Chapter 3

Ten more years went by, and love which had united so many couples, victorious and fruitful love, brought each household a florescence of children, a new growth going towards the future. At each fresh generation a little more truth, justice, and peace would spread and reign throughout the world.

Luc, who was already sixty-five years old, evinced, with increasing age, a livelier, a keener affection for children. Now that he saw his long-dreamt-of city in being, his mind went out to the rising generations. To them he gave all his time with the thought that the future rested with them. Ripe men, who have long lived amidst certain beliefs and habits, and who perchance are chained to the past by atavism, cannot be altered; whereas children may be influenced, freed from false ideas, helped to grow and progress, in accordance with the natural inclination towards evolution which is within them.

Thus, during the visits which on two mornings every week Luc continued to pay to his work, he devoted most of his attention and time to the schools and the cr�ches where the very little ones were kept. He began by inspecting them before proceeding to the workshops and the stores, and as he changed his visiting days every week, he generally took all the turbulent young people by surprise.

One Tuesday, a delightful morning in spring, he set out for the schools at about eight o'clock. The sunrays were scattering golden rain amidst the young greenery, and as Luc walked slowly down one of the avenues past the house where the Boisgelins resided, he heard a well-loved voice calling him. It was that of Suzanne, who, having seen him passing, had come to the garden-gate. 'Oh! pray come in for a moment, my friend,' said she. 'The poor man has another attack, and I feel very anxious.'

She was speaking of Boisgelin, her husband. As his idleness made him feel ill at ease in that busy hive, he had at one time tried to work, and Luc, at Suzanne's request, had given him a kind of inspectorship at the general stores. But the man who has never done anything, who has been an idler from birth, lacks will-power, and can no longer bend to rule or method. Thus Boisgelin soon found that he was incapable of following any continuous occupation. His mind fled, his limbs ceased to obey him, he became sleepy, overwhelmed. He suffered from his impotence and gradually relapsed into the emptiness of his former life, a succession of idle days, all spent in the most futile fashion. As there was no longer any round of pleasure and luxury to daze him he sank into increasing boredom, from which he could not be roused. He was spending his last years in a state of stupor, like a man who had fallen from another planet, amazed at the unexpected, extraordinary things which took place around him.

'Does he have any violent fits?' Luc inquired of Suzanne.

'Oh, no!' she replied. 'He simply remains very sombre and suspicious; but my anxiety comes from his insane fancies having taken hold of him again.'

It seemed indeed that Boisgelin's mind had been weakened by the idle life he led in that city of activity and work. From dawn till dusk he was to be seen wandering, like a pale, scared phantom, about the bustling streets, the buzzing schools, and the resounding workshops. He alone did nothing, whereas all the others busied themselves, overflowing with the delight and health which come from action. And, by degrees, as he found that he himself was the only one who did not work amidst that nation of workers, the insane idea seized upon him that he was the king, the master, and that this nation was a nation of slaves, working solely for his benefit, amassing incalculable wealth, which he would dispose of as he pleased for his sole enjoyment. Although olden society was crumbling to pieces, the capitalist idea had survived in him, and he remained the mad capitalist, the god-capitalist, who, possessing all the capital of the earth, had made all other men his slaves, the wretched artisans of his own egotistical happiness.

Luc found Boisgelin on the threshold of the house, dressed with all the care that he still evinced as regards his personal appearance. Even at seventy years of age he remained a vain-looking coxcomb, always well groomed, freshly shaved, and wearing that distinctive mark of conceit, a single eyeglass. His wavering glance and weak mouth alone revealed the collapse of his mind. At that moment he was about to go out, and a light cane was in his hand, and a shiny hat was tilted over his ear.

'What, already up! Already out and about!' exclaimed Luc, affecting a good-natured manner.

'Oh, it's necessary, my dear fellow,' replied Boisgelin, after giving him a suspicious glance. 'Everybody deceives me. How can I sleep in peace with all those millions which my money brings me in, and which this nation of workmen earns for me every day? I am obliged to see to things, for otherwise there would be a leakage of hundreds of thousands of francs every hour.'

Suzanne made a sign of despair, then addressing Luc she said: 'I was advising him not to go out to-day. What is the use of worrying like that.'

But her husband silenced her: 'It isn't merely to-day's money that worries me, there are all the sums piled up already—those milliards which fresh millions increase every evening. I quite lose myself among them; I no longer know how to live in the midst of such a colossal fortune. It is necessary that I should invest it, manage it, watch over it, in order to save myself from being robbed—is that not so? And, oh! it's hard work, terribly hard work, and makes me absolutely wretched—more wretched even than the poor who have neither fire nor bread.'

His voice had begun to tremble dolorously, and big tears rolled down his cheeks. He looked a pitiable object, and, although he generally annoyed Luc, who regarded him as an anomaly in that industrious city, the other was now stirred to the depths of his heart. 'Oh!' said he, 'you can at least take a day's rest. I'm of your wife's opinion. If I were you I shouldn't go out to-day, I should stop in my garden and watch my flowers bloom.'

But Boisgelin again scrutinised him and, as if yielding to a desire to confide in him, as in a safe friend, resumed: 'No, no, it is indispensable that I should go out. What bothers me even more than exercising supervision over my men and my fortune, is that I don't even know where to put my money. Just think of it! there are milliards and milliards! They end by becoming an encumbrance—no rooms are built big enough to hold them. And so it has occurred to me to have a look round and try to find some pit which might be deep enough. Only, don't say a word of it; nobody ought even to suspect it.'

Then as Luc, shuddering and terrified, turned towards Suzanne, who was very pale, and scarce able to restrain her tears, Boisgelin profited by the opportunity to slip out of the garden and go off. He could still walk rapidly, and, turning down the sunlit avenue, he speedily disappeared. Luc's first impulse was to run after him and bring him back by force.

'I assure you, my friend,' he said to Suzanne, 'that you act wrongly in letting him wander about; I can never meet him prowling around the schools or through the workshops and stores without fearing some disaster.'

However, Suzanne strove to reassure him. 'He is inoffensive, I am sure of it,' she said. 'True, I sometimes tremble for him, for he becomes so gloomy beneath the burden of all that imaginary money of his that a sudden impulse to have done with it all is to be feared. But how can I shut him up? He is only happy out of doors, and to place him in confinement would be useless cruelty, especially as he never even speaks to anybody, but remains as wild and as timid as a truant schoolboy.'

Then the tears, which she had been restraining, flowed forth. 'Ah! the unhappy man, he has caused me much suffering; but never before did I feel so grieved.'

On learning that Luc was going to the schools Suzanne resolved to accompany him. She also had aged; she was sixty-eight already. But she had remained healthy and active, ever desirous of showing her interest in others, and helping on good work. And since she had been living at La Cr�cherie, and had had nothing more to do for her son Paul, who was now married and the father of several children, she had created a larger family for herself by becoming a teacher of solfeggio and singing for some of the youngest pupils in the schools. This helped her to live happily. It delighted her to arouse the musical instinct in those little children. She herself was a good musician, but after all her ambition was not so much to impart exceptional science to them, as to render their singing natural, like that of the warblers of the woods. And she had obtained marvellous results—there was all the sonorous gaiety of an aviary in her class, and the young ones who left her hands afterwards filled the other classes, the workshops, and indeed the whole town, with perpetual mirthful melody.

'But you don't give your lesson to-day, do you?' Luc inquired.

'No, I only want to profit by the play-hour to make my little cherubs rehearse a chorus. But there are also some matters for me to consider with S�urette and Josine.'

The three women had become great, and indeed inseparable, friends. S�urette had retained the management of the central cr�che, where she watched over the very little ones—the children still in their cradles and those who could scarcely walk. As for Josine, she directed the needlework and household lessons, turning all the girls who passed through the schools into good wives and mothers, well able to manage their homes. In addition, the three friends formed together a kind of council which looked into all important questions concerning women in the new city.

Luc and Suzanne, following the avenue, at last reached the large square where the common-house arose, surrounded by green lawns decked with shrubs and flower-beds. The building was not the modest pile of earlier years; in its stead there had been erected a perfect palace, with a long polychromatic fa�ade, in which decorated stoneware and painted fa�ence were blended with ironwork. In the large halls erected for meetings, theatrical performances, spectacular displays, and games, the people found themselves at their ease, at home as it were. They frequently fraternised at the festivities which were interspersed among the days of work. If the little houses, where each lived as he listed, were modest ones, the common-house, on the contrary, displayed dazzling luxury and beauty, such as was appropriate for the sovereign abode of the people-king. The common-house even tended to become a town in the town, so frequently was it enlarged in accordance with increasing needs. Other buildings, too, arose behind it—libraries, laboratories, and lecture-halls, which facilitated free study, research, experiment, and the diffusion of the acquired truths. There were also courts and covered buildings for athletic exercises, without mentioning some admirable free baths, flooded with the fresh and pure water captured on the slopes of the Bleuse Mountains, that water to whose inexhaustible abundance the city owed its cleanliness, health, and gaiety. But the schools especially had become a little world by themselves, occupying a number of buildings near the common-house, for several thousand children now studied in them. To avoid all unhealthy crowding numerous divisions had been arranged, each occupying its own pavilions, whose large bay windows overlooked spacious gardens. Thus the whole formed, as it were, a city of childhood and youth, in which one found children of all ages, from infants still in their cradles to big lads and lassies who were completing their apprenticeships after passing through the five classes in which education proper was imparted to them.

'Oh!' said Luc, with his kindly smile, 'I always begin at the beginning; I always go first to see those little friends of mine who are still being suckled.'

'Well, of course,' replied Suzanne, smiling also. 'I will go in with you.'

In the first pavilion on the right-hand, amidst a garden planted with roses, S�urette reigned over a hundred cradles and as many rolling-chairs. She also watched over some of the adjacent pavilions, but she invariably returned to this one, which sheltered three of Luc's granddaughters and one of his grandsons, of whom she was very fond. Luc and Josine, knowing how the city benefited by the rearing of the children together, had set an example in this respect, desiring that their own grandchildren should be brought up with those of others.

As it happened, Josine was in the pavilion with S�urette that morning. The former was now fifty-eight, and the latter sixty-five years of age. But Josine retained her supple gracefulness and fair delicacy beneath her beautiful hair, whose golden hue had simply paled; whilst S�urette, as often happens with plain, thin, dark women, did not appear to age, but seemed to acquire with advancing years a particular charm, derived from her active kindliness and persistent youth. Suzanne, now sixty-eight, was the elder of both of them; and all three surrounded Luc like a trio of faithful hearts, one the loving wife and the others devoted friends.

When Luc went in with Suzanne, Josine was holding on her knees a little boy scarcely two years old, whose right hand S�urette was examining.

'Why, what is the matter with my little Olivier?' asked Luc, already feeling anxious. 'Has he hurt himself?'

The little fellow was his last-born grandson, Olivier Froment, the child of his eldest son Hilaire, and of Colette, the daughter of Nanet and Nise.

'Oh!' replied S�urette, 'it is merely a splinter which must have come from the table of his chair. There, it's out now!'

The boy had raised a slight cry of pain and then had begun to laugh again; while a little girl, a four-year-old, who ran about in all freedom, hastened up with open arms as if to take hold of him and carry him off.

'Will you let him be, Mariette?' exclaimed Josine, full of alarm. 'One must not turn one's little brother into a doll.'

Mariette protested, declaring that she would be very good. And Josine, like a kind grandmother, already calmed, glanced at Luc, and the pair of them smiled, well pleased to see all those young folk who had sprung from their love around them. However, Suzanne was bringing them two other fair-headed little granddaughters, H�l�ne and Berthe, who were twins, in their fourth year. Their mother was Pauline, Luc's second daughter, now the wife of Andr� Jollivet, who had been brought up by his grandfather Judge Gaume, after the captain's tragical death and Lucile's disappearance. Of their five children, Luc and Josine had already married three, Hilaire, Th�r�se, and Pauline, whilst the two others, Charles and Jules, were as yet merely 'engaged.'

'And these darlings—you were forgetting them,' said Suzanne gaily.

H�l�ne and Berthe, the twins, threw their arms around the neck of their grandfather, of whom they were extremely fond; Mariette also tried to climb upon his knees, whilst little Olivier thrust out his hands, which no longer hurt him, and frantically implored grandpapa to take him on his shoulders. Luc, half stifled by caresses, began to jest:

'That's it, my friend, you have now only to fetch Maurice, your nightingale as you call him. Then there would be five of them to devour me. Good heavens! what shall I do when there are dozens?'

Then, setting the twins and Mariette on the floor, he took hold of Olivier and threw him up into the air, at which the child raised cries of rapturous delight.

'Come, be reasonable, all of you,' Luc resumed when he had set the boy on his chair again, 'one can't be always playing, you know; I must attend to the others.'

Guided by S�urette and followed by Josine and Suzanne, he next went round the rooms. Those nurseries of the little folk were very charming with their white walls, their white cradles, their babes in white, a universal whiteness which seemed so gay in the sunshine which streamed through the lofty windows. Here also there was an abundance of water—one could feel its crystalline freshness, hear its murmur, as if indeed clear streams were flowing through the place, ensuring all the extreme cleanliness which was apparent on every side. Cries occasionally came from the cradles, but for the most part one only heard the pretty prattle, the silvery laughter of those who could already walk. Amongst them there was yet another little community, a silent community of toys, dolls, jumping-jacks, horses, and carts, all leading a na�ve and comical existence. And these were the property of one and all, of both the boys and the girls who mingled like members of one sole family, growing up together from their cradles, and destined hereafter to live side by side, now as brothers and sisters, now as husbands and wives.

This practice of bringing up the children of both sexes together had already yielded good results. Among the young married couples Suzanne noticed a happy peacefulness, a closer blending of intelligence and sentiment, something resembling fraternity in love. And in the schools she observed that the presence of the sexes side by side aroused a new spirit of emulation, imparting gentleness to the boys, decision to the girls, and preparing both for a more perfect intermingling of natures, in such wise that they would become one joint spirit at the family hearth. Nothing of that which some had feared had taken place; on the contrary the moral level was higher than formerly, and it was wonderful to see those lads and girls seek the studies which might prove most useful to them, in accordance with the liberty which was granted to each pupil to work out his or her future in conformity with individual taste.

'They are virtually betrothed in their cradles,' said Suzanne jestingly, 'and divorce is done away with, for they know one another too well to select either wife or husband lightly. But come, my dear Luc, playtime has begun and I want you to hear my pupils sing.'

S�urette remained with her little folk, for it was also the time when some of them took their baths, and Josine for her part had to go into her needlework ward, where several of the little girls preferred to spend their play-hour in learning to make dresses for their dolls. Thus Luc alone followed Suzanne down the covered gallery into which opened the five class-rooms.

It had long since been necessary to subdivide the classes, provide more spacious buildings, and even enlarge the dependencies, the gymnasiums, the apprenticeship workshops, and the gardens into which the children were turned in all liberty every two hours. After a few trials a definite system of education had been arrived at, and this system, which rendered study attractive by leaving the pupil all his personality, and only requiring of him attention to such lessons as he preferred, as he freely chose, yielded admirable results, providing the city each year with a new generation that tended more and more towards truth and justice. This was, indeed, the only good way to hasten the future, to create such men as might be entrusted with the realisation of to-morrow, free from all lying dogmas, reared amidst the necessary realities of life, and won over to proven scientific facts. And now that the new system worked so well nothing seemed more logical or more profitable than to abstain from bending a whole class beneath the rod of some master who would have tried to impose his personal views upon some fifty pupils of varying disposition and sensibility. It seemed indeed quite natural that one should simply awaken a desire to learn among those pupils, then direct them on their journey of discovery, and favour the individual faculties which each might display. The five classes had thus become experimental grounds, where the children gradually explored the field of human knowledge, not to devour that knowledge gluttonously without digesting any of it, but to awaken individual intellect, assimilate knowledge in accordance with personal comprehension, and in particular make sure of one's specialities.

Luc and Suzanne had to wait another moment for the school work to cease. From the covered gallery they were able to glance into the large class-rooms, where each pupil had his or her little table and chair. Long tables and forms had been discarded, and the new system made the pupil feel as if he were virtually his own master. But how gay was the sight of all these lads and girls mingled together promiscuously! And with what deep attention they listened to the professor who went from one to another, teaching in a conversational manner, and at times even provoking contradiction. As there were no longer any punishments or prizes the children set their budding desire for glory in competing together as to who could best show that he or she had understood some knotty point. It often happened that the professor ceased speaking to listen to those whom he guessed to be full of the subject, and the lesson then acquired all the interest of a discussion. Indeed one of the chief objects that the masters had in view was to put life into the studies, to draw the pupils from inanimate books, to make them cognisant of living things, and impart to them the passion of ideas. And pleasure was born of it all, the pleasure of learning and knowing; and through the five classes was spread the ensemble of human knowledge, the real stirring drama of the world, which each of us ought to know, if he wishes to take part in it and find happiness in its midst.

But a joyous clamour arose, playtime had come round. Every two hours the gardens were invaded by a rush of boys and girls, fraternising together. A sturdy, good-looking lad, some nine years old, ran up and flung himself in Luc's arms, exclaiming: 'Good morning, grandfather.'

This was Maurice, the son of Th�r�se Froment, who had married Raymond Morfain.

'Ah!' said Suzanne gaily, 'here's my nightingale! Come, children, shall we repeat our pretty chorus on that lawn between those big chestnut trees?'

Quite a band already surrounded her. Among a score of others there were two boys and a girl whom Luc kissed. Of the former one was Ludovic Boisgelin, a lad eleven years old, the son of Paul Boisgelin and Antoinette Bonnaire, whose marriage had first announced the fusion of the classes. Then there was F�licien Bonnaire, now fourteen, the son of S�verin Bonnaire and L�onie Gourier, the daughter of Achille and Ma-Bleue, whose love had flowered among the wild perfumed rocks of the Bleuse Mountains. And the girl was Germaine Yvonnot, a granddaughter of Auguste Laboque and Marthe Bourron. A handsome, dark-haired laughing girl she was, and in her one found blended the blood of workman, peasant, and petty trader, who had so long warred one against the other. It amused Luc to unravel the intricate skeins of those alliances, those frequent crossings of the race; and he was skilful in identifying the young faces, whose endless increase enraptured him.

But Suzanne spoke: 'You shall hear them,' she said; 'it is a hymn to the rising sun, a salute on the part of childhood to the planet which will ripen the crops.'

Some fifty children assembled together on the lawn amidst the chestnut trees. And the chant arose, very fresh, pure, and gay. There was no great musical science in it. It was merely a series of couplets, sung by a girl and a boy alternately, and emphasised by choral repetition. But it was so lively, so expressive of na�ve faith in the planet of light and kindliness, that it possessed a stirring charm as sung by those young and somewhat shrill voices. For his part Maurice Morfain, the little boy who replied to Germaine Yvonnot, the girl, possessed, even as Suzanne had said, an angel voice of crystalline lightness, rising to the most delightful, high-toned, flute-like notes. And the chorus-singing suggested the warbling and chirruping of birds in freedom on the branches. Nothing could have been more amusing.

Luc laughed, like a well-pleased grandpapa, and Maurice, full of pride, again rushed into his arms.

'Why, it's true, my lad,' said Luc, 'you sing like a little nightingale! And do you know that is very nice, because in life, you see, you will be able to sing in your hours of worry, and your songs will bring back your courage. One ought never to weep, one ought always to sing.'

'That is what I tell them!' exclaimed Suzanne. Everybody ought to sing, and I teach them in order that they may sing here, and in studying, and in their workshops, and afterwards throughout their lives. The nation that sings is a nation of health and gaiety.'

She displayed no severity nor vanity in the lessons which she gave in this fashion amidst the garden greenery. Her only ambition was to open those young souls to the mirth of fraternal song and the clear beauty of harmony. As she expressed it, whenever the day of universal justice and peace should dawn, the whole happy city would sing beneath the sun.

'Come, my little friends,' she exclaimed, 'once again, and carefully, in time. There is no occasion to hurry.'

Once again the chant arose, but towards the finish of it the young vocalists were disturbed. A man appeared amidst some shrubbery behind the chestnut trees—a man who furtively turned round as if to hide himself. Luc, however, perceived that it was Boisgelin, and was greatly surprised by the maniac's strange behaviour; for he stooped and explored the grass as if seeking some hiding-place, some secret cavity. At last Luc understood the meaning of it. The poor fellow was looking for some nook where he might store away his incalculable wealth in order that it might not be stolen from him. He was often met behaving in this wild way, trembling with fear, at a loss where he might bury all that surplus fortune, the weight of which bowed him down. Luc shuddered with pity at the sight, and became yet more concerned when he perceived that the children were alarmed by the apparition, even like a party of gay chaffinches put to flight by the wild fluttering of some night-bird.

However, Suzanne, who had turned somewhat pale, repeated in a louder voice: 'Keep time, keep time, my dears! Bring out the last bar with all your fervour!'

Haggard and suspicious, Boisgelin had disappeared, like a black shadow vanishing from amidst the flowering shrubs. And as soon as the children, recovering their composure, had saluted the sovereign sun with a last joyful cry, Luc and Suzanne complimented them on their efforts and dismissed them to their play. Then they walked together towards the apprenticeship workshops on the other side of the garden.

'Did you see him?' Suzanne asked in a low voice, after a moment's silence. 'Ah! the unhappy man, how anxious he makes me!' But as Luc thereupon expressed his regret that he had been unable to follow Boisgelin and take him home again, she once more protested: 'Oh! he would not have followed you; you would have had to struggle with him, and there would have been quite a scandal. My only fear, I repeat it to you, is that he may be found some day in a pit with his head broken.'

They relapsed into silence, for they were now reaching the workshops. A good many pupils spent a part of their playtime there, planing wood, filing iron, sewing or embroidering, whilst others who reigned over a neighbouring strip of ground busied themselves with digging, sowing, and weeding. And now Luc and Suzanne again met Josine, standing in a large room where sewing, knitting, and weaving machines, placed side by side, were worked sometimes by girls and sometimes by boys. Here again several of the children were singing, and a joyous spirit of emulation seemed to animate the workshop.

'Do you hear them?' exclaimed Suzanne, whose gaiety had returned. 'They will always sing, those warblers of mine.'

Josine was explaining to a big girl of sixteen, named Cl�mentine Bourron, the manner in which she ought to manage a sewing-machine in order to do certain embroidery, whilst another pupil, a girl of nine, Aline Boisgelin by name, was waiting to be shown how she ought to turn down a seam. Cl�mentine was the daughter of S�bastien Bourron and Agathe Fauchard, her grandfather on her mother's side being Fauchard, the old drawer of the Abyss, and on her father's Bourron the puddler. Aline, who was a younger sister of Ludovic, the son of Paul Boisgelin and Antoinette Bonnaire, laughed affectionately when she perceived her grandmother, Suzanne, who was very fond of her.

'Oh, grandmamma!' said she, 'I can't turn my seams down very well as yet, but I sew them very straight—don't I, friend Josine?'

Suzanne kissed her, then watched Josine, who turned down a seam to serve as a pattern for the child. Luc himself took an interest in these little matters, aware as he was that everything has its importance, that happy life depends upon the happy employment of one's hours. Then, as S�urette came up, at the moment when he was about to quit Josine and Suzanne in order to repair to the works, he found himself for a moment in the flower garden with the three women, those three loving and devoted hearts that helped him so powerfully to bring about the fulfilment of his dream of goodness and happiness. They surrounded him like symbols of the affectionate solidarity, the universal love which he wished to disseminate among mankind. Taking each other by the hand they stood there smiling at him, old no doubt, with their white hair, but still beautiful, with the wondrous beauty of kindliness. And when, after discussing some details of organisation with them, Luc departed, going towards the works, their loving eyes long followed his footsteps.

The factory halls and workshops, which were now much more extensive than formerly, were full of the healthy gaiety which comes from an abundance of sunshine and air. On all sides fresh water washed the cement pavement, carrying off the slightest particles of dust in such wise that the abode of work, once so grimy, muddy, and pestilential, now shone with cleanliness. Most of the work, too, was now performed by machines which stood around in serried array, like an army of docile, indefatigable artisans, ever ready for the effort required of them. If their metal arms wore out they simply had to be replaced. They themselves did not know what pain was, and they had in part suppressed human pain. They, too, were friendly machines, not the machines of the earlier days, the competitors which aggravated the workman's want by producing a fall in wages, but liberating machines, universal tools toiling for man whilst man rested. Around those sturdy workers, propelled by electricity, there were only so many drivers and watchers, whose sole duties consisted in moving levers or switches, and in making sure that the mechanism acted properly. The working day did not exceed four hours, and a workman never spent more than two upon one task, being relieved at the expiration of his two hours by a mate, whilst he himself passed to some other form of work, industrial art, agriculture, or public function. Again, the general employment of electric power had virtually done away with the uproar with which the workshops had once resounded, and now they were enlivened by the songs of the workmen, the vocal mirth which the latter had brought from their schools like a florescence of harmony embellishing their whole lives. And the singing of those men around that silent machinery, at once so powerful and so easy to manage, proclaimed the delight of just, glorious, and all-saving work.

As Luc passed through the hall containing the puddling furnaces, he paused for a moment to exchange a few friendly words with a strong young man of twenty or thereabouts, who managed one of those furnaces without any need of assistance.

'Well, Adolphe, are things going on satisfactorily, are you satisfied?' Luc inquired.

'Oh! certainly they are! I've just completed my two hours, and the "bloom" is just fit for removal.'

Adolphe was a son of Auguste Laboque and Marthe Bourron. Unlike his maternal grandfather, Bourron the puddler, who had now retired, he did not have to perform the terrible task of stirring the ball of fusing metal with a long bar amidst all the flaring of the fire. The stirring was now performed by mechanical means, and, indeed, an ingenious contrivance brought the dazzling ball out of the furnace and placed it on the chariot which carried it to the helve hammer without the workman having to intervene.

'You shall see,' Adolphe gaily resumed, 'it's of first-rate quality, and the work's so easy.'

He lowered a lever, a door opened, and the ball, like some planet, setting the horizon aglow with its luminous trail, slid down to the chariot, whilst the young man continued smiling, without a drop of perspiration appearing on his brow, his limbs remaining nimble and supple, undeformed by excessive toil. The chariot had already started off to deposit its burden under the hammer, one of a new pattern, worked by electricity, and doing everything that had to be done by itself, without need of any smith to turn the lump over, now upon this side and now upon that. And the hammer also worked so easily and the sound it gave out was so clear and light that it became like a musical accompaniment to the mirth of the workmen.

'I must make haste,' said Adolphe again, after washing his hands. 'I have to finish a table in which I'm greatly interested, and I shall do a couple of hours in the carpenters' workshop.'

He was indeed a carpenter as well as a puddler, having learnt various callings, like all the young folk of his age, in order that he might not be brutified by clinging to some particular specialty. Varied in this manner, work became both delight and recreation.

'Well, amuse yourself!' cried Luc, sharing his delight.

'Yes, yes, thanks, Monsieur Luc. That's the right thing to say—good work, good amusement.'

One spot where Luc spent a few enjoyable minutes on the mornings when he visited the works was the hall where the crucible furnaces were installed. He there felt himself to be far indeed from the old hall at the Abyss, that hall with its glowing pits growling like volcanoes, whence the wretched workers, amidst a blaze of fire, had to lift at arm's length their hundred pounds' weight of fusing metal. Instead of the old-time grimy, filthy place, there was now a spacious gallery, having broad windows through which the sunshine streamed, and a pavement of large slabs between which opened batteries of symmetrically disposed furnaces. As electricity was employed to work them they remained cold, silent, clean, and bright. And here again mechanical appliances performed all the work, lowered the crucibles, lifted them all aglow, and emptied them into moulds under the eyes of the men directing them. Women were even employed in this department, attending to the distribution of the electric power, for it had been noticed that they displayed more care and precision than men in working the delicate appliances.

Luc walked up to a tall and good-looking girl of twenty, Laure Fauchard, daughter of Louis Fauchard and Julienne Dacheux, who, standing near one apparatus, was carefully directing the current towards one of the furnaces in accordance with the indications of a young workman, who on his side watched the progress of the fusion.

'Well, Laure, you are not tired, are you?' Luc asked her.

'Oh! no, Monsieur Luc, it amuses me. How can I get tired from merely turning this little switch?'

The young workman, Hippolyte Mitaine, who was now nearly three-and-twenty, had drawn near. He was the son of �variste Mitaine and Olympe Lenfant, and was reported to be betrothed to Laure Fauchard.

'Monsieur Luc,' said he, 'if you would like to see some billets cast we are ready.'

The machinery on being started quietly and easily removed the incandescent crucibles, and then emptied them into the moulds, which another mechanism brought forward in turn. In five minutes, whilst the young man and the girl looked on, the work was properly performed and the furnace was ready to receive yet another charge.

'There!' exclaimed Laure, laughing. 'When I think of all the terrible stories which my poor grandfather Fauchard used to tell me when I was a child I can hardly believe them. He hadn't got much of his wits left, and he related things about his old calling as a drawer that were fit to make one shudder. It was as if he had spent his life in the midst of a fire, with the flames licking his limbs. All the old folk think us very happy nowadays.'

Luc had become grave, and emotion moistened his eyes. 'Yes, yes,' said he, 'the grandfathers suffered a great deal. And that is why the grandchildren enjoy a better life. Work well, and love one another well, the lives of your sons and daughters will be better still.'

Then Luc resumed his round, and wherever he repaired throughout those spacious works he found the same healthy cleanliness, the same tuneful gaiety, the same easy and attractive work, thanks to the variety of the duties entrusted to the staff and the sovereign help of the machinery. The worker was no longer an overpowered beast of burden, held in contempt; with freedom he had recovered conscience and intelligence.

As Luc concluded his inspection in the hall where the rolling-machinery had its place, near the puddling furnaces, he again paused to say a few friendly words to a young man, about twenty-six years of age, who was just arriving.

'Yes, Monsieur Luc,' was the reply, 'I've come from Les Combettes, where I've been helping my father. There was some sowing to finish, so I did two hours at it over yonder. And now I mean to do another two hours here, for there is an urgent order for some rails.'

The young man was named Alexandre, and was a son of L�on Feuillat and Eug�nie Yvonnot. Gifted with a lively fancy, he amused himself after completing his regular four-hours' work by preparing ornamental designs for Lange the potter.

However, he had already set himself to his task, which was the superintendence of a train of rollers for the making of rails. Luc, who felt very happy, looked on in a kindly way. Since electrical force had been employed the terrible uproar of the machinery had ceased; one only heard the silvery ring of each rail as it spurted forth, following those which were cooling. 'Twas all the good and constant production of an epoch of peace, rails and yet more rails, in order that every frontier might be crossed, and that the nations, drawn closer and closer together, might become but one sole nation, spread over the surface of the earth, which was becoming a perfect network of roads. And in addition to the rails there were the great steel ships—not the hateful vessels of war, carrying devastation and death across the ocean, but vessels of solidarity and brotherliness, enabling continents to exchange their products, and helping on the increase of mankind's fortune to such a degree that prodigious abundance reigned everywhere. And there were also the bridges facilitating communication, and the girders and all the structural materials for the erection of the innumerable edifices which the reconciled communities needed for their public life, the common-houses, the libraries, the museums, the asylums for infancy and old age, the huge general stores and the granaries, all vast enough for the life and keep of the federated nations. And finally, there were the innumerable machines and appliances which upon all sides and in all forms of labour replaced the arms of men: those which tilled the soil, those which toiled in the workshops, those which travelled along the roads, athwart the waves and through the sky. And Luc rejoiced that all that iron and steel should have become pacific, that the metal of conquest which mankind had so long employed solely to make the swords and spears that it needed for its bloodthirsty struggles, which it had afterwards turned into the guns and shells of its latter days of carnage, should be used, now that peace was won, solely for the erection of its city of fraternity, justice, and happiness.

Before returning home that day Luc desired to give a last glance at the battery of electrical furnaces which had replaced Morfain's smeltery. The battery, as it happened, was then at work, amidst a blaze of sunshine which filled the glazed shed where it was placed. Every five minutes the mechanism charged the furnaces afresh, after the rolling way had carried off the ten pigs whose glow was dimmed by the bright light of the planet. And here again, watching over the electrical appliances, there were two girls each about twenty, one of them a charming blonde, Claudine, the daughter of Lucien Bonnaire and Louise Mazelle, and the other a superb brunette, C�line, the daughter of Ars�ne Lenfant and Eulalie Laboque. As it was needful that they should give all their attention to switching the current on and off, they were at first only able to smile at Luc. But a short rest ensued, and on perceiving a group of children who stood inquisitively on the threshold of the shed, they came forward.

'Good-day, my little Maurice! Good-day, my little Ludovic! Good-day, my little Aline! Are lessons over, since you have come to see us?'

It should be mentioned that the children by way of recreation, and in the idea that they would acquire some first notions of various forms of work, were allowed to run about the place in comparative freedom. Luc, well pleased at seeing his grandson Maurice again, made the whole party enter the shed. And he answered their numerous questions, and explained the mechanism of the furnaces, and even made the appliances work again by way of showing the children how it sufficed for Claudine or C�line to turn a little lever, in order to fuse the metal and enable it to flow forth in a dazzling stream.

But Maurice, with all the importance of a little man who, though only nine years old had already learnt a great many things, exclaimed 'Oh! I know, I've already seen it. Grandfather Morfain showed me everything one day. But tell me, grandfather Froment, is it true that there used to be furnaces as high as mountains, and that one had to burn one's face day and night in order to get anything out of them?'

The others all began to laugh at this, and it was Claudine who answered: 'Of course there were! Grandfather Bonnaire has often told me of it, and you, Maurice, ought to know the story, for your great-grandfather—the great Morfain as he is still called—was the last to wrestle with fire like a hero. He lived up yonder in a cavern in the rocks, and never came down to the town, but from one end of the year to the other watched over his gigantic furnace, the monster whose ruins one can still see on the mountain-side, like those of some storm-rent castle-keep of the ancient days.'

Maurice's eyes dilated with astonishment, and he listened with all the passionate interest of a child to whom some prodigious fairy-tale is being told. 'Oh! I know, I know! Grandfather Morfain told me all about his father and the furnace as high as a mountain. But, all the same, I thought he was inventing it just to amuse us, for he does invent stories when he wants to make us laugh. And so it's true?'

'Why yes, it's true!' Claudine continued. 'Up above there were workmen who loaded the furnace, by emptying into it truck-loads of ore and coal, and down below there were other workmen ever on the watch, ever nursing the monster so that it might not have an attack of indigestion which would have prevented the work from being properly performed.'

'And that lasted seven and eight years at a stretch,' said C�line, the other young woman; 'the monster remained alight all that time, always flaming like a crater, without it being possible for one to let it cool, for if it did cool, there was a great loss, it had to be broken open, and cleaned, and almost entirely rebuilt.'

Then Claudine resumed: 'So you see, my little Maurice, your great-grandfather Morfain had a vast deal of work to do, since he could hardly quit that fire for a moment during seven or eight years; besides which, every five hours, he had to clear the tap-hole with an iron bar, in order to release the smelted ore, which ran out like a perfect river of flames, hot enough to roast one, as if one were a duck on the spit.'

At this the hitherto stupefied children burst into loud laughter. Oh! the idea of it, a duck on the spit, Old Morfain roasting like a duck!

'Ah well!' said Ludovic Boisgelin, 'it can't have been very amusing to work in those days. It must have given one too much trouble.'

'Of course,' his sister Aline exclaimed, 'I'm glad that I was born after all that, for it's very amusing to work nowadays.'

Maurice, however, had become serious and thoughtful, turning over in his mind all the incredible things which had been told him. And by way of summing up everything, he ended by saying: 'All the same, grandfather's father must have been awfully strong, and if things go better nowadays it is perhaps because he had such a lot of trouble formerly.'

Luc, who hitherto had contented himself with smiling, was delighted by this remark. He caught up Maurice and kissed him on both cheeks. 'You are right, my boy,' said he. 'And in the same way, if you work with all your heart nowadays, your great-grandchildren will be yet happier than you are—even now, you see, one no longer roasts like a duck.'

By his orders the battery of electrical furnaces was started once more, Claudine and C�line turning the current on or off by a simple gesture. The children wished to direct the mechanism themselves, and how delightful did that easy work seem after the legend-like narrative of Morfain's hard toil—the toil, it seemed, of some pain-racked giant living in a world that had disappeared!

All at once, however, there came an apparition, and the children, perturbed by it, ran off. Then Luc again perceived Boisgelin, who this time stood at one of the doorways of the shed, watching the work in an angry, mistrustful way, like some master who is for ever afraid that his men may rob him. He was often to be seen in this fashion in one or another part of the works, distracted by the idea that the place was too vast to be properly inspected by him, and maddened more and more by the thought of all the millions that he must every day be losing through his inability to check the work of all those people who were earning milliards for him. They were too numerous, he was never able to see them all. He looked so haggard, so exhausted by his fruitless roaming through the workshops, that Luc, stirred by pity, this time wished to join him, calm him, and lead him gently home. But Boisgelin was on his guard, and springing back, ran off towards the large workshops.

His morning ramble over, Luc now returned home, and just as the daylight was waning in the afternoon, after glancing round the general stores, he went to spend an hour with the Jordans. In the little drawing-room overlooking the park he found S�urette chatting with schoolmaster Hermeline and Abb� Marle; whilst Jordan, stretched on a sofa and wrapped in a rug, remained thinking, according to his wont, with his eyes fixed upon the setting sun. Amiable Doctor Novarre had lately been carried off after an illness of a few hours, his only regret being that he would not behold the realisation of so many beautiful things in the possibility of which he had at the outset scarcely believed. Thus S�urette nowadays received but the schoolmaster and the priest, and these only called at long intervals, when yielding to their old habit of meeting at her house. Hermeline, now seventy years of age and retired, was ending his days in a state of growing bitterness and anger against all that passed before him. He had reached such a point in this respect that he reproached the old priest with lack of warmth. As a matter of fact Abb� Marle, who was five years older than the other, sought refuge in dolorous dignity, silence which became more and more haughty as he beheld his church becoming empty and his religion expiring.

As Luc entered and took a chair beside S�urette, who sat there silent, gentle, and patient, it so happened that the schoolmaster was again badgering the priest, like the sectarian and dictatorial republican that he still was. 'Come, come, abb�,' he said, 'since I fall in with your views you ought to help me. This is surely the end of the world. Children's passions, evil growths which we the educators were formerly appointed to crush, are nowadays cultivated, it seems. How is it possible for the State to have any disciplined citizens reared for its service when a free rein is given to anarchical individuality? If we, the men of method and sense, don't manage to save the Republic, it is surely lost!'

Since the day when he had thus begun to speak of saving the Republic from those whom he called the Socialists and the Anarchists, he had gone over to the side of reaction, joining the priest in his hatred of all who dared to free themselves otherwise than by his own narrow Jacobin formula.

And he went on yet more violently: 'I tell you, abb�, that your church will be swept away if you do not defend it! Your religion, no doubt, was never mine. But I have always admitted the necessity of a religion for the people; and Catholicism was certainly an admirable governing machine. So stir yourself! We are with you, and we will have an explanation afterwards, when we have re-conquered the lost ground together.'

At first Abb� Marle simply shook his head. As a rule nowadays he did not take the trouble to answer or get angry. At last he slowly said: 'I do the whole of my duty—I am at my altar every morning, even when my church is empty, and I implore God to perform a miracle. He will surely do so, if He deems it necessary.'

This brought the old schoolmaster's exasperation to a climax. 'Pooh! one must help oneself! It is cowardly to do nothing.'

S�urette, smiling and full of tolerance for those vanquished men, thereupon thought it necessary to intervene: 'If the good doctor was still here,' said she, 'he would beg you not to agree so well together, since your seeming agreement only makes your quarrel worse. You grieve me, my friends; I should have been so happy—not to convert you to our ideas, but to see you admit, by virtue of experience, a little of all the good which our ideas have effected in this region.'

They had both retained great deference for S�urette, and indeed their presence in that little drawing-room, beside the very hearth, so to say, of the new city, showed what ascendancy she still exercised over them. For her sake they even put up with the presence of Luc, their victorious adversary, though he, it should be admitted, discreetly avoided all appearance of triumphing over them. Thus, on this occasion, he refrained from intervening, however furiously Hermeline might deny all that he had created. After all, thought Luc, this was simply the last revolt of the principle of authority against the liberation of man both naturally and socially. On seeing the nations so near the point of escaping from civil as well as religious servitude, the once all-powerful State and the once all-powerful Church, which had voraciously contended for possession of them, now tried to come to an agreement, and league themselves together in order to reconquer the nations.

'Ah!' cried Hermeline again, 'if you own yourself beaten, abb�, it must be all over. In that case I can only keep silent as you do, and withdraw into my corner to die.'

The priest once more shook his head, preserving silence. But eventually, for the last time, he said: 'God cannot be beaten; it is for God Himself to act.'

The night was now slowly falling over the park, lengthening shadows were filling the little salon, and nobody spoke any further. Only a great quiver, coming from the melancholy past, swept through the room. Finally the schoolmaster rose and took his leave. Then, as the priest was about to do the same, S�urette wished to slip into his hand the sum which at each recurring visit she had been accustomed to give him for his poor. This time, however, he refused the alms which he had been accepting so regularly for more than forty years; and in a low voice he slowly said: 'No, thank you, mademoiselle; keep that money. I should not know what to do with it; there are no more poor!'

Ah! what words those were for Luc: 'No more poor!' His heart had leapt as he heard them. No more poor, no more starvelings in that town of Beauclair, which he had known so black, so wretched, peopled by such an accursed race of famished toilers! Would all the frightful sores which had come from the wage-system be healed then? would shame and crime soon disappear, even as want did? The reorganisation of work in accordance with justice had sufficed already to bring about a better apportionment of wealth. And thus, when work should on all sides become honour and health and joy, an entirely peaceful and a brotherly race would assuredly people the happy city.

Jordan, who still lay upon the sofa, wrapped in his rug, had hitherto remained motionless, his eyes fixed upon space, through which no doubt his mind was roaming. At last, Abb� Marle and Hermeline having departed, he woke up, and without taking his eyes off the sunset which he seemed to be watching with passionate interest, he said in a dreamy manner: 'Each time that I see the sun set I become dreadfully sad and anxious. Suppose it were not to come back, suppose it were never to rise again over the black and frost-bound earth, what a terrible death would then overtake all life! The sun is the father, the fructifier, without whom all germs would wither or rot. And it is in the sun that we must place our hope of relief and future happiness, for if it were not to help us life would some day dry up.'

Luc had begun to smile. He knew that Jordan, in spite of his great age—he was now nearly seventy-five—had for some years been studying the problem of how he might capture solar heat and store it in vast reservoirs in order to distribute it afterwards as the one, great, eternal, living force. A time would come when the coal in the mines would be exhausted, and where would one then find the necessary energy for the torrent of electricity which had become so needful for life? Thanks to his first discoveries, Jordan had succeeded in supplying an abundance of electrical force for next to nothing. But what a victory it would be if he should succeed in making the sun the universal motor—if he should be able to take from it direct the caloric power which was now found slumbering in coal—if he should manage to employ it as the one sole fructifier, the very father of immortal life! He had but a last discovery to effect, and then his work would be accomplished and he would be ready to die.

'Don't alarm yourself!' said Luc gaily, 'the sun will rise to-morrow and you will succeed at last in snatching the sacred fire from it.'

However, S�urette, whom the evening breeze now coming in cool gusts through the open window rendered somewhat anxious, stepped forward to ask her brother: 'Don't you feel cold? Wouldn't you like me to shut the window?'

He declined the offer with a motion of his hand, and all that he would allow was that she should wrap him round with the rug to his very chin. He now seemed to live solely by a miracle, solely because he wished to live, having adjourned death until the evening of his last day of work, the triumphant evening when, his task accomplished, he might at last sink into the good sleep of a loyal and contented worker. His sister surrounded him with greater precautions than ever; her extreme care prolonged his strength, and still gave him two hours of physical and intellectual energy each day—two hours which by force of method he put to wonderful use. And thus that poor, old, puny being, whom the slightest draught threatened with annihilation, was completing the conquest of the world simply because he was still a stubborn worker, one who did not throw his task aside.

'You will live to be a hundred years old!' said Luc, with an affectionate laugh.

At this Jordan likewise made merry. 'No doubt,' said he, 'if a hundred years prove necessary.'

Again deep silence fell in the little salon, full of such affectionate intimacy. It was delightful to see the warm twilight stealing slowly over the park, whose deep paths were gradually steeped in the gloom. Vague gleams still hovered just above the lawns, whilst the great trees faded away and became like light and quivering apparitions in the blue distance. And it was now the sweethearts' hour—the sweethearts to whom the park of La Cr�cherie remained open, and who therefore came thither in the twilight after their daily work. Nobody troubled about the roaming, shadowy couples, who, holding one another by the hand, gradually melted away and disappeared amidst the greenery. They were confided to the keeping of the friendly old oaks. Reliance was placed on the freedom to love that was granted them, for this would render them gentle and chaste, like future spouses whose embrace becomes an indissoluble tie if mutually desired. To love always one need only know why and how one loves. Those who choose one another, knowing and consenting, never part. And already, along the dim avenues, over the lawns where the shadows stretched, there came sauntering couples, who peopled, as with apparitions, the mysterious gloom amidst the quiver of delight which the fresh odours of spring brought from the earth.

As other couples arrived Luc recognised among them several of the lads and girls whom he had seen in the workshops that morning. Were not yonder shadowy forms, so close one to the other that they seemed carried by one and the same flight over the tips of the grass, those of Adolphe Laboque and Germaine Yvonnot? And those others, whose hair mingled, their heads resting one against the other, were they not Hippolyte Mitaine and Laure Fauchard? And those others too, whose arms were tightly clasped around each other's waist, were they not Alexandre Feuillat and Cl�mence Bourron? Yet softer emotion came to Luc's heart when he fancied that he recognised his son Charles with his arm around the dark-haired C�line Lenfant, and his son Jules leading away in his embrace the fair Claudine Bonnaire. Ah! the young folk, the messengers of the new springtide, the last to awaken to love, to feel kindling within them the glow of life which the generations transmit one to the other! As yet they knew but the chaste quiver which comes at the first whispered words, and the innocent caress, the clasp in which ignorant hearts seek one another, and the furtive kiss whose sweetness suffices to open the portals of heaven. But before long the sovereign flame would unite and blend them in order that yet other artisans of love might spring from them, other couples, who in years to come would repair to this same park to exchange the vows of budding affection. For there would ever be more and more happiness and more and more free passion tending to increase of harmony. Even now other couples, and others still, were arriving, the park was gradually becoming populous with all the sweethearts of the happy city. This was the exquisite evening after the good day of work, the gloaming spent amidst lawn and cover, shadowy like dreamland, steeped in mystery and perfume, with nought breaking upon the silence save light sounds of laughter and kisses.

All at once, however, a shadowy form stopped outside the salon. It was Suzanne, who had anxiously been seeking Luc. And on finding him there she told him how greatly she was worried by Boisgelin's prolonged absence, for he had not yet returned home. Never before had he lingered like this out of doors after nightfall.

'You were right,' she repeated; 'I did wrong in leaving him to his mad fancies. Ah! the unhappy man, the poor old child!'

Luc, who shared her fears, bade her go home again. 'He may return at any moment,' he said; 'it is best that you should be there. For my part I will have a look round and bring you tidings.'

He at once took two men with him and crossed the park, with the intention of beginning the search among the workshops. But he had scarcely taken three hundred steps, and was near the little lake, fringed with willows, quite a nook of paradise, when he halted on hearing a light cry of terror which came from an adjacent clump of greenery. From amidst that foliage there ran a pair of frightened lovers, who he fancied were his son Jules and the fair Claudine Bonnaire. 'What is the matter? What has alarmed you?' he called.

But they did not answer, they fled as beneath a blast of terror, like love birds whose caresses have been disturbed by some frightful encounter. And when Luc himself decided to enter the copse, he also gave vent to an exclamation of horror. For he had almost knocked against a body which hung from a branch there, blocking the narrow pathway. In the last gleam of light falling from the sky where the stars were now appearing Luc recognised the body as that of Boisgelin.

'Ah! the unhappy man, the poor old child!' he murmured, repeating Suzanne's words, and feeling quite upset by that horrible tragedy which would cause her such deep grief.

With the help of his companions he cut down the body and laid it on the ground. But it was already quite cold. The unhappy man must have hanged himself there early in the afternoon, after his desperate ramble through the busy works. Luc fancied that he could divine everything when at the foot of the tree he noticed a large hole which Boisgelin had apparently dug with his hands, a hole in which he had no doubt meant to bury the prodigious fortune which his people of workers earned for him, that fortune which he knew not how to manage or how to store away. And despairing, perchance, of his power to make a pit of sufficient size for so much wealth, he had ended by resolving to die there and thus rid himself of the horrible embarrassment in which he was placed by his ever-growing and crushing fortune. His day of wild roaming, his madness, his inability to live, idler that he was, in the new city of just work, had culminated in that tragic death, and he had hung there whilst the park, in the clasp of warm and nuptial night, was filled with the rustling of caresses and the whispering of loving vows.

In order to avoid frightening the shadowy couples gliding between the trees around him, Luc at once sent the two men to fetch a stretcher at La Cr�cherie, at the same time begging them to tell nobody of the lugubrious discovery. And when they had returned and laid the lifeless body between the little curtains of grey canvas, the mournful cort�ge set off along the blackest of the paths in order to escape observation. In this wise death, frightful death, passed along silently, steeped in shadows, through the delightful awakening of spring, now all a-quiver with new life. Lovers seemed to arise on all sides, springing up at the bends of each avenue, in the recesses of each clump of bushes. A perfume of flowers made the air quite balmy, hands sought hands, and lips met. Love was budding, a fresh wave was coming to increase humanity's broad stream, death was incessantly vanquished, to-morrow and to-morrow were ever sprouting in order that there might be yet more truth, more justice, more happiness in the world.

Suzanne stood waiting in a state of anguish, at the door of the house, her eyes gazing into the night. When she perceived the stretcher she understood, and gave vent to a low moan. And when Luc in a few words had acquainted her with the wretched end of the useless being now slumbering there, she was only able to repeat, as she thought of that empty, poisoned, and poisonous life which had brought her so much suffering: 'Ah, the unhappy man, the poor old child!'

Other catastrophes took place amidst the crumbling of the rotten society of the old days now fated to disappear. But the greatest stir of all was caused by one that occurred during the ensuing month—the collapse of the old church of Saint Vincent one bright sunshiny morning when Abb� Marle was at the altar celebrating mass solely for the sparrows which flew through the deserted nave.

The priest had long been aware that his church would some day fall upon him. It dated from the sixteenth century, and was in a very damaged condition, cracking upon all sides. The steeple had certainly been repaired some forty years previously, but from lack of funds it had been necessary to postpone all work on the roofing, whose beams, half eaten away, were already yielding. And since that time every application for a grant had been made in vain. The State, overburdened with debts, abandoned that church of a remote region. The town of Beauclair refused to contribute anything, Mayor Gourier having never been on the side of the priests. Thus Abb� Marle, reduced to his own resources, had been obliged to seek among the faithful the large sum which became more and more urgently required if the edifice was not to fall upon his shoulders. But in vain did he knock at the doors of wealthy parishioners, the faithful were dwindling away, their zeal was fast cooling. During the lifetime of the beautiful L�onore, the mayor's wife, whose extreme piety proved some compensation for her husband's atheism, the priest had found precious help in her. Subsequently, however, only Madame Mazelle had remained to him, and not only did her fervour decline, but she was in no wise of a generous disposition. In course of time worries respecting her fortune consumed her, and she came less and less frequently to Saint Vincent, in such wise that nobody was left to the priest save a few poor creatures who in their wretchedness clung obstinately to the hope of a better life. And finally when no poor remained, the church became quite empty, and the abb� lived there in solitude, amidst the abandonment in which mankind now at last left his religion of error and wretchedness.

The abb� then felt that a world was indeed expiring around him. His complaisance had been powerless to save the life of the lying, poisonous bourgeoisie which was devoured by its own iniquities. In vain had he cast the cloak of religion over its last agony; it had died amidst a final scandal. And in vain, too, had he sought a refuge in the strict letter of dogma, in order that he might concede nothing to the truths of science, which, he could realise, were mounting to the supreme and victorious assault by which the ancient edifice of Catholicism would be destroyed. Science, indeed, had at last effected its breach, dogma was finally swept away, and the Kingdom of God was about to be set, not in some fabulous paradise, but upon this very earth, in the name of triumphant justice. A new religion, the religion of man, at last truly conscious, free, and master of his destiny, was sweeping away the ancient mythologies, the forms of symbolism amidst which he had lost himself during the anguish of his long struggle against nature. After the temples of ancient idolatry, the Catholic churches in their turn had to disappear, now that a fraternal people set its certain happiness in the sole force of its living solidarity without need of any political system of punishments and rewards. Thus the priest, since confessional and holy table alike had been deserted, since the faithful had departed from his church, beheld each day when he celebrated mass there the cracks in the walls spreading, and the beams of the roofs yielding more and more. It was a constant crumbling, a gradual process of destruction and ruin, the slightest premonitory sounds of which he could detect. But since he had been unable to summon the builders even for the most urgent repairs, he must necessarily allow the work of death to follow its course and culminate in the natural end of things. Thus he simply waited and continued to say his mass, like a hero of faith, alone with his forsaken creed, whilst the roof cracked more and more above the altar.

A morning came when Abb� Marle perceived that another large stretch of the vaulting of the nave had split during the previous night. And although he now felt certain of the downfall which he had been anticipating for months past, he nevertheless came to celebrate his last mass, clad in his richest vestments. Very tall and broad-shouldered, with a nose like an eagle's beak, he still held himself firm and upright in spite of his advanced age. He dispensed with servers now, he came and went, spoke the sacramental words, and made the usual gestures, as if a great throng were pressing together before him, docile to his voice. But in the state of abandonment in which the church was left, only some broken chairs lay upon the flag-stones, suggesting the wretched-looking mouldy garden seats that are left forgetfully out of doors exposed to the rains of winter. Weeds grew round the columns, over which moss was spreading. All the winds of heaven streamed in through the broken windows, and the great doorway being half unhinged, remained partially open, allowing the animals of the neighbourhood to flock in. On that fine bright day, however, it was particularly the sunshine that poured into the edifice, like a conqueror, setting as it were a triumphal invasion of life amidst that tragic ruin where birds flew hither and thither, and where wild oats germinated even among the stone mantles of the old saints. Above the altar, however, there still reigned a great crucifix of painted and gilded wood, displaying a long, livid, pain-racked effigy, splashed with some blackish blood that dripped like tears.

Whilst Abb� Marle was reading the Gospel he heard a louder cracking, and some dust and some fragments of plaster fell upon the altar. Then, at the moment of the Offertory, the sinister rending began again, and it seemed as if the edifice were shaking before it fell. But the priest, collecting all the remaining strength of his faith together for the Elevation, prayed with his whole soul for the miracle for whose glorious, all-saving splendour he had so long been waiting. If it should so please God, the church would regain its vigorous youth, and be endowed with sturdy pillars upholding an indestructible nave. Masons were not necessary, the Almighty power would suffice, and a magnificent sanctuary would arise there, with chapels of gold, windows of purple, wood-work marvellously carved, and dazzling marble, whilst a multitude of the faithful on their knees would sing the hymn of Resurrection amidst the blaze of thousands of candles and the loud pealing of bells. But at the very moment when the priest, finishing his prayer, raised the chalice, it was not the miracle he asked for that came, it was annihilation. He stood there erect, with both arms raised in a superb gesture of heroic belief, and the vaulted roof was rent asunder as if by a bolt from heaven, and crashed downward in a whirlwind of fragments with a roar like that of thunder. The shaken steeple tottered and then in its turn fell, ripping the remainder of the roof open, and dragging down the rest of the sundered walls. And nought remained beneath the bright sun save a huge litter of stones and tiles, amidst which a fruitless search was made for Abb� Marle. He had disappeared as if the remnants of the shattered altar had consumed his flesh, drunk his blood. And in like way nothing was ever found of the great crucifix of painted and gilded wood. That also had been shattered to atoms, reduced to dust. Thus yet another religion was dead, the last priest saying his last mass had perished with the last of the churches.

For a few days old Hermeline, the retired schoolmaster, was seen prowling about the ruins, and talking aloud as old folk are wont to do when haunted by some fixed idea. His words could not be plainly distinguished, but he seemed to be still arguing and reproaching the abb� for having failed to obtain the needed miracle. Then, one morning, he was found dead in his bed. And later on, when the ruins of the church had been cleared away, a garden was planted there, with fine trees and shady walks, skirting sweet-smelling lawns. Lovers went thither on pleasant evenings, even as they went to the park of La Cr�cherie. The happy city was ever spreading, children were growing and becoming lovers in their turn, lovers whose kisses in the shade again sowed future harvests. After the gay day of work came love amidst the roses blooming upon every side. And in that delightful garden where slept the dust of a religion of wretchedness and death, one now beheld the growth of human joy, the overflowing florescence of life.