted his urgent letter, he resumed: 'But I wished to speak to you of another incident, which everybody is talking about—your removal of that crucifix from your classroom. You know my views: our schools ought to be purely and simply secular, therefore all religious symbols are out of place in them. But you can have no idea of the tempest which your action will raise. Unfortunately, it is now the interest of the good Brothers and their supporters, the Jesuits, to ruin you absolutely, alarmed as they are by the weapons which they believe to be in your hands. By your action in the matter of the crucifix you have laid yourself open to attack, and so they are naturally rushing forward to the onslaught.'

Marc understood, and made a gesture of defiance, like a man fully prepared for battle. 'But have I not acted prudently, in accordance with your advice?' he responded. 'Did I not wait two long years before removing that cross which was hung up after Simon's trial to indicate that the clerical faction had virtually taken possession of the Communal school? I have set that poor school on its legs again; it was suspected and discredited, and I have made it prosperous and free. So was it not legitimate that my first independent act as schoolmaster, after winning acceptance and then victory, should be to rid the school of all emblems, and restore it to that neutrality in matters of religion, from which it ought never to have departed?'

Salvan interrupted him: 'Once again, I do not blame you. You showed great patience and tolerance. Nevertheless, your action has taken place at a terrible moment, and, feeling alarmed for you, I wished to discuss matters in order to provide, if possible, for all dangerous contingencies.'

They sat down and talked at length. The political situation of the department was still very bad. Fresh elections had taken place recently, and the result had been another step in the direction of clerical reaction. An extraordinary thing had happened: Lemarrois, the Mayor of Beaumont, Gambetta's former friend, whose position as deputy had been deemed unassailable, had found himself obliged to submit to a second ballot,[1] through the advent of a Socialist candidate, none other than Advocate Delbos, whose address at Simon's trial had marked him out for the support of the revolutionary faubourgs; and, at the second polling, Lemarrois had only won by a majority of about a thousand votes. Meanwhile, the Royalist and Catholic reactionaries had gained a seat, the handsome Hector de Sangleb�uf having secured the return of a friend, a general officer, thanks to the entertainments which he gave at La D�sirade, and the lavish manner in which he distributed Jew gold, derived from his father-in-law, Baron Nathan. Then, too, in order to secure re-election, the amiable Marcilly, once the hope of all the young men of culture, had skilfully completed his evolution towards the welcoming Church, which was very desirous of concluding a new pact with the bourgeoisie, whom the progress of Socialism terrified.

[1] In French elections, when several nominees contest some particular seat, a candidate, to be successful, must obtain one half, plus one, of the total number of votes recorded. If no candidate secures that number a second ballot ensues a fortnight later. On the second occasion a relative majority suffices for election.—Trans.

Though it had accepted political equality the bourgeoisie indeed was unwilling to concede equality in the economic field, for it desired to restore nothing of what it had stolen. And to resist the onslaught from below, it preferred to ally itself with its old enemies. It again began to think that religion had some good features, that it was useful as a kind of police institution, a barrier, which alone might check the growing appetite of the masses. And as a first step the bourgeoisie was gradually garbing itself in militarism, nationalism, anti-semitism, and all the other hypocritical disguises under which invading Clericalism pursued its road.

The army became merely the emblem of brute force upholding the thefts of ages, an impregnable wall of bayonets within whose shelter property and capital, duly gorged, might digest in security. The nation, the country, was the ensemble of abuses and iniquities which it was criminal to touch, the monstrous social edifice, not one beam of which must be changed for dread lest all should fall. The Jews, even as in the Middle Ages, served as a pretext to instil fresh warmth into cooling beliefs, to exploit ancestral hatred, and sow the horrid seeds of civil war. And beneath that all-embracing movement of reaction there was nought save the stealthy labour of the Church, seeking to regain the ground she had formerly lost when the old world broke up beneath the liberating breath of the French Revolution. It was the Revolution that the Church strove to kill by regaining ascendency over the bourgeoisie, which the Revolution had raised to power, and which had decided to betray it in order to retain that power, of which it owed account to the masses. And the return of the bourgeoisie to the bosom of the Church would lead to the reconquest of the people, for the Church's vast design was to subjugate men by the influence of women, and particularly to lay hold of the children in their schools and confine their minds in the dim prison of dogmas. If the France of Voltaire were again becoming the France of Rome it was because the teaching Congregations had set their grip on the young. And the position was becoming worse and worse, the Church was already shrieking victory—victory over the democracy, victory over science—full of the hope that she would prevent the inevitable, the completion of the Revolution, the junction of the masses with the bourgeoisie in the seat of power, and the final liberation of the entire people.

'The situation grows worse daily,' said Salvan; 'you know what a frantic campaign is being carried on against our system of elementary education. Last Sunday, at Beaumont, a priest went so far as to say in the pulpit that a secular schoolmaster was Satan disguised as a pedagogue. "Fathers and mothers!" he cried, "you should wish your children to be dead rather than in such hells as those schools!"... As for secondary education, that also is a prey to clerical reaction. Apart from the ever-increasing prosperity of such Congregational establishments as the College of Valmarie, where the Jesuits finish poisoning the sons of the bourgeoisie, the officers, functionaries, and magistrates of the future, our Lyc�es, even, remain in the power of the priests. Here at Beaumont, for instance, the director, the devout Depinvilliers, openly receives Father Crabot, who is, I think, the confessor of his wife and daughters. Lately, as he felt discontented with Abb� Leriche, a worthy but very aged man who had fallen asleep in his post, he secured a thoroughly militant chaplain. At the Lyc�es, no doubt, religious exercises are optional; but for a boy to be exempted from them a request from his parents is required. And naturally the pupil about whom a fuss is made in that respect is badly noted, set upon one side, and even subjected to all sorts of petty persecutions.... Briefly, after thirty years of Republican rule, a century of active free thought, the Church still trains and educates our children, still remains paramount, intent on retaining her domination over the world by moulding in the same old moulds as formerly the men of bondage and error that she needs to govern on her behalf. And all the wretchedness of the times comes from that cause.'

'But what do you advise me to do, my friend?' Marc inquired. 'After acting as I have done, am I to retreat?'

'No, certainly not. Perhaps, if you had warned me, I might have begged you to wait a little longer. But as you have removed that crucifix you must defend yourself. After writing to you I saw Le Barazer, our Academy Inspector, and I now feel somewhat easier in mind. You know him, and you are aware how difficult it is to guess his thoughts. Yet I believe that he is at heart on our side, and I should be greatly surprised if he were to play into the hands of our enemies. But everything will depend on you, on your power of resistance, on the firmness of the position you have acquired at Maillebois. I foresee a frantic campaign on the part of the Brothers, the Capuchins, and the Jesuits, for you are not merely a secular schoolmaster, otherwise an incarnation of Satan, but you are, particularly, the defender of Simon—that is, the torchbearer, the soldier of truth and justice, whose light must be extinguished and whose lips must be sealed. In any case, be prudent and sensible and keep up your courage.'

Salvan, who had risen, grasped the young man's hands, and for a moment they remained thus, smiling as they gazed at each other, their eyes shining with courage and faith.

'At least you do not despair of the final result, my friend?'

'Despair, my boy? Ah! never! Victory is certain; I do not know when it will come, but it is certain. Besides, there is more cowardice and egotism than actual malice among some of our adversaries. How many of our university men are neither really good nor really bad, though on striking an average one finds perhaps rather more goodness than evil among them. The worst is that they are functionaries, and as such are wedded to routine, apart from which their one concern is their advancement, as is natural. Forbes, our Rector, harbours, I fancy, the contempt of a philosopher for these wretched times, and on that account is content to play the part of a piece of administrative mechanism connecting the Minister with the university staff. Then, too, if Depinvilliers sets himself on the side of the Church, it is merely because he has two ugly daughters on his hands, and relies on Father Crabot to supply them with rich husbands. As for the terrible Mauraisin—whom you will do well to beware of, for he has an ugly soul—he would like to be in my shoes; and he would go over to your side to-morrow if he thought you in a position to give him my berth.... Yes, yes, many of them are merely poor hungry devils, while others are men of weak intellect—they will come over to our side and even help us when we have won the battle.'

He laughed indulgently. Then, becoming grave once more, he added: 'Besides, the good work I do here prevents me from despairing. As you know, I hide myself away in my little corner; but, day by day, I strive to hasten the future. And things move—they move. I am very well satisfied with my young men. No doubt it is still rather difficult to recruit students, for the profession appears so thankless, so poorly paid, leading to nothing but contumely and a life of certain wretchedness. All the same, we had more competitors than usual this year. It is hoped that the Chambers will end by voting reasonable salaries, such as may enable the humblest masters to live in some little dignity. And you will see, you will see what will happen when properly trained masters leave this college and spread through the villages and the towns, carrying words of deliverance with them, destroying error, superstition, and falsehood on all sides, like the missionaries of a new humanity! The Church will be vanquished then, for it can only subsist and triumph amid ignorance, and when it is swept away the whole nation will march unchecked towards solidarity and peace.'

'Ah! my old friend, that is the great hope!' cried Marc; 'that is what lends all of us the strength and cheerfulness we need to do our work. Thanks for inspiriting me; I will try to be sensible and courageous.'

They once more shook hands energetically, and Marc returned to Maillebois, where the fiercest battle, war to the knife, awaited him.

There, as at Beaumont, the political situation had become worse. The last municipal elections, following those for the Chamber of Deputies, had also given disastrous results. Darras had found his party in a minority in the new Municipal Council; and Philis, the clerical councillor, the leader of the reactionary cause, had now been elected Mayor. Before everything else, Marc wished to see Darras in order to ascertain how far the latter might yet be able to support him. So he presented himself, one evening, in the comfortable drawing-room of the handsome house which the contractor had built himself. Darras, as soon as he perceived him, raised his arms to the ceiling.

'Ah! my dear schoolmaster, so now you have the whole pack at your heels! Oh! I shall be on your side, you may rely on me now that I am beaten, reduced to opposition.... It was difficult for me to be always on your side when I was Mayor; for, as you know, the majority I disposed of was only one of two votes. But even when I had to act contrary to your desires, I repeated to myself that you were a thousand times right. At present we shall be able to go forward, since the only course open to me is to fight and try to upset Philis, and take the mayoralty from him. You did quite right when you removed that crucifix from the schoolroom; it wasn't there in Simon's time, and it ought never to have been there at all.'

Marc made bold to smile. 'Why, every time I spoke to you of removing it,' said he, 'you protested. You talked of the necessity of prudence, of the danger of frightening the children's parents, and giving our adversaries a weapon against us.'

'But I have just admitted to you how embarrassed I was! Ah! it is by no means easy to manage a town like Maillebois, where the forces of the different parties have always balanced, and where nobody has ever been able to tell whether the freethinkers or the priests would win the day. At this moment we are certainly not in a brilliant position, but we must keep up our courage. We shall end by giving them a good licking, which will make us masters of the town for good.'

'That's certain,' replied Marc, delighted with the fine valour displayed by the ambitious contractor, who, at heart, was a worthy man.

'Particularly,' continued Darras, 'as Philis won't dare to take any serious step, for, in his turn, he has only a majority of two, such as rendered me so timid. He is condemned to mark time, and will live in constant fear of some slight change which may place him in a minority. I know by experience what that means!'

He made merry over it in a noisy way. He harboured against Philis the hatred of a big and healthy man with a sound stomach and a sound brain, who was chagrined by the sight of the new Mayor's lean little figure, dark, hard face, pointed nose and thin lips. Philis had retired from business as a tilt and awning maker, at the time of his wife's death, and, though possessed of an income of some ten thousand francs a year, the real origin of which remained somewhat obscure, he lived in great retirement, attended by a single servant, a huge fair creature of whom evil tongues spoke very badly. Her master had a daughter named Octavie, twelve years of age, now with the nuns of the Visitation at Beaumont, and a son, Raymond, ten years old, who was a boarder at the Jesuit College of Valmarie, pending the time when he might enter the military school of St. Cyr. Having thus rid himself of his children, the new Mayor led a close, narrow life, most careful in all his religious observances, ever in conference with the black frocks, and really acting as the executor of the Congregations' decisions. His election as Mayor was sufficient proof of the acute stage which the religious crisis had reached in that town of Maillebois, which the struggle between the Republic and the Church was ravaging.

'And so I may go forward,' said Marc; 'you will support me with the minority of the Council?'

'Why, certainly!' cried Darras. 'Only, be reasonable, don't give us too big an affair to deal with.'

On the very morrow the contest began; and apparently it was Savin, the clerk, the father of the twin boys, Achille and Philippe, who was chosen to strike the first blow. At all events, on leaving his office in the evening, he came to the school to pick a quarrel with the master.

'You know what I am—is that not so, Monsieur Froment?' said he. 'I am a radical Republican, and nobody can suspect me of conspiring with the priests. Nevertheless, on behalf of a number of parents I have come to ask you to replace that crucifix which you removed, for religion is necessary for children as well as for women.... No priests in the school, I agree to that; but Christ, remember it, was the first of Republicans and revolutionaries!'

Marc, however, desired to know the names of the other parents whom Savin represented. 'If you have not come merely on your own behalf,' said he, 'will you tell me what families have delegated you?'

'Oh! "delegated"—that is not quite correct. I have seen Doloir the mason, and Bongard the farmer, and have found that they blame you as I myself do. Only, it is always compromising to protest and give one's signature—is that not so? I myself risk a good deal by coming forward, on account of my superiors. But the voice of my conscience as the father of a family speaks too loudly for me to act otherwise. How shall I ever manage those two scapegraces of mine, Achille and Philippe, if you do not frighten them a little with fear of the punishment of God and the torments of hell? Look at my big girl, Hortense, who is so good in every respect, and who was admired by all Maillebois when she took her first Communion this year! By taking her to church, Mademoiselle Rouzaire has made her really perfect. Compare your work with Mademoiselle Rouzaire's, compare my two boys with my daughter. By that comparison alone you stand condemned, Monsieur Froment.'

Marc smiled in his quiet way. The amiable Hortense, a pretty and precocious girl of thirteen, one of Mademoiselle Rouzaire's favourites, occasionally contrived to climb over the wall separating the playgrounds of the two schools, in order that she might hide away in corners with lads of her own age. Even as Savin had suggested, the young man had often compared his pupils, from whom by degrees he obtained a little more reason and truth, with the pupils of the schoolmistress, his neighbour—the affectedly prim and gentle little girls who were fed on clerical pap, falsehood, and hypocrisy, and perturbed, even secretly spoilt, by the corrupting influence of the mysterious. Marc would have liked to have seen his boys and those girls together—those girls who were now reared and educated apart, from whom everything was hidden, whose minds and whose senses were heated by all the fires of mysticism. They would then have ceased to climb over walls to go in search of so-called sin, the forbidden fruit of damnation and delight. Yes, only a system of mixed schools could ensure the health and strength of the free and happy nation of to-morrow.[2]

[2] This problem seems to have been solved in the United States, where, judging by official reports, the mingling of the sexes in the schools is extensive. Thence (I judge the matter as an European) must have come the very great and distinctly beneficial influence exercised by American women on the national character. Perhaps it is not too much to say that, apart from such incentives as a mere desire to gain money, the women of the United States have largely helped to make their race the most enterprising and progressive in the world. As for the influence of mixed schools on morals, Americans have repeatedly assured me that it has been the best possible.—Trans.

To Savin, however, Marc merely said: 'Mademoiselle Rouzaire does her duty as she understands it; and I do mine in the same way.... If families would only help me, the good work of training and education would progress more rapidly.'

At this Savin lost his temper. Lean and puny, buttoned up in his shabby frock coat, he drew himself erect on his little legs: 'Do you insinuate that I give bad examples to my children?' he asked.

'Oh! certainly not. Only everything that I teach them here is afterwards contradicted by what they see in the world around them. They find truthfulness regarded as dangerous audacity, and reason condemned as being insufficient, incapable of forming honest men.'

Marc indeed was greatly grieved that he should be thwarted so often by his pupils' parents, when he dreamt of obtaining from them the necessary help to hasten the emancipation of the humble. If on leaving school every day the children had only found in their homes some realisation of their lessons, some practice of the social duties and rights in which they were instructed, how much easier and swifter would have been the march of improvement! Such collaboration was even indispensable; the schoolmaster could not suffice for many things, the most delicate, the most useful, when his pupils' parents did not continue his work in the same spirit and complete it. The master and the parents ought to have gone hand in hand towards the same goal of truth and justice. And how sad it was when, instead of obtaining the parents' help, the master saw them destroying the little good he effected, unconscious for the most part of what they were doing, yielding simply to the incoherence of their ideas and their lives.

But Savin was again speaking. 'Briefly,' said he, 'you will hang up that cross again, Monsieur Froment, if you wish to please us all, and live on good terms with us, which is what we desire, for you are not a bad schoolmaster.'

Marc smiled again. 'Thank you,' he said. 'But why did not Madame Savin accompany you? She, at any rate, would have been playing her proper part, for she follows the observances of the Church—I know it.'

'She is religious, as all respectable women ought to be,' the clerk answered dryly. 'I would rather have her go to Mass than take a lover.'

He looked at Marc suspiciously, consumed as he was by sickly jealousy, regarding every man as a possible rival. Why did the schoolmaster regret that his wife had not accompanied him? Had she not twice called at the school recently under the pretext of explaining to the master why Achille and Philippe had been absent on sundry occasions? For some time past he, Savin, had compelled her to confess regularly once a week to Father Th�odose, the Superior of the Capuchins, for it had occurred to him that the shame of avowal might stay her in her course along the road to infidelity. On her side, if in earlier times she had followed the Church observances merely in order to secure peace at home—for she was quite destitute of faith—she now repaired with some alacrity to the tribunal of penitence, for, like the other young devotees who dreamt of Father Th�odose, she had rid herself of earlier prejudices, and begun to regard him as a superb and most delightful man.

'As it happens,' said Marc, with some little maliciousness, in response to Savin's declaration, 'I had the pleasure of meeting Madame Savin last Thursday. She was leaving the chapel on the Place des Capucins, and we had a brief chat. As all her words to me were most gracious, I thought I might express my regret at not seeing her with you to-day.'

The husband made a doleful gesture. His everlasting suspicions had reached such a point that he himself now went to Beaumont to deliver the bead work which he allowed his wife to do in secret in order to add a few indispensable coppers to his meagre salary. Their case was one of hidden wretchedness, with all the torments that make hells of the homes of needy employ�s, burdened with children, the embittered husband becoming an unbearable despot, and the gentle and pretty wife resigning herself in silence until she at last discovers some consolation.

'My wife neither has nor ought to have any opinion but mine,' Savin ended by declaring. 'It is in her name as well as my own, and in the names of many other parents—I repeat it—that I have made this application to you.... It is now for you to decide if you will act upon it. You will think the matter over.'

'I have thought it over, Monsieur Savin,' replied Marc, who had become grave again. 'Before removing that crucifix I understood fully what I was going to do; and since it is no longer there, I shall certainly not put it up again.'

On the following day a report spread through Maillebois that a deputation of parents, fathers and mothers, had called upon the schoolmaster, and that there had been a stormy explanation, a frightful scandal. But Marc soon understood whence the attack had really come, for chance acquainted him with the circumstances which had led to Savin's visit. Though pretty Madame Savin took no real interest in the affair, absorbed as she was in her desire for a little more personal happiness, she had none the less served as an instrument in the hands of Father Th�odose; for it was on being approached by her, on the Capuchin's behalf, that her husband had repaired to a secret interview with the latter, which interview had prompted him to call on Marc and endeavour to check a state of things which was so prejudicial to family morality and good order. No crucifixes in the schools indeed! Would that not mean indiscipline among the boys, and shamelessness among the girls and their mothers also? So the lean and little Savin, the Republican and anti-clerical, unhinged by his wretched spoilt life and his idiotic jealousy, had set forth to champion the cause of virtue, like an authoritarian, a topsy-turvy Catholic, who pictured the human paradise as a gaol, in which everything human ought to be subdued and crushed.

Besides, behind Father Th�odose, Marc readily divined Brother Fulgence and his assistants, Brothers Gorgias and Isidore, who hated the secular school more than ever since it had been taking pupils from them. And behind the Brothers came Fathers Philibin and Crabot of the College of Valmarie, those powerful personages whose skilful unseen hands had been directing the whole campaign ever since the monstrous Simon affair. The accomplices in that slumbering crime seemed determined to defend it by other deeds of iniquity. At the outset Marc had guessed where the whole band, from the lowest to the highest, was crouching. But how could one seize and convict them? If Father Crabot, amiable and worldly, still showed himself constantly among the fine society of Beaumont, busily directing the steps of his penitents and ensuring the rapid fortune of his former pupils, his assistant, Father Philibin, had virtually disappeared, restricting himself entirely, so it seemed, to his absorbing duties as manager at Valmarie. Nothing transpired of the stealthy work which was so ardently pursued in the darkness, every moment being employed to ensure the triumph of the good cause. All that Marc himself could detect was the espionage attending his own movements. He was tracked with priestly caution, black figures were constantly prowling around him. None of his visits to the Lehmanns, none of his conversations with David could have remained unknown. And, as Salvan had said, the others tracked him because he was an impassioned soldier of truth and justice, because he was a witness who already possessed certain proofs, and whose avenging cry must be thrust back into his throat, even by extermination if necessary. To that task the frock and cassock wearers devoted themselves with increasing audacity, joined even by poor Abb� Quandieu, who felt grieved at having to place religion at the service of such iniquitous work, but who resigned himself to it in obedience to the behests of his Bishop, the mournful Monseigneur Bergerot, whom he visited every week at Beaumont to take his orders and console him in his defeat. Bishop and priest cast the cloak of their ministry over the sore devouring the Church whose respectful sons they were, hiding meantime their tears and their fears, unwilling to acknowledge the mortal danger into which they saw religion sinking.

One evening Mignot, on coming into the school from the playground, said to Marc in a fury:

'It's getting quite disgusting, monsieur! I've again caught Mademoiselle Rouzaire spying on us from the top of a ladder!'

Indeed, whenever the schoolmistress fancied that she would not be detected, she set a ladder against the wall dividing the two playgrounds, in order that she might ascertain what was going on in the boys' school. And Mignot accused her of sending secret reports on the subject to Mauraisin every week.

'Oh! let her pry,' Marc answered gaily. 'But there is no occasion for her to tire herself by climbing a ladder. I'll set the door wide open for her, if she desires it.'

'Ah! no, not that!' cried the assistant. 'Let her keep her place! If she tries it on again, I shall go round and pull her down by the legs!'

Marc, to his great satisfaction, was now gradually completing the conquest of Mignot. The latter, like a peasant's son whose one desire was to escape the plough, a man of average mind and character, who like so many others thought solely of his immediate interests, had always shown himself distrustful with Simon. Indeed, nothing good could come from a Jew, and so he had deemed it prudent to keep aloof from him. At the time of the trial, therefore, though he was sufficiently honest to refrain from overwhelming the innocent prisoner, he had not given the good and truthful evidence which might have saved him. At a later stage he had likewise placed himself on the defensive with Marc, with whom he thought it would be foolish to ally himself if he desired advancement. For nearly a whole year, therefore, he had displayed hostility, taking his meals at an eating-house, grudging the help he gave in the school work, and freely blaming his principal's attitude. At that time indeed he had been very thick with Mademoiselle Rouzaire, and willing, it seemed, to place himself at the orders of the Congregations. But Marc, instead of evincing any perturbation, had treated his assistant with unremitting kindness, as if he were desirous of giving him all necessary time to reflect and understand that his real interest lay on the side of truth and equity.

Indeed, in Marc's opinion, that big, calm young fellow, whose only passion was angling, offered an interesting subject for experiment. Though he became cowardly when he thought of the future, and was somewhat spoilt by the environment of ferocious egotism in which he found himself, there was nothing absolutely evil in his nature. In fact, he might be made an excellent school teacher and even a man of most upright mind if he were helped, sustained by one of energy and intelligence. The idea of experimenting in that sense attracted Marc, who felt well pleased as, little by little, he gained the confidence and affection of this wanderer, thereby proving the truth of the axiom in which he set all his hopes of future deliverance—that there is no man, even one on the road to perdition, who may not be made an artisan of progress. Mignot had been won over by the active gaiety, the beneficent glow of truth and justice which Marc set around him. He now took his meals with his principal, and had become, as it were, a member of the family.

'It is wrong of you not to distrust Mademoiselle Rouzaire,' he resumed. 'You have no idea, monsieur, of what she is capable. She would betray you a dozen times over in order to obtain good reports from her friend Mauraisin.'

Then, being in a confidential mood, he related how she had repeatedly urged him to listen at keyholes and report to her. He knew her well; she was a terrible woman, harsh and avaricious, despite all her varnish of exaggerated courtesy; and though she was big and bony, with a flat, freckled face, quite destitute of any charm, she ended by seducing everybody. As she herself boasted, she knew how to act. To the anti-clericals who angrily reproached her for taking her girls so often to church, she replied that she was compelled to comply with the desires of the parents under penalty of losing her pupils. To the clericals she gave the most substantial pledges, convinced as she was that they were the stronger party and that on their influence depended the best appointments even in the secular school world. In reality she was guided solely by her own interests, as she understood them, having inherited the instincts of a petty trader from her parents, who had kept a fruiterer's shop at Beaumont. She had not married, because she preferred to live as she listed, and, although she did not carry on with the priests, as was maliciously rumoured by evil tongues, it seemed certain that she had a soft spot in her heart for handsome Mauraisin, who, like the little man he was, admired women built after the fashion of gendarmes. Again, it was not true that she got drunk, though she was very fond of sweet liqueurs. If she occasionally looked very red when afternoon lessons began, it was simply because she ate abundantly and her digestive organs were out of order.

Marc made an indulgent gesture. 'She does not keep her school badly,' said he; 'the only thing that grieves me is the spirit of narrow pietism which she introduces into all her teaching. My boys and her girls are separated by an abyss, not merely by a wall. And when they meet one another, later, and think of marrying, they will belong to different worlds. But is not that the traditional custom? The warfare of the sexes largely arises from it.'

The young man did not mention the chief cause of his rancour against Mademoiselle Rouzaire, the reason which had impelled him to keep aloof from her. This was her abominable conduct in Simon's case. He remembered the quiet effrontery with which she had played the game of the Congregations at the trial at Beaumont, how she had heaped impudent falsehoods on the innocent prisoner, how she had accused him of giving immoral and anti-patriotic lessons to his pupils. And so Marc's intercourse with her since his appointment to Maillebois had never gone beyond the limits of strict politeness, such as the proximity of their homes required. She, however, having seen the young man strengthen his position, in such wise that his sudden downfall could now hardly be anticipated, had made attempts at reconciliation; for, in her anxiety to be always on the stronger side, she was not the woman to turn her back on the victorious. She had man�uvred particularly with the object of ingratiating herself with Genevi�ve, but the latter in this matter had hitherto shared Marc's opinions and kept her at a distance.

'At all events, monsieur,' Mignot concluded, 'I advise you to keep your eyes open. If I had listened to La Rouzaire I should have betrayed you a score of times. She never ceased questioning me about you, repeating to me that I was a stupid and would never succeed in getting into a decent position.... But you showed me great kindness, and you don't know what horrid things you saved me from; for one soon listens to those creatures when they promise you every kind of success. And, as I am on this subject, I hope you will excuse me if I venture to give you some advice. You ought to warn Madame Froment.'

'Warn her? What do you mean?'

'Yes, yes, I don't keep my eyes in my pockets. For some time past I have seen La Rouzaire prowling around your wife. It is "dear madame" here, a smile or a caress there, all kinds of advances, which would make me tremble if I were in your shoes.'

Marc, who felt greatly astonished, made a pretence of smiling: 'Oh! my wife has nothing to fear, she is warned,' said he. 'It is difficult for her to behave impolitely with a neighbour, particularly when one is connected by similar duties.'

Mignot did not insist, but he shook his head doubtfully, for his intercourse with the Froments had acquainted him with the secret drama which was slowly gathering in their home. However, it seemed as if he were unwilling to say all he knew. And Marc, on his side also, became silent, again mastered by the covert dread, the unacknowledged weakness which assailed and paralysed him whenever the possibility of a struggle between Genevi�ve and himself presented itself to his mind.

All at once the attack of the Congregations, which he had been anticipating ever since his visit to Salvan, took place. The campaign began with a virulent report from Mauraisin on the subject of the removal of the crucifix, and the scandal caused among the boys' parents by that act of religious intolerance. Savin's protest was duly recorded, and the Doloir and Bongard families were cited among those who blamed the proceeding. The incident was one of exceptional gravity, according to the Inspector, for it had occurred in a clerical-minded town, reputed for its frequent and numerously attended pilgrimages—a town indeed where it was necessary for the secular school to make concessions if it was to escape defeat from its Congregational rival. Mauraisin concluded, therefore, in favour of the removal of the schoolmaster, a sectarian of the worst kind, who had thus incautiously compromised the university cause. And his indictment was completed by the recital of a number of little facts, the harvest of all the daily espionage carried on by Mademoiselle Rouzaire, whose docile little girls, ever at Mass or at the Catechism classes, were contrasted with the idle, rebellious, unbelieving lads trained by that anarchist master, Froment.

Three days later Marc learnt that Count Hector de Sangleb�uf, the Catholic deputy, accompanied by two of his colleagues, had made an application on the subject to Prefect Hennebise. Sangleb�uf was evidently acquainted with Mauraisin's report, even if he had not helped to draft it in conjunction with his friend Father Crabot, who so frequently visited La D�sirade; and the idea undoubtedly was to take that report as a basis in demanding the dismissal of Marc.

Hennebise, whose policy was to live at peace with everybody, and who constantly urged his subordinates to refrain from stirring up trouble, must have felt very worried by the incident, which might lead to disastrous complications. The Prefect's feelings were with Sangleb�uf, but it was dangerous to adhere publicly to the reactionary cause; so, while sympathising with the fiery anti-Semite deputy, he explained that he was not master of the situation, for the law was precise and prevented him from removing a schoolmaster unless that step were proposed to him by Academy Inspector Le Barazer. With some relief, therefore, the Prefect referred the gentlemen to the Inspector, to whose office, which was also in the Pr�fecture buildings, they immediately repaired.

Le Barazer, an ex-professor who had become a prudent diplomatist, listened to them with a great show of attentive deference. He was a man of fifty, with a broad full-coloured face, and as yet scarcely a grey hair. He had grown up hating the Empire, and as he regarded secular education as one of the foundation stones of the Republic, he pursued by all available means the task of crushing the Congregational schools, whose triumph in his estimation would have killed France. But experience had shown him the danger of violent action, and he adhered to a long meditated and prudent course, which led some extremists to regard him as a very lukewarm Republican. Yet he was associated with some extraordinary victories achieved by long years of discreet and patient action. At Sangleb�uf's first words he made a show of disapproving Marc's removal of the crucifix, which, said he, was a useless demonstration, though he pointed out that nothing in the laws compelled the schoolmasters to allow religious emblems in the schools. It was all a mere question of usage, and he discreetly allowed it to be seen that this usage scarcely had his approval. Then, as Sangleb�uf, losing his temper, proclaimed himself a defender of the Church, and described the schoolmaster of Maillebois as a shameless individual who had stirred up the entire population against him, the Inspector placidly promised that he would study the question with all the care it deserved.

But Sangleb�uf wished to know if he had not received a report from his subordinate, Mauraisin; and whether that report did not suffice to show the gravity of the evil, the demoralisation, which could only be arrested by the immediate removal of the schoolmaster. At this question Le Barazer feigned great surprise. What report? Ah! yes, the quarterly report from the Elementary Inspector! Were its contents known, then? In any case, those reports were purely administrative, and merely supplied certain elements of appreciation for the Academy Inspector, whose duty it was to make personal inquiries. And thereupon Le Barazer dismissed the gentlemen, after again promising to take their application into full account.

A month went by, and nothing reached Marc, who daily expected a summons to the Pr�fecture. Le Barazer was doubtless following his usual tactics in order to gain time and exhaust the determination of the other side. Even as his friend Salvan had foretold, he was covertly supporting the young schoolmaster. But it was essential that the affair should not be aggravated, that increasing scandal should not compel his intervention; for assuredly he would not defend Marc beyond certain limits, but would end by sacrificing him if he thought that course expedient in order that the rest of his slow and opportunist campaign against the Congregational schools might not be interfered with. Unfortunately, things went from bad to worse at Maillebois. Le Petit Beaumontais, yielding to an inspiration which could be easily identified, started a vile campaign against Marc. As usual, it began with brief and vague paragraphs: Abominations were taking place in a neighbouring little town, and if necessary precise information would be given. Then schoolmaster Froment was plainly named, and under the headline 'The Scandal of Maillebois,' which was repeated almost daily, the paper published an extraordinary collection of tittle-tattle, the results of a pretended inquiry among the pupils and their parents, in which the schoolmaster was accused of the blackest crimes.

People were quite upset by these so-called revelations; the good Brothers and the Capuchins helped to spread terror abroad, and devotees never passed the Communal school without crossing themselves. Marc became conscious that he was in great peril; and Mignot bravely began to pack up his belongings, feeling certain that he would be swept away with his principal, whose side he had taken. Meantime Mademoiselle Rouzaire affected the most victorious airs when she conducted her girls to Mass; Father Th�odose in his chapel, and even Cur� Quandieu in his pulpit at St. Martin's, foretold the approaching restoration of God among the infidels, by which they meant that the crucifix would be soon set up again, with all solemnity, in the secular school; and, as a last blow, Marc, on meeting Darras, found him very cold, resolved to abandon him, for fear of losing the support of the minority of the Municipal Council.

'What can you expect, my dear fellow,' said the ex-Mayor; 'you have gone too far; we cannot follow you, at present at all events.... That blackbeetle Philis is watching me, and I should merely share your fate, which would be useless.'

In his despair Marc hastened to Salvan, whom he regarded as the only faithful supporter remaining to him. And he found him thoughtful, gloomy, almost embarrassed.

'Things are going badly,' said he. 'Le Barazer remains silent, seemingly anxious, and such a furious campaign is being waged around him that I fear he may abandon you.... Perhaps you acted too hastily.'

Marc's heart was wrung by a pang of grief, for he interpreted those last words as signifying that even Salvan abandoned him. 'You, you as well, my master!' he exclaimed.

But Salvan, full of emotion, caught hold of his hands. 'No, no, my lad, you must not doubt me; I remain on your side with all my heart. Only you can have no idea of the difficulties in which all of us have been placed by your action, simple and logical though it was. This Training College is suspected, denounced as a hot-bed of irreligion. Depinvilliers profits by it to exalt the services which the chaplain of his Lyc�e renders to the cause of national pacification, the reconcilement of all parties in the bosom of the Church. Even our Rector, the peaceable Forbes, is full of concern, fearing lest his tranquillity should be destroyed. Le Barazer, no doubt, is skilful, but does he possess the necessary strength of resistance?'

'What is to be done, then?'

'Nothing: one must wait. I can only repeat to you that you must show yourself prudent and courageous. For the rest we must rely on the force of truth and justice.'

During the next two months Marc displayed much brave serenity amid the outrages by which he was assailed each day. As if ignorant of the muddy tide beating against his door, he pursued his duties with wondrous gaiety and uprightness. Never had he accomplished more important or more useful work, devoting himself to his pupils, and teaching them, as much by example as by words, how necessary it was to continue working and to retain one's love for truth and justice amid the very worst events. To the filth, the bitter insults flung at him by his fellow townsmen, he replied with gentleness, kindliness, and sacrifice. He strove to make the children better than their fathers, he sowed the happy future in the furrows of the hateful present, he redeemed the crime of others at the cost of his own happiness. It was the thought of the young ones around him, the duty of helping to save them a little more each day from error and falsehood, that lent him so much calmness and enabled him to await the blow he expected with a quiet smile, like one who, every evening, felt well satisfied with the work accomplished during the day.

At last, one morning, Le Petit Beaumontais announced that the revocation of 'the ignoble poisoner of Maillebois' was signed. On the previous day Marc had heard of a fresh visit which the Count de Sangleb�uf had paid to the Pr�fecture, and he ceased to hope; his ruin was about to be consummated. The evening proved a very trying one. Whenever he quitted his classroom, and his boys, with their smiling faces and their fair and their dark little pates, were no longer near to remind him of the good time coming, he sank into sadness, and only after a struggle recovered the courage which he needed for the morrow. And so that particular evening proved particularly bitter. He thought of his work, destined to be so brutally interrupted—of those dearly-loved boys, whom he had taught perhaps for the last time, and whom he would not be allowed to save. They would be taken from him, handed over to some deformer of intellect and character, and it was the wreck of his ministry that made his heart bleed. He went to bed in such a gloomy mood that Genevi�ve gently, silently, cast her arms about him, as she still did occasionally from an impulse of wifely affection.

'You are worried, are you not, my poor darling?' she whispered.

He did not answer immediately. He knew that she shared his views less than ever, and he always avoided painful explanations in spite of his secret remorse at allowing her to drift away from him without attempting an effort to make her wholly his own. Indeed, if he himself had again ceased to call on her mother and grandmother, he lacked the courage to forbid her visits to that icy little house, though he well divined that their happiness was greatly endangered there. Each time that Genevi�ve returned from the Place des Capucins he felt that she belonged to him a little less than before. Recently, while the whole clerical pack was barking at his heels, he had learnt that the ladies had denied him on every side, blushing for their connection as if it were some unmerited shame that soiled their family.

'Why don't you answer me, dear?' Genevi�ve began again. 'Don't you think that I share your sorrow?'

He felt touched, and, returning her embrace, replied: 'Yes, I am grieved. But it is about matters in which you do not feel as I do, and, as I don't wish to reproach you, what is the use of confiding them to you? Still I may say I fear that in a few days we shall be here no longer.'

'How is that?'

'Oh! I shall certainly be sent elsewhere if I am not dismissed altogether. It is all over ... and we shall have to go away, I know not whither.'

She raised a cry of delight: 'Oh, my dear! so much the better! That is the best thing that can happen to us.'

He felt astonished, for her meaning at first escaped him. And when he questioned her she seemed somewhat embarrassed, and endeavoured to recall her words: 'Oh, I say that because, of course, it would be all the same to me if I did have to go away with you and our Louise. One may be happy anywhere.' But when he pressed her she added: 'Besides, if we went elsewhere we should no longer be worried by all the horrid things which go on here, and which might end by making us quarrel. I should be so happy if we could be alone in some little nook where nobody would come between us, where nothing from outside would try to separate us. Oh! let us go away to-morrow, dear!'

Several times already, in moments of affectionate self-abandonment, Marc had noticed in his wife that same dread of rupture, that desire, that need to remain wholly his. It was as if she said to him: 'Keep me on your heart, carry me away, so that none may tear me from your arms. I feel that I am being parted from you a little more each day, I shiver with the great chill which comes over me when I am no longer in your embrace.' And, with his dread of the inevitable, nothing could have upset him more.

'Go away, my love?' he answered; 'it is not enough to go away. But what joy you give me, and how grateful I feel to you for comforting me like that!'

Several more days elapsed and still the terrible letter expected from the Pr�fecture did not arrive. No doubt this was due to the fact that a fresh incident began to impassion the district and divert public attention from the secular school of Maillebois. For some time past Abb� Cognasse of Jonville, whose triumph was complete, had been meditating a great stroke, striving to induce Mayor Martineau to allow the parish to be consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In all likelihood the idea had not come from the Abb� himself for every Thursday morning during the previous month he had been seen going to the College of Valmarie, where he had long conferences with Father Crabot. And a remark made by F�rou, the schoolmaster at Le Moreux, was circulating, filling some folk with indignation and amusing others.

'If those dirty Jesuits bring their bullock's heart here, I will spit in their faces,' he had said.

Henceforth the worship of the Sacred Heart was absorbing the whole Christian faith, developing into a new Incarnation, a new Catholicism. The sickly vision of a poor creature stricken with hysteria—the sad and ardent Marie Alacoque—that real, gory heart half wrenched from an open bosom, was becoming the symbol of a baser faith, degraded, lowered to supply a need of carnal satisfaction. The ancient and pure worship of an immaterial Jesus, who had risen on high to join the Father, seemed to have become too delicate for modern souls lusting for terrestrial enjoyment; and it had been resolved to serve the very flesh of Jesus, His heart of flesh, to devotees, by way of daily sustenance, such as superstition and brutishness required. It was like a premeditated onslaught on human reason, an intentional degradation of the religion of former times in order that the mass of believers, bowed beneath the weight of falsehood, might become yet more stupefied and more servile. With the religion of the Sacred Heart only tribes of idolaters were left, fetichists who adored offal from a slaughter-house, and carried it, banner-wise, on a pike-head. And all the genius of the Jesuits was found therein—the humanisation of religion, God coming to man since centuries of effort had failed to lead man to God. It was necessary to give the ignorant multitude the only deity it understood, one made in its own image, gory and dolorous like itself, an idol of violent hues, whose brutish materiality would complete the transformation of the faithful into a herd of fat beasts, fit for slaughter. All conquests effected on reason are conquests effected on liberty, and it had become necessary to reduce France to that savage worship of the Sacred Heart, fit for the aborigines of some undiscovered continent, in order to hold it in submission beneath the imbecility of the Church's dogmas.

The first attempts had been made on the very morrow of the great defeats, amid the grief arising from the loss of the two provinces. Then already the Church had availed herself of the public confusion to endeavour to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart—France, which after being chastised so heavily by the hand of God, repented of her sins. And at last, on the highest summit of that great revolutionary city of Paris, the Church had reared that Sacred Heart, palpitating and gory red like the hearts which one sees hanging from hooks in butchers' shops. From that summit it bled over the entire land, to the farthest depths of the country districts. And if at Montmartre it kindled the adoration of the gentility, of ladies and gentlemen belonging to the administrative services, the magistracy and the army, with what emotion must it not infect the simple, the ignorant, and the devout of the villages and hamlets! It became the national emblem of repentance, of the country's self-relinquishment in the hands of the Church. It was embroidered in the centre of the tricolor flag, whose three colours became mere symbols of the azure of heaven, the lilies of the Virgin, and the blood of the martyrs. And huge, swollen, and streaming with gore, it hung thus like the new Deity of degenerate Catholicism, offered to the base superstition of enslaved France.

At first it had been Father Crabot's idea to triumph at Maillebois, the chief place in the canton, by consecrating that little town to the Sacred Heart. But he had become anxious, for at Maillebois there was a manufacturing suburb inhabited by some hundreds of working men who were beginning to send Socialist representatives to the Municipal Council. Thus, in spite of the Brothers and the Capuchins, he had feared some sensational repulse. All considered, it was better to act at Jonville, where the ground appeared well prepared. If successful there, one might always repeat the experiment on a larger stage, some other time.

Abb� Cognasse now reigned at Jonville, which schoolmaster Jauffre had gradually handed over to him. Jauffre's guiding principle was a very simple one. As Clericalism was sweeping through the region, why should he not allow it to waft him to the headmastership of some important school at Beaumont? Thus, after prompting his wife to make advances to the parish priest, he himself had openly gone over to the Church, ringing the bell, chanting at the offices, taking his pupils to Mass every Sunday. Mayor Martineau, who, following Marc, had been an anti-clerical in former times, was at first upset by the new schoolmaster's doings. But what could he say to a man who was so well off and who explained so plausibly that it was wrong to be against the priests? Thus Martineau was shaken in his ideas and allowed the other to follow his course, till, at last, prompted thereto by the beautiful Madame Martineau, he himself declared to the parish council that it was best to live in agreement with the cur�. After that, a year sufficed for Abb� Cognasse to become the absolute master of the parish, his influence no longer being counterbalanced by that of the schoolmaster, who, indeed, willingly walked behind him, confident that he would derive a handsome profit from his submissiveness.

Nevertheless, when the idea of consecrating Jonville to the Sacred Heart was propounded, some dismay and resistance arose. Nobody knew whence that idea had come, nobody could have said by whom it had been first mooted. However, Abb� Cognasse, with his eager militant nature, immediately made it his business in the hope of gaining great personal glory should he be the first priest of the region to win an entire parish over to God. He made such a stir, indeed, that Monseigneur Bergerot, in despair at the threat of a new superstition, and grieved by its base idolatry, summoned him to Beaumont, where, however, after a scene which proved, it was rumoured, both terrible and pathetic, the Bishop once again was compelled to give way. But, on two occasions, the parish council of Jonville held tumultuous meetings, several members angrily desiring to know what profit they would all derive from the consecration of the parish to the Sacred Heart. For a moment it seemed as if the affair were condemned and buried. But Jauffre also made a trip to Beaumont, and, though nobody guessed exactly what personage he saw there, he no sooner came back than, in a gentle, insidious manner, he resumed the negotiations with the parish council.

The question was what the parish would gain by consecrating itself to the Sacred Heart. Well, first of all, several ladies of Beaumont promised presents to the church, a silver chalice, an altar cloth, some flower vases, and a big statue of the Saviour, with a huge, flaming, bleeding heart painted on it. Then, too, said Jauffre, there was talk of giving a dowry of five hundred francs to the most deserving Maiden of the Virgin when she married. But the council seemed to be most impressed by the promise of setting up a branch establishment of the Order of the Good Shepherd, where two hundred girls would work at fine linen, chemises, petticoats, and knickers, for some of the great Parisian shops. The peasants at once pictured all their daughters working for the good Sisters, and speculated on the large amount of money which such an establishment would probably bring into the district.

At last it was decided that the ceremony should take place on June 10 (a Sunday), and, as Abb� Cognasse pointed out, never was festival favoured by brighter sunshine. For three days his servant, the terrible Palmyre, with the help of Madame Jauffre and the beautiful Madame Martineau, had been decorating the church with evergreens and hangings, lent by the inhabitants. The ladies of Beaumont, Pr�sidente Gragnon, G�n�rale Jarousse, Pr�fete Hennebise—and even, so it was said, Madame Lemarrois, the wife of the radical mayor and deputy,—had presented the parish with a superb tricolor flag on which the Sacred Heart was embroidered, with the motto: 'God and Country.' And Jauffre himself was to carry that flag, walking on the right hand of the Mayor of Jonville. An extraordinary concourse of important personages arrived during the morning: many notabilities of Beaumont, with the ladies who had presented the flag; Philis, the Mayor of Maillebois, with the clerical majority of his council, as well as a shoal of cassocks and frocks; a grand-vicar, delegated by Monseigneur the Bishop, Father Th�odose and other Capuchins, Brother Fulgence and his assistant Brothers, Father Philibin and even Father Crabot, both of whom were surrounded and saluted with the greatest deference. But people noticed the absence of Abb� Quandieu, who, according to his own account, had been laid up by a violent attack of gout at the last moment.

At three o'clock in the afternoon a band of music, which had come from the chief town, struck up an heroic march on the Place de l'�glise. Then appeared the parish councillors, all wearing their scarves, and headed by Mayor Martineau and schoolmaster Jauffre, the latter of whom grasped the staff of his flag with both hands. A halt ensued until the band had finished playing. A dense crowd of peasant families in their Sunday best, and ladies in full dress, had gathered round, waiting. Then, all at once, the principal door of the church was thrown wide open, and Cur� Cognasse appeared in rich sacerdotal vestments, followed by numerous members of the clergy, the many priests who had hastened to Jonville from surrounding spots. Chants arose, and all the people prostrated themselves devoutly during the solemn blessing of the flag. The pathetic moment came when Mayor Martineau and the members of the council knelt beneath the folds of the symbolic standard, which Jauffre held slantwise above them in order that one might the better see the gory heart embroidered amid the three colours. And then in a loud voice the Mayor read the deed officially consecrating the parish of Jonville to that heart.

Women wept and men applauded. A gust of blissful insanity arose into the clear sunlight, above the blare of the brass instruments and the beating of the drums which had again struck up a triumphal march. And the procession entered the church, the clergy, the Mayor, and the council, still and ever attended by the schoolmaster and the flag. Then came the benediction of the Holy Sacrament; the monstrance glittering like a great star on the altar, amid all the lighted candles, while the municipality again knelt down most devoutly. And afterwards Abb� Cognasse began to speak with fiery eloquence, exulting at the sight of the representatives of civil authority sheltering themselves beneath the banner of the Sacred Heart, prostrating themselves before the Holy Sacrament, abdicating all pride and rebellion in the hands of the Deity, relying on Him alone to govern and save France. Did not this signify the end of impiety, the Church mistress of men's souls and bodies, sole representative of power and authority on earth? Ah! she would not long delay to restore happiness to her well-beloved eldest Daughter, who at last repented of her errors, submitted, and sought nothing but salvation. Every parish would end by following the example of Jonville, the whole country would give itself to the Sacred Heart, France would recover her empire over the world by the worship of the national flag now transformed into the flag of Jesus! Cries of ecstatic intoxication burst forth, and the splendid ceremony came to an end in the sacristy, whither the council, headed by the Mayor, repaired to sign the deed on parchment which set forth that the whole parish of Jonville had for ever consecrated itself to the Divine Heart, the civil power piously renouncing its claims in favour of the religious power.

But when the party quitted the church a scandalous scene occurred. Among the crowd was F�rou, the schoolmaster at Le Moreux, clad in a wretched, tattered frock coat and looking more emaciated, more ardent than ever. He had sunk to the worst tortures of indebtedness, he was pursued for francs and half francs which he had borrowed, for he could no longer obtain on credit the six pounds of bread which he needed daily to feed his exhausted wife and his three lean and ailing daughters. Even before it was due, his paltry salary of a hundred francs a month disappeared in that ever-widening gulf, and the little sum which he received as parish clerk was constantly being attached by creditors. His growing and incurable misery had increased the contempt of the peasants who were all at their ease, and who looked askance at knowledge as it did not even feed the master appointed to teach it. And F�rou, the only man of intelligence and culture in that abode of dense ignorance, grew more and more exasperated at the thought that he, the man who knew, should be the poor one, whereas the ignorant were rich. Feverish rebellion against such social iniquity came upon him, he was maddened by the sufferings of those who were dear to him, and dreamt of destroying this abominable world by violence.

As he stood there he caught sight of Saleur, the Mayor of Le Moreux, who, wishing to make himself agreeable to the triumphant Abb� Cognasse, had come over to Jonville, arrayed in a fine new frock coat. Peace now reigned between his parish and the priest, though the latter still grumbled at having to walk several miles to say Mass for people who might very well have kept a priest of their own. However, all the esteem which had departed from the thin, ghastly, ill-paid, penniless, and deeply indebted schoolmaster had now gone to the sturdy and flourishing priest who was so much better off, and who turned every baptism, wedding, and burial into so much money. Beaten, as was only natural, in that unequal duel, F�rou was no longer able to control his rage.

'Well, Monsieur Saleur,' he exclaimed, 'here's a carnival and no mistake! Aren't you ashamed to lend yourself to such ignominy?'

Though Saleur was not at heart with the priests, this remark vexed him. He construed it as an attack upon his own bourgeois position as an enriched grazier, living on his income in a pretty house, repainted and decorated at his own expense. So he sought for dignified words of reprimand: 'You would do better to keep quiet, Monsieur F�rou. The shame belongs to those who can't even succeed sufficiently to lead respectable lives.'

Irritated by this rejoinder, which smacked of the low standard of morality that brought him so much suffering, F�rou was about to reply when his anger was diverted by the sight of Jauffre.

'Ah! colleague,' said he, 'so it's you who carry their banner of falsehood and imbecility! That's a fine action for an educator of the lowly and humble ones of our democracy! You know very well that the priest's gain is the schoolmaster's loss.'

Jauffre, like a man who had an income of his own, and who, moreover, was well pleased with what he had done, replied with compassionate yet crushing contempt: 'Before judging others, my poor comrade, you would do well to provide your daughters with shifts to hide their nakedness!'

At this F�rou lost all self-control. With his unkempt hair bristling on his head, and a savage gleam in his wild eyes, he waved his long arms and cried: 'You gang of bigots! you pack of Jesuits! Carry your bullock's heart about, worship it, eat it raw, and become, if you can, even more bestial and imbecile than you are already!'

A crowd gathered around the blasphemer, hoots and threats arose, and things would have turned out badly for him if Saleur, like a prudent Mayor, alarmed for the good name of his commune, had not extricated him from the hostile throng and led him away by the arm.

On the morrow the incident was greatly exaggerated; on all sides people talked of execrable sacrilege. Indeed, Le Petit Beaumontais related that the schoolmaster of Le Moreux had spat on the national flag of the Sacred Heart at the very moment when worthy Abb� Cognasse was blessing that divine emblem of repentant and rescued France. And in its ensuing number it announced that the revocation of schoolmaster F�rou was a certainty. If that were so, the consequences would be serious, for as F�rou had not completed his term of ten years' duty as a teacher he would have to perform some years' military service. And, again, while he was in barracks, what would become of his wife and daughters, those woeful creatures for whom he was already unable to provide? He gone, would they not utterly starve to death?

When Marc heard of what had happened he went to see Salvan at Beaumont. This time the newspaper's information was correct, the revocation of F�rou was about to be signed, Le Barazer was resolved on it. And as Marc nevertheless begged his old friend to attempt some intervention, the other sadly refused to do so.

'No, no, it would be useless,' he said; 'I should simply encounter inflexible determination. Le Barazer cannot act otherwise; at least, such is his conviction. Opportunist as he is, he finds in that course a means of ridding himself of the other difficulties of the present time.... And you must not complain too much; for if his severity falls on F�rou it is in order that he may spare you.'

At this Marc burst into protest, saying how much he was upset and grieved by such a d�nouement.

'But you are not responsible, my dear fellow,' Salvan replied. 'He is casting that prey to the clericals because they require one, and because he thus hopes to save a good workman like yourself. It is a very distingu�e solution, as somebody said to me yesterday.... Ah! how many tears and how much blood must necessarily flow for the slightest progress to be accomplished, how many poor corpses must fill up the ditches in order that the heroes may pass on!'

Salvan's forecast was fulfilled to the very letter. Two days afterwards F�rou was dismissed, and, rather than resign himself to military service, he fled to Belgium, full of exasperation at the thought that justice should be denied him. He hoped to find some petty situation at Brussels, which would enable him to send for his wife and children, and make himself a new home abroad. He even ended by declaring that he felt relieved at having escaped from the university galleys, and that he now breathed freely, like a man who was at last at liberty to think and act as he listed.

Meantime his wife installed herself with her three little girls in two small, sordid rooms at Maillebois, where, with all bravery, she at once began to ply her needle as a seamstress, though she found herself unable to earn enough for daily bread. Marc visited her and helped her as far as he could, feeling quite heartbroken at the sight of her pitiable wretchedness. And a remorseful feeling clung to him, for the affair of the crucifix appeared to be forgotten amid the keen emotion roused by the sacrilege of Jonville and the revocation which had followed it. Le Petit Beaumontais triumphed noisily, and the Count de Sangleb�uf promenaded the town with victorious airs as if his friends, the Brothers, the Capuchins, and the Jesuits, had now become the absolute masters of the department. And then life followed its course, pending the time when the struggle would begin again, on another field.

One Sunday Marc was surprised to see his wife come home carrying a Mass-book. 'What! have you been to church?' he asked her.

'Yes,' she answered,' I have just taken the Communion.' He looked at her, turning pale the while, penetrated by a sudden chill, a quiver, which he strove to hide. 'You do that now, and you did not tell me of it?' said he.

On her side she feigned astonishment, though, according to her wont, she remained very calm and gentle: 'Tell you of it—why?' she asked. 'It is a matter of conscience. I leave you free to act according to your views, so I suppose I may act according to mine.'

'No doubt; all the same, for the sake of a good understanding between us, I should have liked to have known.'

'Well, you know now. I do not hide it, as you may see. But we shall, none the less, remain good friends, I hope.'

She added nothing more, and he lacked the strength to tell her of all that he felt seething within him, to provoke the explanation which he knew to be imperative. But the day remained heavy with silence. This time some connecting link had certainly snapped and sundered them.