Work [Travail]

Judge Gaume and Abbé Marle were late in arriving that day at the Mazelles', but the latter could not refrain from explaining their position to the sub-prefect and the mayor. Ought they to resign themselves to their daughter's unreasonable whim?

'As you will certainly understand, Monsieur le Sous-Préfet,' said Mazelle in an anxious but pompous manner, 'apart from the grief which such a marriage would cause us, we have to consider the deplorable effect which it would have socially, and our heavy responsibility towards distinguished persons of our class. We really seem to be going towards some abyss.'

They were seated in the warm shade, perfumed by the climbing roses, at a table with gay-coloured napery, on which stood several dishes of little cakes; and Châtelard, still a well-groomed, fine-looking man in spite of his years, smiled in a discreetly ironical manner. 'We are already in the abyss, dear Monsieur Mazelle,' he replied. 'It would be very wrong of you to put yourself out about the Government, the authorities, or even fine society, for only a semblance of these things now exists. I am still sub-prefect and my friend Gourier is still mayor, no doubt. Only we are scarcely more than shadows, and there is no longer any real, substantial State behind us. And it is the same with the powerful and the wealthy, a little of whose power and wealth is carried off each succeeding day by the new organisation of work. So don't take the trouble to defend them, particularly as they themselves, yielding to vertigo, are now becoming active artisans of the revolution. Don't resist then, yield to the current!'

He was fond of that style of jesting, which terrified the last bourgeois of Beauclair. Moreover, it was an amiable and jocular way of telling the truth, for he indeed felt convinced that the old world was done for, and that a new one was springing from the ruins. Most serious events were taking place in Paris, the ancient edifice was falling stone by stone, giving place to a provisional structure, in which one could already plainly detect the outlines of the future city of justice and peace.

But the Mazelles had turned pale. Whilst the wife sank back in her armchair with her eyes fixed on the little cakes, the husband exclaimed: 'Really! do you think us threatened to such a point as that? I know very well that people think of reducing the interest on Rentes.'

'Rentes,' said Châtelard quietly, 'they will be suppressed before another twenty years have gone by; or, rather, some plan will be found for dispossessing the rentiers by degrees. A scheme to that effect is already being studied.'

Madame Mazelle heaved such a desperate sigh that one might have imagined she was giving up the ghost. 'Oh, I hope we shall be dead by then!' said she; 'I hope that we shan't have the grief of witnessing such infamy! But our poor daughter will suffer by it, and that is an additional reason for compelling her to make a good marriage.'

But Châtelard pitilessly went on: 'Why, good marriages are no longer possible, since the right of inheritance is about to disappear. That is virtually resolved upon. In future each married couple will have to work out its own happiness. And whether your daughter Louise marries a bourgeois' son or a workman's son, the capital of the newly-wedded pair will soon be identical—so much love, if they are lucky enough to love one another, and so much activity if they are intelligent enough not to be idlers.'

Deep silence fell, and one could hear the faint whirr of a warbler's wings, as it flew about among the roses.

'And so,' Mazelle, who was overwhelmed, ended by asking, 'that is the advice you give us, Monsieur le Sous-Préfet? According to you, we can accept that Lucien Bonnaire as our son-in-law, eh?'

'Oh, mon Dieu, yes! The world will none the less continue peacefully revolving. And as the two children are so fond of one another, it is at least certain that you will make them happy.'

Gourier had hitherto said nothing. He felt ill at ease at being called upon to decide such a question—he, whose son had gone off to live with Ma-Bleue, that wild girl of the rocks, whom he now received in his highly respectable middle-class home. At last an avowal of his embarrassment escaped him: 'That's true; the best thing after all is to marry them. When their parents don't marry them the young people take themselves off and get married as they fancy. Ah! in what times are we living!'

He raised his arms towards heaven, and Châtelard had to exercise all his influence to prevent him from falling into black melancholy. Gourier's old age—following on a somewhat dissolute life—was full of stupor; he constantly fell asleep, at table, in the midst of conversation, even whilst walking out of doors. With the resigned air of a once terrible employer of labour, whom facts had vanquished, he ended by saying: 'Well, what else can be expected? After us the deluge, as many of our class now say. We are done for.'

It was at this moment that Judge Gaume arrived, much behind his time. Nowadays his legs swelled, and it was only with difficulty that he could walk, helping himself along with a stick. He was nearly seventy, and was awaiting his pension, full of secret disgust for that human justice which he had administered during so many years, contenting himself the while with strictly applying the written law, like a priest who no longer believes, but is sustained solely by dogma. In his home, however, the drama of love and betrayal which had wrecked his life had pursued its course, stubbornly and pitilessly. The disaster, which had begun with the suicide of his wife, had been completed by his daughter Lucile, who had caused her husband, Captain Jollivet, to be killed in a murderous duel by one of her lovers, with whom she had afterwards eloped. The police were seeking her, and Gaume now lived alone with her one child, André, a delicate, affectionate youth of sixteen, over whom he watched with anxious affection. Sufficient misfortune had fallen, he felt; avenging destiny, punishing some old unknown crime, must go no further. Yet he still wondered to what good power, what future of true justice and faithful love he might guide that youth in order that his race might be renewed and at last win happiness.

On being questioned by Mazelle respecting the advisability of a marriage between Louise and Lucien Bonnaire, Judge Gaume immediately exclaimed: 'Marry them, marry them—particularly if they feel for one another such great love as to enter into contest with their parents and to pass over all obstacles. Love alone decides happiness.'

Then he regretted, like an avowal, that cry which the bitterness of his whole life had wrung from him, for he was intent on preserving during his last days his wonted mendacious rigidity of demeanour, his austerity and coldness of countenance. 'Do not wait for Abbé Marle,' he resumed. 'I met him just now, and he begged me to apologise to you. He was hastening to the church for the holy vessels, in order to take extreme unction to old Madame Jollivet, an aunt of my son-in-law's, who is in the last pangs. Poor Abbé, in her he is losing one of his last penitents; he had his eyes full of tears.'

'Oh! the fact that the clergy is being swept away is the one good feature of what is happening!' exclaimed Gourier, who had remained a devourer of priests. 'The republic would still be ours if the clergy had not tried to take it from us. It was they who urged the people on to upset everything and become the masters.'

But Châtelard remarked compassionately: 'Poor Abbé Marle! it grieves me to see him in his empty church. You do quite right, Madame Mazelle, in still sending him some bouquets for the Virgin.'

Silence fell again, and the tragic shadow of the priest seemed to flit by in the bright sunlight amidst the perfume of the roses. In Léonore he had lost his dearest and most faithful parishioner. Madame Mazelle doubtless remained to him, but she was not really a believer; all that she sought in religion was something ornamental—a kind of certificate that she was a right-minded bourgeois. And the Abbé was not ignorant of his destiny—he would some day be found dead at his altar under the remnants of his church, which threatened ruin, but which, for lack of money, he could not repair. Neither at the sub-prefecture nor at the town-hall was there any fund left for such work. He had appealed to the faithful, and in response had with difficulty obtained a ridiculously small sum of money. And now he was resigned to his fate; he awaited the fall, still celebrating the offices as if he were unaware of the threat of annihilation hanging above his head. His church was becoming emptier and emptier, dying a little more each day, and he would die also when the old structure cracked around him and fell crushing him beneath the weight of the great crucifix, which still hung from the wall. And they would have one and the same grave: the earth whither all returns.

As it happened Madame Mazelle was far too much upset by her personal worries to take any interest at that moment in the dolorous fate of Abbé Marle. If there should not be a prompt solution with respect to the marriage, she feared that she might fall seriously ill—she who had derived so many hours of nursing and petting from the malady without a name with which she had embellished her existence. All her guests having now arrived, she quitted her armchair to serve the tea, which steamed in the cups of bright porcelain, whilst a sunray gilded the little cakes lying in the crystal dishes. And she went on shaking her big, placid head, for she was not yet convinced: 'You may say what you like, my friends, but that marriage would really be the last blow, and I cannot make up my mind to it.'

'We will wait,' declared Mazelle; 'we will exhaust Louise's patience.'

But all at once both husband and wife were thunderstruck, for Louise herself stood before them among the sunlit roses at the entrance of the arbour. They had fancied her in her room, on her couch, suffering from that love-sickness which, according to Doctor Novarre, contentment alone could cure. No doubt she had guessed that the others were deciding her fate, and with her beautiful black hair just caught up in a knot, wearing a dressing-gown with a pattern of little red flowers, she had come down in all haste. Quivering with the passion that animated her, she looked charming with her somewhat obliquely-set eyes gleaming in her slender face. Not even grief could entirely extinguish their gay sparkle. She had heard the last words spoken by her parents. 'Ah, mamma! ah, papa! what was that you were saying?' she cried. 'Do you imagine that some merely childish caprice is in question? I've told you already, and I tell you again, I wish Lucien to be my husband, and so he shall!'

Although half-conquered by the sudden apparition of his daughter, Mazelle still tried to struggle against the inevitable. 'But just think of it, you unhappy child! Our fortune, which you were to have inherited, is already in jeopardy, so it is quite possible that one of these days you will find yourself without a penny,' he said.

'Just understand the situation,' remarked Madame Mazelle in her turn. 'With our money, even though it is in danger, you might still make a sensible marriage.'

Then Louise exploded with superb, joyous vehemence, 'Your money! I do not care a pin for it! You can keep it! If you were to give it me Lucien would no longer take me as his wife. Money, indeed! what should I do with it? Money! of what use is it? It does not help one to love and be happy. Lucien will earn my bread for me, and I'll earn it too if necessary. It will be delightful.'

She cried these things aloud with such strength of youth and hope that the Mazelles, fearing for her reason, were anxious to quiet her by at last yielding to her desires. Besides, they were not people to continue battling; they wished to end their days in peace. As for Sub-Prefect Châtelard, Mayor Gourier, and Judge Gaume, whilst drinking their tea they smiled with some embarrassment, for they felt the girl's free love sweeping them away like bits of straw. One must needs consent to what one cannot prevent.

It was Châtelard who summed up everything in his amiable, bantering way, the irony of which was scarcely perceptible. 'Our friend Gourier is right—we are done for, since it is our children who make the laws now.'

The marriage of Lucien Bonnaire and Louise Mazelle took place a month later. Châtelard for his personal amusement prevailed on his friend Gourier to give a grand ball at the town-hall on the wedding night, as if by way of honouring their friends the Mazelles. At heart he thought it a good joke to make the bourgeoisie of Beauclair dance at this wedding, which became a symbol of the multitude's accession to power. They would dance on the ruins of authority in that town-hall which was gradually becoming the real common-house, where the mayor was no longer anything but a link between the various social groups. The hall was most luxuriously decorated, and there was music and singing as at the wedding of Nanet and Nise. And acclamations once more arose at the sight of the bridal pair, Lucien, so strong and sturdy, followed by all his mates of La Crêcherie, and Louise, so slim and passionate, followed by all the fine society of the town, whose presence had been desired by her parents as a kind of supreme protest. Only it came to pass that the fine folk were swamped by the multitude, won over to the rush of delight, carried away and conquered to such a point that a great many more marriages between the lads and girls of the different classes ensued. Once more, then, love triumphed, all-powerful love which inflames the living universe, and bears it onward to its happy destiny.

Youth flowered on all sides, other alliances were concluded, couples which everything seemed to separate set out together for the future city of happiness. The old trading class of Beauclair, now on the point of disappearing, gave its daughters and sons to the artisans of La Crêcherie and the peasants of Les Combettes. The Laboques set the example by allowing their son Auguste to marry Marthe Bourron, and their daughter Eulalie to marry Arsène Lenfant. They had ceased struggling for some years already, for they realised that the trade of old times, the useless cogwheel which had consumed so much energy and wealth, was vanquished and dying. At the outset they had been obliged to allow their shop of the Rue de Brias to be turned into a mere dépôt of the articles manufactured at La Crêcherie and the other syndicated factories. Then, taking a further step, they had consented to close the shop, which had been merged into the general stores, where Luc's indulgence had procured them an inspectorship by way of occupation. And now old age had come, and they lived in retirement, full of bitterness, and scared by the sight of that new world which evinced none of their own passion for lucre. The new generations had grown up for other forms of activity and delight than moneymaking. And thus their children, Auguste and Eulalie, yielding to love, the great artisan of harmony and peace, married as they pleased, encountering no obstacle on their parents' side save the covert disapproval of old folk who regret the past. It was arranged that the two weddings should be celebrated on the same day at Les Combettes, now a large township, a very suburb of Beauclair, with large bright buildings redolent of the inexhaustible wealth of the earth. And the weddings took place at harvest-time—indeed, on the very last day of the harvesting, when huge ricks already arose upon every side over the great golden plain.

Feuillat, the former farmer of La Guerdache, had already married his son Léon to Eugénie, daughter of Yvonnot, the assessor, whom he had formerly reconciled with Feuillat, the mayor—that reconciliation whence had sprung the good agreement of all the inhabitants of the place, and that impulse to combine together which had made the wretched village, consumed by hatred, a fraternal and flourishing town. Nowadays Feuillat, who was very aged, had become like the patriarch of that agricultural society, for it was he who had dreamt of it, secretly sought to establish it, in former days, when combating the deadly tenant-farming system, and foreseeing what incalculable wealth the tillers of the soil might draw from it when they should agree together to love it like men of science and method. A true love for that soil which for centuries had been exhausting his ancestors, seemed to have sufficed to enlighten that simple farmer, who originally had been a hard-headed and rapacious man like all of his class. He had perceived in what direction lay salvation, peace among all the peasants, a combination of efforts, the earth becoming once more the sole mother, ploughed, sown, and cropped by one family. And he had beheld the fulfilment of his dream, he had seen his neighbours' fields joined together, the farm of La Guerdache merged into the parish of Les Combettes, other smaller villages joined thereto, a vast estate created, and set on the march for the conquest, by successive annexation, of the whole of the vast plain of La Roumagne. Feuillat, who had remained the soul of the association, formed with Lenfant and Yvonnot, its founders, a kind of 'Conseil des Anciens,' who were consulted on all things, and whose advice was always found profitable.

Thus, when the wedding of Lenfant's son Arsène with Eulalie Laboque was decided upon, and the latter's brother Auguste determined to celebrate his marriage with Marthe Bourron at the same time, it occurred to Feuillat, whose idea was accepted and acclaimed by all, to organise a great fête which should be like the festival of the pacification and triumph of Les Combettes. They would drink to fraternity between the peasant and the industrial worker, formerly so bitterly opposed to one another, but whose alliance alone could establish social wealth and peace. They would drink also to the end of all antagonism, to the disappearance of that barbarous thing called trade which had perpetuated a hateful struggle between the dealer who sold a tool, the peasant who made corn grow, and the baker who sold bread, at a price increased by the thefts of a number of intermediaries. And what better day could be chosen to celebrate the reconciliation than that when the enemies of former days, the castes which had seemed bent on devouring and destroying one another, ended by exchanging their lads and girls, consenting to marriages which would hasten the advent of the future! Thus it was decided that the fête should take place in a large field near the town, a field where lofty ricks, golden under the bright sun, arose like the symmetrically disposed columns of some gigantic temple. The colonnade stretched indeed to the very horizon; other ricks and other ricks arose, proclaiming the inexhaustible fruitfulness of the soil. And it was there that they sang, that they danced, amidst the pleasant odour of the ripe corn, amidst the great fertile plain, whence the work of man, now at last reconciled, drew bread enough for the happiness of all.

The Laboques brought in their train all the former tradesmen of Beauclair, whilst the Bourrons brought the whole of La Crêcherie. The Lenfants were there, at home, and never yet had folk fraternised so fully, the groups fast mingling and uniting in one sole family. The Laboques, no doubt, remained grave and somewhat embarrassed, but the Lenfants made merry with all their hearts, whilst the great sight of all was Babette Bourron, whose everlasting good humour, her certainty, even amidst the greatest worries, that things would turn out well at last, now proved triumphant. She personified hope, marching radiant behind the two bridal couples; and when these arrived—Marthe Bourron on the arm of Auguste Laboque, Eulalie Laboque on the arm of Arsène Lenfant—they brought with them such a blaze of youth and strength and delight, that endless acclamations rolled from one to the other end of the stubbles. The onlookers called to them affectionately, they were loved, they were praised because they indeed personified sovereign and victorious love, that love which had already drawn all those folk together, by giving them those overflowing harvests amidst which they would henceforth swarm like a free and united people, ignorant alike of hatred and of want.

That same day other marriages were decided upon, as had already happened at the wedding of Lucien Bonnaire and Louise Mazelle. Madame Mitaine, the former bakeress, who had remained for everybody the 'beautiful Madame Mitaine,' in spite of her sixty-five years, kissed Olympe Lenfant, sister to one of the bridegrooms, and told her that she would be happy to call her 'daughter,' for her son Évariste had confessed that he adored her. The beautiful bakeress's husband had been dead for ten years, and her establishment had been merged into the general stores of La Crêcherie, as was the case with most of the retail businesses of the town. She lived like a retired worker with her son Évariste, both very proud of the fact that Luc had given them the charge of the electrical kneading appliances, which yielded an abundance of white light bread. Whilst Évariste in his turn was bestowing a betrothal kiss on Olympe, who had turned pink with pleasure, Madame Mitaine suddenly recognised in a thin, dark little woman seated beside a rick, her old neighbour, Madame Dacheux, the butcher's wife. She thereupon went and sat down beside her. 'Must it not all finish in weddings,' she asked gaily, 'since all these young folk were ever playing together?'

Madame Dacheux, however, remained silent and gloomy. She also had lost her husband, who had died from the effects of a badly aimed blow with his chopper, which had struck off his right hand. According to some folk, clumsiness had nothing to do with it, the butcher having voluntarily cut off his hand in a fit of furious anger, rather than sign a transfer of his shop to La Crêcherie. Decent occurrences, and the idea that holy meat, the meat of the wealthy, was now being placed within the reach of all and appearing at the tables of the poorest, must have maddened that violent, reactionary, and tyrannical man. He had died from the effects of gangrene improperly treated, leaving his wife in a state of terror from the oaths which he had heaped upon her during his final agony.

'And your Julienne, how is she?' Madame Mitaine inquired in her amiable way. 'I met her the other day. She looked superb.'

The butcher's widow was at last obliged to answer. Pointing to a couple figuring in one of the quadrille sets, she said: 'She's dancing yonder. I'm watching her.'

Julienne indeed was dancing on the arm of a tall, good-looking fellow, Louis Fauchard, the son of the former drawer. Sturdy of build, white of skin, her whole face beaming with health, Julienne evidently enjoyed the embrace of that vigorous yet gentle-looking youth, who was one of the best smiths of La Crêcherie.

'Oh! does that mean another marriage, then?' asked Madame Mitaine, laughing.

But Madame Dacheux shuddered and protested: 'Oh! no, no! How can you say such a thing? You know what my husband's ideas were. He would rise from his tomb if I let our daughter marry that workman, the son of that wretched Mélanie, who was always trying to get a bit of soup-beef on credit, and whom he drove out of our shop so often because she never paid!'

In a low and tremulous voice the butcher's widow went on to relate what a torturing life she led. Her husband appeared to her at night-time. Although he was dead he still made her bow beneath his despotic authority, tormenting her, upbraiding her, frightening her with devilish threats in her dreams. The poor, scared, insignificant woman was so unlucky that even widowhood had not brought her peace.

'If I were to let Julienne marry contrary to his wishes,' she concluded, 'he would certainly come back every night to beat me!'

She was shedding tears now, and Madame Mitaine strove to comfort her, assuring her that she would soon get rid of her nightmares if she would only set a little happiness around her. Just then, as it happened, Mélanie, the ever-complaining Madame Fauchard, whom for years one had seen perpetually running about to procure the four quarts of wine which her husband required for his shift, drew near with a hesitating step. She no longer suffered from want. She occupied one of the bright little houses of La Crêcherie with Fauchard, who, infirm and stupefied, had now ceased all work. Lodging with her, moreover, was her brother Fortuné, now forty-five years of age, and already an old man, half-blind, and deaf, owing to the brutish, mechanical, uniform toil to which he had been condemned at the Abyss from his fifteenth year onward. Thus, in spite of the comforts which La Fauchard owed to the new pension and mutual relief system, she had remained a complaining creature, a wretched waif of the past, with two old children on her hands. Therein lay a lesson, an example of the shame and grief which the wage-system had brought with it.

'Have you seen my men?' she asked Madame Mitaine, referring to her husband and brother. 'I lost them in the crowd. Oh! there they are!'

With halting gait, arm-in-arm, by way of propping up each other, the brothers-in-law passed by—Fauchard, wrecked and done for, suggesting some ghost of the painful toil of the past; and Fortuné, looking less aged but quite as downcast, stricken seemingly with imbecility. Through all the sturdy crowd, overflowing with new life and hope amidst the sweet-smelling ricks, in which was piled the corn of a whole community, the two unfortunate men strolled hither and thither, freely displaying their decrepitude, understanding nothing of what went on around them, and not even acknowledging the salutations of acquaintances.

'Leave them in the sunshine—it does them good,' resumed Madame Mitaine, addressing La Fauchard. 'Your son is sturdy and gay enough!'

'That's true; Louis has the best of health,' the other replied. 'The sons are not much like the fathers, now that the times have changed. Just see how he dances! He will never know cold and hunger.'

Thereupon Madame Mitaine, in her good-natured way, resolved to promote the happiness of the young couple who were smiling at each other so lovingly whilst they danced before her. She brought the two mothers, Madame Fauchard and Madame Dacheux, together, and made them sit down side by side, and then she moved the butcher's widow and convinced her that she ought to consent to her daughter's marriage. It was solitude that made the poor old creature suffer; she needed grandchildren to climb up on her knees and put all troublesome phantoms to flight.

'Ah, mon Dieu!' she ended by exclaiming, 'I'm agreeable all the same, on condition that I'm not left alone. I myself never said no to anybody. It was he who wouldn't have it. But if you all wish it, and promise to defend me, then do, do as you like.'

When Louis and Julienne learnt that their mothers consented to their wedding, they hastened to them and fell in their arms with tears and laughter. And thus amidst the general joy fresh joy was born.

'How could you think of parting these young people?' Madame Mitaine repeated; 'they seem to have grown up one for the other. I've given my Évariste to Olympe Lenfant, whom I remember as quite a little girl, when she used to come to my shop and my boy gave her cakes. It's the same with Louis Fauchard. How many times have I not seen him prowling near your shop, Madame Dacheux, and playing with your Julienne! The Laboques, the Bourrons, the Lenfants and the Yvonnots, whose marriages are now being celebrated, why, they all grew up together, at the very time when their parents were attacking one another, and now you see their harvest time has come.'

She laughed yet more loudly as she recalled the past, while an expression of infinite kindness spread over her face. And joy was rising around her. People came to say that other betrothals had just taken place—that of Sébastien Bourron with Agathe Fauchard, and that of Nicolas Yvonnot with Zoé Bonnaire. Love, sovereign love, was incessantly perfecting the reconciliation, blending all classes together. And the fête lasted until night-time, until the stars came out, whilst love thus triumphed, bringing heart nearer to heart and merging one into another, amidst the dances and songs of those joyous people marching towards future unity and harmony.

Amidst the growing fraternity, however, there was one man, one of the old ones, Master-smelter Morfain, who remained apart from all the rest, mute and wild, unable and unwilling to understand. He still dwelt, like one of the prehistoric Vulcans, in the rocky cavity near the smeltery under his charge, and now he was quite alone there, like a solitaire who had broken off all intercourse with the rising generations. When his daughter Ma-Bleue had gone off to realise her dream of love with Achille Gourier, the Prince Charming of her blue nights, Morfain had already felt that the new times were robbing him of the best part of himself. Then another love affair had carried away his son Petit-Da, that tall young fellow who had become so passionately enamoured of Honorine, a quick, alert little brunette, daughter of Caffiaux, the grocer and taverner. Morfain had at first peremptorily refused to consent to their marriage, full of contempt as he was for that shady family of poisoners, the Caffiaux, who on their side returned his disdain with interest, and in their vanity were by no means inclined to allow their daughter to marry a worker. Nevertheless, Caffiaux was the first to give way, for he was of a supple and crafty nature. After closing his tavern he had secured a very comfortable post as chief guardian at the general stores of La Crêcherie, and the nasty stories once told of him were being forgotten; whilst for his part he feigned too much devotion to the principles of solidarity to cling obstinately to a decision which might have harmed him. Thus Petit-Da, carried away by his passion, took no further notice of his father's opposition, and the result was that a terrible quarrel, a frightful rupture, between the two men ensued. From that time forward the master-smelter no longer spoke, save to direct the furnace work, but shut himself up in his cavern like some fierce and motionless spectre of the dead ages.

Though years and years went by Morfain did not appear to age. He was always the same old-time conqueror of fire, a colossus with a huge head, a nose like an eagle's beak, and flaming eyes set between cheeks which a flow of lava seemed to have ravaged. His twisted lips, now seldom parted, retained their tawny redness suggestive of burns. And it seemed as if no human considerations would again weigh with him in the depths of the implacable solitude in which he had shut himself on perceiving that his daughter and his son had joined the party of to-morrow. Ma-Bleue had presented Achille with a sweet little girl, Léonie, who was growing up all grace and tenderness. And Petit-Da's wife, Honorine, had given birth to a strong and charming boy, Raymond, now an intelligent young man who would soon be old enough to marry. But the children's grandfather did not soften—he repulsed them, shrank even from seeing them.

On the other hand, however, amidst the collapse of his affection for his kin, the species of paternal passion which he had always evinced for his furnace seemed to increase. That growling monster ever afire, whose flaming digestion he controlled both day and night, was seemingly regarded by him as some child. The slightest disturbance in its work threw him into anguish; he spent sleepless nights in watching over the working of the twyers, displaying all the devotion of a young lover amidst the embers whose heat his skin no longer feared. Luc, rendered anxious by Morfain's great age, had spoken of pensioning him off, but renounced the idea at the sight of the quivering rebellion, the inconsolable grief which was displayed by that hero of toil, who was so proud of having exhausted, consumed his muscles in pursuing the conquest of fire. However, the hour for retirement would come forcibly from the inevitable march of progress, and Luc indulgently decided to wait awhile.

Morfain had already felt that he was threatened. He was aware of the researches which Jordan was making with the view of replacing the old, slow, barbarous smeltery by batteries of electrical furnaces. The idea that one might extinguish and demolish the giant pile which flamed during seven and eight years at a stretch, quite distracted the master-smelter, and he became seriously alarmed when Jordan effected a first improvement by burning coal at the mouth of the pit from which it was extracted, and bringing electricity without loss to La Crêcherie by cable. However, as the cost price still remained too high for electricity to be employed for smelting ore, Morfain was able to rejoice over the futility of Jordan's victory. During the ensuing ten years each fresh defeat which fell on Jordan delighted him. He indulged in covert irony, feeling convinced that fire would never suffer itself to be conquered by that strange new power, that mysterious thunder, whose flashes were not even visible. He longed for his master's defeat, the annihilation of the new appliances which were ever being constructed and improved. But all at once the position became very threatening, a rumour spread that Jordan had at last completed his great work, having discovered a means of transforming calorical energy direct into electrical energy, without the help of mechanical energy being required. That is, the steam engine, that cumbersome and costly intermediary, was suppressed. And in thiswise the problem was solved, the cost of electricity would be lowered by one-half, and it would be possible to employ it for the smelting of ore. A first battery of electrical furnaces was indeed already being fitted up, and Morfain, full of despair, prowled fiercely around his blast-furnace, as if anxious to defend it.

Luc did not immediately give orders for its demolition. He wished first of all to make some conclusive experiments with the battery. Thus, during a period of six months, the work went on in both forms, and the old smelter spent some abominable days, for he now realised that the well-loved monster in his charge was condemned. He saw it forsaken now, nobody came up the hill to see it, whereas the inquisitive thronged around those electrical furnaces below, which occupied such little space, and did their work, it was said, so well and so speedily. Morfain, for his part, full of rancour, never went down to see them, but spoke of them disdainfully as of toys for children. Was it possible that the ancient method of smelting which had given man the empire of the world could be dethroned? No, no, one would have to revert to those giant furnaces which had burnt for centuries without ever being extinguished! And, alone with the few men under his orders, who remained silent like himself, Morfain looked down contemptuously on the shed in which the electrical furnaces were working, and still felt happy at night-time, when he was able to set the horizon all aglow with a 'run' of dazzling metal.

But the day at last came when Luc passed sentence on the blast-furnace, whose work was now shown to be both slower and more costly than the other. Thus it was decided that following upon a final run it should be allowed to go out, after which it might be demolished. Morfain, on being warned of this, did not answer, but remained impassive, his bronze countenance revealing nothing of the tempest in his soul. His calmness frightened people; Ma-Bleue came up to see him, accompanied by her daughter Léonie, and Petit-Da, moved by the same affectionate impulse, brought his son Raymond. For a moment the family found itself assembled, as in former days, in the rocky hillside cavern, and the old man allowed himself to be kissed and caressed, without repulsing his grandchildren as he had usually done. Still he did not return their caresses, but seemed far away, like one who belonged to a past period, one in whom no human feeling was left. It was a cold and gloomy autumn day, and the crapelike veil of the early twilight was falling from a livid sky over the dark earth. At last Morfain arose and broke the silence, saying, 'Well, they are waiting for me, there is yet another run.'

It was the last. They all followed him to the blast-furnace. The men under his orders were present, already shadowy in the increasing gloom, and once again, for the last time, the usual work was accomplished. A bar was thrust into the plug of refractory clay, the hole was enlarged, and finally the tumultuous flood of fusing metal poured forth, a stream of flames rolling along the channels in the sand and filling the moulds with blazing pools. And once again, too, from those tracks and fields of fire arose a harvest of sparks, blue sparks of delicate ethereality, and golden fusees delightfully refined, a florescence of cornflowers, as it were, amidst golden ears of wheat. And a blinding glow burst on the mournful twilight, illumining the furnace, the neighbouring buildings, the distant roofs of Beauclair, and the whole of the great horizon. Then everything disappeared, deep night reigned all around; the end had come, the furnace's life was over.

Morfain, who without a word had stood looking at it all, remained there in the gloom motionless like one of the neighbouring rocks which the shades of night again enveloped.

'Father,' said Ma-Bleue gently, 'now that there is no more work to be done here, you must come down to us. Your room has long been ready for you.'

And Petit-Da in his turn exclaimed: 'Father, you've certainly got to rest now. There is a room for you in my place too. You must let each of us have you in turn, you must live sometimes with one and sometimes with the other.'

But the old master-smelter did not immediately answer. A great sigh made his breast heave dolorously. At last he said: 'That's it, I'll go down, I'll have a look. But you can go away now.'

For another fifteen days it was impossible to induce Morfain to quit the furnace. He watched it cooling, as one watches beside a death-bed. Every evening he felt it in order to make sure that it was not quite dead. And as long as he found a little warmth remaining, he lingered obstinately beside it as if it were a friend whose remains it would be wrong to abandon. But at last the demolishers arrived, and then one morning the grand old vanquished man was seen to descend from his cavern to La Crêcherie, where he repaired with a still firm step to the large glazed shed in which the battery of electrical furnaces was working.

As it happened, both Jordan and Luc were there with Petit-Da, whom they had appointed to direct the smelting in conjunction with his son Raymond, the latter already being a good electrician. The work was being brought to greater precision day by day; and Jordan scarcely quitted the shed, eager as he was to perfect the new method which had cost him so many years of study and experiment.

'Ah! Morfain, my old friend!' he exclaimed joyously. 'So you've become sensible!'

The other's face, the colour of old iron, remained impassive, and he contented himself with replying: 'Yes, Monsieur Jordan, I wanted to see your machine.'

Luc, however, scrutinised him rather anxiously. He had given orders to have him watched, for he had learnt that he had been found leaning over the mouth of the blast furnace, when the latter was still full of glowing embers, like a man preparing to fling himself into that frightful hell. One of the smelters under his orders, however, had saved him from that death which he had contemplated, perchance as a last gift of his scorched frame to the monster, as though indeed he set his pride in dying by fire, after loving and serving it so faithfully for more than half a century.

'It is pleasant to find you still inquisitive at your age, my good Morfain,' said Luc, without taking his eyes from him. 'Now, just examine these toys.'

The battery stretched out before them, showing ten furnaces, ten cubes of red brick-work over six feet high and nearly five feet long. And above them one only saw the powerful electrodes, thick cylinders of carbon, to which the electric cables were attached. The operations were very simple. An endless screw, worked by a switch, served the ten furnaces, bringing the ore and discharging it into them. A second switch set up the current, the arc whose extraordinary temperature of two thousand degrees sufficed to melt almost four hundredweight of metal in five minutes. And it was only necessary to turn a third switch for the platinum door of each oven to rise up and for a kind of rolling way, lined with fine sand, to start off on the march and receive the ten pigs, each of four hundredweight, and carry them into the cool air outside.

'Well, my good Morfain,' asked Jordan with the gaiety of a happy child, 'what do you think of it?'

Then he told him of the output. Those toys, each yielding four hundredweight of metal every five minutes, could turn out altogether a total of two hundred and forty tons daily, if they were allowed to work ten hours at a stretch. This was a prodigious output when one considered that the old blast-furnace, burning day and night alike, could not supply one-third of the quantity. As a matter of fact the electrical furnaces were seldom kept working more than three or four hours, and the advantage was that they could be lighted and extinguished as one pleased, in accordance with one's needs, whatever quantity of raw material that was required being immediately obtained. And how easily they worked, and what cleanliness and simplicity there was! As the electrodes themselves supplied the carbon necessary for the carburisation of the ore, there was little dust. The gases alone escaped, and the quantity of slag was so small that a daily cleaning sufficed to get rid of it. There was no longer any need of a barbarous colossus whose digestion caused disquietude, nor of any of the numerous and cumbersome appendages, the purifiers, the heaters, the blast machinery, and the constant current of water, with which it had been necessary to surround it. There was no longer any fear of stoppages or cooling down, nor any talk of demolishing or emptying the monster whilst still ablaze, because a twyer simply went wrong. Loaders watching at the mouth, and smelters piercing the plug and broiling in the flames of the 'runs' were no longer required to be on the alert, following one another incessantly with day and night shifts. The battery of the ten electrical furnaces, extending over a surface under fifty feet in length and some sixteen feet in width, was at its ease in the large, bright, glazed shed which sheltered it. And three children would have sufficed to set everything going, one at the switch of the endless screw, a second at the switch of the electrodes, and a third at that of the rolling way.

'What do you think of it? What do you think of it, my good Morfain?' repeated Jordan triumphantly.

The old master-smelter still looked at the furnaces without moving or speaking. Night was already at hand, shadows were filling the shed, and the working of the battery, with its gentle mechanical regularity, was quite impressive. Cold and dim, the ten furnaces seemed to slumber, whilst the little cars of ore, moved by the endless screw, were emptied one by one. Then every five minutes the platinum doors opened, the ten white jets of the ten 'runs' blazed upon the gloom, and the ten pigs, flowery with cornflowers amidst ears of wheat, slowly and continuously journeyed off on the rolling way.

However, Petit-Da, who hitherto had remained silent, wished to give some explanations, and pointing to the thick cable which, descending from the rafters, brought the current to the furnaces, he said, 'You see, father, the electricity comes along that cable, and such is its force that if the wires were severed everything would be blown up!'

Luc, whom Morfain's calmness had reassured, began to laugh. 'Don't say that,' he exclaimed, 'you would frighten our young people. Nothing would be blown up. Only the imprudent man who touched the wires would be in danger. Besides, the cable is a strong one.'

'Yes, that's true,' Petit-Da resumed; 'a strong wrist would be needed to break it.'

Morfain, still impassive, drew near. To reach the cable he simply had to raise his hands. However, for a moment longer he remained there motionless, nothing on his scorched face revealing what his thoughts might be. But all at once such a flame shot from his eyes that Luc again felt anxious, as if with a vague presentiment of a catastrophe.

'A strong wrist, you say?' Morfain at last exclaimed, making up his mind to speak. 'Just let us see, my lad.'

And before the others had time to intervene he caught hold of the cable with his hands, hardened by fire and as strong as iron pincers. And he bent the cable and broke it, even as an irritated giant might break the string of some child's toy. And lightning came, the wires met, and a mighty dazzling flash burst forth. Then the whole shed was plunged into darkness, amidst which one heard nought but the fall of that tall, lightning-stricken old man, who dropped, all of a piece, like an oak felled in the forest.

Lanterns had to be fetched. Jordan and Luc, utterly distracted, could only pronounce Morfain to be dead, whilst Petit-Da shrieked aloud and wept. Stretched upon his back, the old smelter did not appear to have suffered. He lay there like some colossal figure of old iron. However, his garments were smouldering, and the fire had to be put out. Doubtless he had been unwilling to survive the well-loved monster, that blast-furnace of which he had been the last fervent worshipper. With him had finished the first battle: man, the subduer of fire, the conqueror of metals, bending beneath the slavery of dolorous toil, and so proud of that long and overwhelming labour—the labour of humanity marching towards future happiness—as to make it a title of nobility. He had even shrunk from knowing that new times were born, bringing to each by the victory of a just apportionment of work, a little rest, a little gaiety, a little happy enjoyment, such as hitherto only a few privileged beings had tasted, deriving it from the iniquitous suffering of the greater number. And he had fallen like some fierce, obstinate hero of the ancient and terrible corvée, like a Vulcan chained to his forge, a blind enemy of all that would have freed him, setting his glory in his servitude, and regarding the possible diminution of suffering and effort as mere downfall. And the force of the new age, the lightning which he had come to deny and insult, had annihilated him. And now he slept.

Three years later three more marriages took place, still further blending the classes together and tightening the bonds of that fraternal and peaceful people which was ever and ever spreading. Hilaire Froment, the eldest son of Luc and Josine, a strong young man already twenty-six, espoused Colette, the daughter of Nanet and Nise, a delightful little blonde in all the flowery springtide of her eighteen summers. And the blood of the Delaveaus became calmer on mingling with that of the Froments and Josine, the erstwhile wretched wanderer, who had been picked up, half dead of starvation, almost on the threshold of the Abyss. Then yet another Froment, Thérèse, the third-born, a tall, gay, good-looking girl, became when seventeen the wife of Raymond, son of Petit-Da and Honorine Caffiaux, her senior by two years. And this time the blood of the Froments was allied with that of those epic toilers the Morfains and that of the Caffiaux, the representatives of the old trade system, which the advent of La Crêcherie had swept away. Finally Léonie, the amiable daughter of Achille Gourier and Ma-Bleue, married one of Bonnaire's sons, who was twenty, like herself. This was Séverin, Lucien's younger brother; and in this marriage the expiring bourgeoisie became united to the people, the resigned and mighty toilers of the dead ages, and the revolutionary workers who were attaining to freedom.

Great fêtes were given, for the happy descendants of Luc and Josine were about to increase and multiply, helping to people the new city which Luc had founded in order that Josine and all others might be saved from iniquitous want. The torrent of Love was flowing forth, life was incessantly spreading, doubling the harvests, ever creating more and more men for increase of truth and increase of justice. Love the victorious, young and gay, bore couples, and families, and the whole town towards final harmony and happiness. Each marriage led to the building of another little house among the greenery; and the march of those houses never ceased. Old Beauclair had long since been invaded and swept away. The ancient leprous district, the filthy hovels where labour had agonised for centuries, had been razed to the ground, over which now stretched broad roads planted with trees and edged with smiling dwellings. Even the bourgeois quarter of Beauclair was threatened; the piercing of new streets enabled one to enlarge and turn to other uses the old public edifices such as the sub-prefecture, the law courts, and the prison. The ancient church alone remained, cracking and crumbling in the centre of a small deserted square, which suggested a field of nettles and brambles. On all sides the old-time houses where people had lived cooped up in flats, had given place to healthier dwellings scattered through the huge garden, which Beauclair was becoming, each of them gay with light and with streaming water. And the city was founded, a very great and very glorious city, whose sunlit avenues ever stretched away, overflowing already into the neighbouring fields of the fertile Roumagne.

III.

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 crèches 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 Crêcherie, 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 Sœurette and Josine.'

The three women had become great, and indeed inseparable, friends. Sœurette had retained the management of the central crèche, 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 façade, in which decorated stoneware and painted faïence 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, Sœurette 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 Sœurette 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 Sœurette, 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 Sœurette 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 Sœurette, '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, Hélène and Berthe, who were twins, in their fourth year. Their mother was Pauline, Luc's second daughter, now the wife of André 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, Thérèse, and Pauline, whilst the two others, Charles and Jules, were as yet merely 'engaged.'

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

Hélène 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 Sœurette 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 naïve 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.'

Sœurette 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 Thérèse 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 Félicien Bonnaire, now fourteen, the son of Séverin Bonnaire and Léonie 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 naïve 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.