Pierre was now listening attentively, wondering where it was that he had

previously heard almost identical words. And suddenly he remembered; and

could fancy that he was again at Rome, listening to the last words of

Monsignor Nani, the Assessor of the Holy Office. Here, again, he found

the dream of a democratic Pope, ceasing to support the compromised

monarchies, and seeking to subdue the masses. Since Caesar was down, or

nearly so, might not the Pope realise the ancient ambition of his

forerunners and become both emperor and pontiff, the sovereign, universal

divinity on earth? This, too, was the dream in which Pierre himself, with

apostolic naïveté, had indulged when writing his book, “New Rome”: a

dream from which the sight of the real Rome had so roughly roused him. At

bottom it was merely a policy of hypocritical falsehood, the priestly

policy which relies on time, and is ever tenacious, carrying on the work

of conquest with extraordinary suppleness, resolved to profit by

everything. And what an evolution it was, the Church of Rome making

advances to Science, to the Democracy, to the Republican _régimes_,

convinced that it would be able to devour them if only it were allowed

the time! Ah! yes, the New Spirit was simply the Old Spirit of

Domination, incessantly reviving and hungering to conquer and possess the

world.

Pierre thought that he recognised among the congregation certain deputies

whom he had seen at the Chamber. Wasn’t that tall gentleman with the fair

beard, who listened so devoutly, one of Monferrand’s creatures? It was

said that Monferrand, once a devourer of priests, was now smilingly

coquetting with the clergy. Quite an underhand evolution was beginning in

the sacristies, orders from Rome flitted hither and thither; it was a

question of accepting the new form of government, and absorbing it by

dint of invasion. France was still the Eldest Daughter of the Church, the

only great nation which had sufficient health and strength to place the

Pope in possession of his temporal power once more. So France must be

won; it was well worth one’s while to espouse her, even if she were

Republican. In the eager struggle of ambition the bishop made use of the

minister, who thought it to his interest to lean upon the bishop. But

which of the two would end by devouring the other? And to what a _rôle_

had religion sunk: an electoral weapon, an element in a parliamentary

majority, a decisive, secret reason for obtaining or retaining a

ministerial portfolio! Of divine charity, the basis of religion, there

was no thought, and Pierre’s heart filled with bitterness as he

remembered the recent death of Cardinal Bergerot, the last of the great

saints and pure minds of the French episcopacy, among which there now

seemed to be merely a set of intriguers and fools.

However, the address was drawing to a close. In a glowing peroration,

which evoked the basilica of the Sacred Heart dominating Paris with the

saving symbol of the Cross from the sacred Mount of the Martyrs,*

Monseigneur Martha showed that great city of Paris Christian once more

and master of the world, thanks to the moral omnipotence conferred upon

it by the divine breath of the New Spirit. Unable to applaud, the

congregation gave utterance to a murmur of approving rapture, delighted

as it was with this miraculous finish which reassured both pocket and

conscience. Then Monseigneur Martha quitted the pulpit with a noble step,

whilst a loud noise of chairs broke upon the dark peacefulness of the

church, where the few lighted candles glittered like the first stars in

the evening sky. A long stream of men, vague, whispering shadows, glided

away. The women alone remained, praying on their knees.

* Montmartre.

Pierre, still in the same spot, was rising on tip-toes, looking for Abbé

Rose, when a hand touched him. It was that of the old priest, who had

seen him from a distance. “I was yonder near the pulpit,” said he, “and I

saw you plainly, my dear child. Only I preferred to wait so as to disturb

nobody. What a beautiful address dear Monseigneur delivered!”

He seemed, indeed, much moved. But there was deep sadness about his

kindly mouth and clear childlike eyes, whose smile as a rule illumined

his good, round white face. “I was afraid you might go off without seeing

me,” he resumed, “for I have something to tell you. You know that poor

old man to whom I sent you this morning and in whom I asked you to

interest yourself? Well, on getting home I found a lady there, who

sometimes brings me a little money for my poor. Then I thought to myself

that the three francs I gave you were really too small a sum, and as the

thought worried me like a kind of remorse, I couldn’t resist the impulse,

but went this afternoon to the Rue des Saules myself.”

He lowered his voice from a feeling of respect, in order not to disturb

the deep, sepulchral silence of the church. Covert shame, moreover,

impeded his utterance, shame at having again relapsed into the sin of

blind, imprudent charity, as his superiors reproachfully said. And,

quivering, he concluded in a very low voice indeed: “And so, my child,

picture my grief. I had five francs more to give the poor old man, and I

found him dead.”

Pierre suddenly shuddered. But he was unwilling to understand: “What,

dead!” he cried. “That old man dead! Laveuve dead?”

“Yes, I found him dead--ah! amidst what frightful wretchedness, like an

old animal that has laid itself down for the finish on a heap of rags in

the depths of a hole. No neighbours had assisted him in his last moments;

he had simply turned himself towards the wall. And ah! how bare and cold

and deserted it was! And what a pang for a poor creature to go off like

that without a word, a caress. Ah! my heart bounded within me and it is

still bleeding!”

Pierre in his utter amazement at first made but a gesture of revolt

against imbecile social cruelty. Had the bread left near the unfortunate

wretch, and devoured too eagerly, perhaps, after long days of abstinence,

been the cause of his death? Or was not this rather the fatal

_dénouement_ of an ended life, worn away by labour and privation?

However, what did the cause signify? Death had come and delivered the

poor man. “It isn’t he that I pity,” Pierre muttered at last; “it is

we--we who witness all that, we who are guilty of these abominations.”

But good Abbé Rose was already becoming resigned, and would only think of

forgiveness and hope. “No, no, my child, rebellion is evil. If we are all

guilty we can only implore Providence to forget our faults. I had given

you an appointment here hoping for good news; and it’s I who come to tell

you of that frightful thing. Let us be penitent and pray.”

Then he knelt upon the flagstones near the pillar, in the rear of the

praying women, who looked black and vague in the gloom. And he inclined

his white head, and for a long time remained in a posture of humility.

But Pierre was unable to pray, so powerfully did revolt stir him. He did

not even bend his knees, but remained erect and quivering. His heart

seemed to have been crushed; not a tear came to his ardent eyes. So

Laveuve had died yonder, stretched on his litter of rags, his hands

clenched in his obstinate desire to cling to his life of torture, whilst

he, Pierre, again glowing with the flame of charity, consumed by

apostolic zeal, was scouring Paris to find him for the evening a clean

bed on which he might be saved. Ah! the atrocious irony of it all! He

must have been at the Duvillards’ in the warm _salon_, all blue and

silver, whilst the old man was expiring; and it was for a wretched corpse

that he had then hastened to the Chamber of Deputies, to the Countess de

Quinsac’s, to that creature Silviane’s, and to that creature Rosemonde’s.

And it was for that corpse, freed from life, escaped from misery as from

prison, that he had worried people, broken in upon their egotism,

disturbed the peace of some, threatened the pleasures of others! What was

the use of hastening from the parliamentary den to the cold _salon_ where

the dust of the past was congealing; of going from the sphere of

middle-class debauchery to that of cosmopolitan extravagance, since one

always arrived too late, and saved people when they were already dead?

How ridiculous to have allowed himself to be fired once more by that

blaze of charity, that final conflagration, only the ashes of which he

now felt within him? This time he thought he was dead himself; he was

naught but an empty sepulchre.

And all the frightful void and chaos which he had felt that morning at

the basilica of the Sacred Heart after his mass became yet deeper,

henceforth unfathomable. If charity were illusory and useless the Gospel

crumbled, the end of the Book was nigh. After centuries of stubborn

efforts, Redemption through Christianity failed, and another means of

salvation was needed by the world in presence of the exasperated thirst

for justice which came from the duped and wretched nations. They would

have no more of that deceptive paradise, the promise of which had so long

served to prop up social iniquity; they demanded that the question of

happiness should be decided upon this earth. But how? By means of what

new religion, what combination between the sentiment of the Divine and

the necessity for honouring life in its sovereignty and its fruitfulness?

Therein lay the grievous, torturing problem, into the midst of which

Pierre was sinking; he, a priest, severed by vows of chastity and

superstition from the rest of mankind.

He had ceased to believe in the efficacy of alms; it was not sufficient

that one should be charitable, henceforth one must be just. Given

justice, indeed, horrid misery would disappear, and no such thing as

charity would be needed. Most certainly there was no lack of

compassionate hearts in that grievous city of Paris; charitable

foundations sprouted forth there like green leaves at the first warmth of

springtide. There were some for every age, every peril, every misfortune.

Through the concern shown for mothers, children were succoured even

before they were born; then came the infant and orphan asylums lavishly

provided for all sorts of classes; and, afterwards, man was followed

through his life, help was tendered on all sides, particularly as he grew

old, by a multiplicity of asylums, almshouses, and refuges. And there

were all the hands stretched out to the forsaken ones, the disinherited

ones, even the criminals, all sorts of associations to protect the weak,

societies for the prevention of crime, homes that offered hospitality to

those who repented. Whether as regards the propagation of good deeds, the

support of the young, the saving of life, the bestowal of pecuniary help,

or the promotion of guilds, pages and pages would have been needed merely

to particularise the extraordinary vegetation of charity that sprouted

between the paving-stones of Paris with so fine a vigour, in which

goodness of soul was mingled with social vanity. Still that could not

matter, since charity redeemed and purified all. But how terrible the

proposition that this charity was a useless mockery! What! after so many

centuries of Christian charity not a sore had healed. Misery had only

grown and spread, irritated even to rage. Incessantly aggravated, the

evil was reaching the point when it would be impossible to tolerate it

for another day, since social injustice was neither arrested nor even

diminished thereby. And besides, if only one single old man died of cold

and hunger, did not the social edifice, raised on the theory of charity,

collapse? But one victim, and society was condemned, thought Pierre.

He now felt such bitterness of heart that he could remain no longer in

that church where the shadows ever slowly fell, blurring the sanctuaries

and the large pale images of Christ nailed upon the Cross. All was about

to sink into darkness, and he could hear nothing beyond an expiring

murmur of prayers, a plaint from the women who were praying on their

knees, in the depths of the shrouding gloom.

At the same time he hardly liked to go off without saying a word to Abbé

Rose, who in his entreaties born of simple faith left the happiness and

peace of mankind to the good pleasure of the Invisible. However, fearing

that he might disturb him, Pierre was making up his mind to retire, when

the old priest of his own accord raised his head. “Ah, my child,” said

he, “how difficult it is to be good in a reasonable manner. Monseigneur

Martha has scolded me again, and but for the forgiveness of God I should

fear for my salvation.”

For a moment Pierre paused under the porticus of the Madeleine, on the

summit of the great flight of steps which, rising above the railings,

dominates the Place. Before him was the Rue Royale dipping down to the

expanse of the Place de la Concorde, where rose the obelisk and the pair

of plashing fountains. And, farther yet, the paling colonnade of the

Chamber of Deputies bounded the horizon. It was a vista of sovereign

grandeur under that pale sky over which twilight was slowly stealing, and

which seemed to broaden the thoroughfares, throw back the edifices, and

lend them the quivering, soaring aspect of the palaces of dreamland. No

other capital in the world could boast a scene of such aerial pomp, such

grandiose magnificence, at that hour of vagueness, when falling night

imparts to cities a dreamy semblance, the infinite of human immensity.

Motionless and hesitating in presence of the opening expanse, Pierre

distressfully pondered as to whither he should go now that all which he

had so passionately sought to achieve since the morning had suddenly

crumbled away. Was he still bound for the Duvillard mansion in the Rue

Godot-de-Mauroy? He no longer knew. Then the exasperating remembrance,

with its cruel irony, returned to him. Since Laveuve was dead, of what

use was it for him to kill time and perambulate the pavements pending the

arrival of six o’clock? The idea that he had a home, and that the most

simple course would be to return to it, did not even occur to him. He

felt as if there were something of importance left for him to do, though

he could not possibly tell what it might be. It seemed to him to be

everywhere and yet very far away, to be so vague and so difficult of

accomplishment that he would certainly never be in time or have

sufficient power to do it. However, with heavy feet and tumultuous brain

he descended the steps and, yielding to some obstinate impulse, began to

walk through the flower-market, a late winter market where the first

azaleas were opening with a little shiver. Some women were purchasing

Nice roses and violets; and Pierre looked at them as if he were

interested in all that soft, delicate, perfumed luxury. But suddenly he

felt a horror of it and went off, starting along the Boulevards.

He walked straight before him without knowing why or whither. The falling

darkness surprised him as if it were an unexpected phenomenon. Raising

his eyes to the sky he felt astonished at seeing its azure gently pale

between the slender black streaks of the chimney funnels. And the huge

golden letters by which names or trades were advertised on every balcony

also seemed to him singular in the last gleams of the daylight. Never

before had he paid attention to the motley tints seen on the

house-fronts, the painted mirrors, the blinds, the coats of arms, the

posters of violent hues, the magnificent shops, like drawing-rooms and

boudoirs open to the full light. And then, both in the roadway and along

the foot-pavements, between the blue, red or yellow columns and kiosks,

what mighty traffic there was, what an extraordinary crowd! The vehicles

rolled along in a thundering stream: on all sides billows of cabs were

parted by the ponderous tacking of huge omnibuses, which suggested lofty,

bright-hued battle-ships. And on either hand, and farther and farther,

and even among the wheels, the flood of passengers rushed on incessantly,

with the conquering haste of ants in a state of revolution. Whence came

all those people, and whither were all those vehicles going? How

stupefying and torturing it all was.

Pierre was still walking straight ahead, mechanically, carried on by his

gloomy reverie. Night was coming, the first gas-burners were being

lighted; it was the dusk of Paris, the hour when real darkness has not

yet come, when the electric lights flame in the dying day. Lamps shone

forth on all sides, the shop-fronts were being illumined. Soon, moreover,

right along the Boulevards the vehicles would carry their vivid starry

lights, like a milky way on the march betwixt the foot-pavements all

glowing with lanterns and cordons and girandoles, a dazzling profusion of

radiance akin to sunlight. And the shouts of the drivers and the jostling

of the foot passengers re-echoed the parting haste of the Paris which is

all business or passion, which is absorbed in the merciless struggle for

love and for money. The hard day was over, and now the Paris of Pleasure

was lighting up for its night of _fête_. The cafés, the wine shops, the

restaurants, flared and displayed their bright metal bars, and their

little white tables behind their clear and lofty windows, whilst near

their doors, by way of temptation, were oysters and choice fruits. And

the Paris which was thus awaking with the first flashes of the gas was

already full of the gaiety of enjoyment, already yielding to an unbridled

appetite for whatsoever may be purchased.

However, Pierre had a narrow escape from being knocked down. A flock of

newspaper hawkers came out of a side street, and darted through the crowd

shouting the titles of the evening journals. A fresh edition of the “Voix

du Peuple” gave rise, in particular, to a deafening clamour, which rose

above all the rumbling of wheels. At regular intervals hoarse voices

raised and repeated the cry: “Ask for the ‘Voix du Peuple’--the new

scandal of the African Railway Lines, the repulse of the ministry, the

thirty-two bribe-takers of the Chamber and the Senate!” And these

announcements, set in huge type, could be read on the copies of the

paper, which the hawkers flourished like banners. Accustomed as it was to

such filth, saturated with infamy, the crowd continued on its way without

paying much attention. Still a few men paused and bought the paper, while

painted women, who had come down to the Boulevards in search of a dinner,

trailed their skirts and waited for some chance lover, glancing

interrogatively at the outside customers of the cafés. And meantime the

dishonouring shout of the newspaper hawkers, that cry in which there was

both smirch and buffet, seemed like the last knell of the day, ringing

the nation’s funeral at the outset of the night of pleasure which was

beginning.

Then Pierre once more remembered his morning and that frightful house in

the Rue des Saules, where so much want and suffering were heaped up. He

again saw the yard filthy like a quagmire, the evil-smelling staircases,

the sordid, bare, icy rooms, the families fighting for messes which even

stray dogs would not have eaten; the mothers, with exhausted breasts,

carrying screaming children to and fro; the old men who fell in corners

like brute beasts, and died of hunger amidst filth. And then came his

other hours with the magnificence or the quietude or the gaiety of the

_salons_ through which he had passed, the whole insolent display of

financial Paris, and political Paris, and society Paris. And at last he

came to the dusk, and to that Paris-Sodom and Paris-Gomorrah before him,

which was lighting itself up for the night, for the abominations of that

accomplice night which, like fine dust, was little by little submerging

the expanse of roofs. And the hateful monstrosity of it all howled aloud

under the pale sky where the first pure, twinkling stars were gleaming.

A great shudder came upon Pierre as he thought of all that mass of

iniquity and suffering, of all that went on below amid want and crime,

and all that went on above amid wealth and vice. The _bourgeoisie_,

wielding power, would relinquish naught of the sovereignty which it had

conquered, wholly stolen, while the people, the eternal dupe, silent so

long, clenched its fists and growled, claiming its legitimate share. And

it was that frightful injustice which filled the growing gloom with

anger. From what dark-breasted cloud would the thunderbolt fall? For

years he had been waiting for that thunderbolt which low rumbles

announced on all points of the horizon. And if he had written a book full

of candour and hope, if he had gone in all innocence to Rome, it was to

avert that thunderbolt and its frightful consequences. But all hope of

the kind was dead within him; he felt that the thunderbolt was

inevitable, that nothing henceforth could stay the catastrophe. And never

before had he felt it to be so near, amidst the happy impudence of some,

and the exasperated distress of others. And it was gathering, and it

would surely fall over that Paris, all lust and bravado, which, when

evening came, thus stirred up its furnace.

Tired out and distracted, Pierre raised his eyes as he reached the Place

de l’Opera. Where was he then? The heart of the great city seemed to beat

on this spot, in that vast expanse where met so many thoroughfares, as if

from every point the blood of distant districts flowed thither along

triumphal avenues. Right away to the horizon stretched the great gaps of

the Avenue de l’Opera, the Rue du Quatre-Septembre, and the Rue de la

Paix, still showing clearly in a final glimpse of daylight, but already

starred with swarming sparks. The torrent of the Boulevard traffic poured

across the Place, where clashed, too, all that from the neighbouring

streets, with a constant turning and eddying which made the spot the most

dangerous of whirlpools. In vain did the police seek to impose some

little prudence, the stream of pedestrians still overflowed, wheels

became entangled and horses reared amidst all the uproar of the human

tide, which was as loud, as incessant, as the tempest voice of an ocean.

Then there was the detached mass of the opera-house, slowly steeped in

gloom, and rising huge and mysterious like a symbol, its lyre-bearing

figure of Apollo, right aloft, showing a last reflection of daylight

amidst the livid sky. And all the windows of the house-fronts began to

shine, gaiety sprang from those thousands of lamps which coruscated one

by one, a universal longing for ease and free gratification of each

desire spread with the increasing darkness; whilst, at long intervals,

the large globes of the electric lights shone as brightly as the moons of

the city’s cloudless nights.

But why was he, Pierre, there, he asked himself, irritated and wondering.

Since Laveuve was dead he had but to go home, bury himself in his nook,

and close up door and windows, like one who was henceforth useless, who

had neither belief nor hope, and awaited naught save annihilation. It was

a long journey from the Place de l’Opera to his little house at Neuilly.

Still, however great his weariness, he would not take a cab, but retraced

his steps, turning towards the Madeleine again, and plunging into the

scramble of the pavements, amidst the deafening uproar from the roadway,

with a bitter desire to aggravate his wound and saturate himself with

revolt and anger. Was it not yonder at the corner of that street, at the

end of that Boulevard, that he would find the expected abyss into which

that rotten world, whose old society he could hear rending at each step,

must soon assuredly topple?

However, when Pierre wished to cross the Rue Scribe a block in the

traffic made him halt. In front of a luxurious café two tall,

shabbily-clad and very dirty fellows were alternately offering the “Voix

du Peuple” with its account of the scandals and the bribe-takers of the

Chamber and the Senate, in voices so suggestive of cracked brass that

passers-by clustered around them. And here, in a hesitating, wandering

man, who after listening drew near to the large café and peered through

its windows, Pierre was once again amazed to recognise Salvat. This time

the meeting struck him forcibly, filled him with suspicion to such a

point that he also stopped and resolved to watch the journeyman engineer.

He did not expect that one of such wretched aspect, with what seemed to

be a hunk of bread distending his old ragged jacket, would enter and seat

himself at one of the café’s little tables amidst the warm gaiety of the

lamps. However, he waited for a moment, and then saw him wander away with

slow and broken steps as if the café, which was nearly empty, did not

suit him. What could he have been seeking, whither had he been going,

since the morning, ever on a wild, solitary chase through the Paris of

wealth and enjoyment while hunger dogged his steps? It was only with

difficulty that he now dragged himself along, his will and energy seemed

to be exhausted. As if quite overcome, he drew near to a kiosk, and for a

moment leant against it. Then, however, he drew himself up again, and

walked on further, still as it were in search of something.

And now came an incident which brought Pierre’s emotion to a climax. A

tall sturdy man on turning out of the Rue Caumartin caught sight of

Salvat, and approached him. And just as the new comer without false pride

was shaking the workman’s hand, Pierre recognised him as his brother

Guillaume. Yes, it was indeed he, with his thick bushy hair already white

like snow, though he was but seven and forty. However, his heavy

moustaches had remained quite dark without one silver thread, thus

lending an expression of vigorous life to his full face with its lofty

towering brow. It was from his father that he had inherited that brow of

impregnable logic and reason, similar to that which Pierre himself

possessed. But the lower part of the elder brother’s countenance was

fuller than that of his junior; his nose was larger, his chin was square,

and his mouth broad and firm of contour. A pale scar, the mark of an old

wound, streaked his left temple. And his physiognomy, though it might at

first seem very grave, rough, and unexpansive, beamed with masculine

kindliness whenever a smile revealed his teeth, which had remained

extremely white.

While looking at his brother, Pierre remembered what Madame Théodore had

told him that morning. Guillaume, touched by Salvat’s dire want, had

arranged to give him a few days’ employment. And this explained the air

of interest with which he now seemed to be questioning him, while the

engineer, whom the meeting disturbed, stamped about as if eager to resume

his mournful ramble. For a moment Guillaume appeared to notice the

other’s perturbation, by the embarrassed answers which he obtained from

him. Still, they at last parted as if each were going his way. Then,

however, almost immediately, Guillaume turned round again and watched the

other, as with harassed stubborn mien he went off through the crowd. And

the thoughts which had come to Guillaume must have been very serious and

very pressing, for he all at once began to retrace his steps and follow

the workman from a distance, as if to ascertain for certain what

direction he would take.

Pierre had watched the scene with growing disquietude. His nervous

apprehension of some great unknown calamity, the suspicions born of his

frequent and inexplicable meetings with Salvat, his surprise at now

seeing his brother mingled with the affair, all helped to fill him with a

pressing desire to know, witness, and perhaps prevent. So he did not

hesitate, but began to follow the others in a prudent way.

Fresh perturbation came upon him when first Salvat and then Guillaume

suddenly turned into the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. What destiny was thus

bringing him back to that street whither a little time previously he had

wished to return in feverish haste, and whence only the death of Laveuve

had kept him? And his consternation increased yet further when, after

losing sight of Salvat for a moment, he saw him standing in front of the

Duvillard mansion, on the same spot where he had fancied he recognised

him that morning. As it happened the carriage entrance of the mansion was

wide open. Some repairs had been made to the paving of the porch, and

although the workmen had now gone off, the doorway remained gaping, full

of the falling night. The narrow street, running from the glittering

Boulevard, was steeped in bluish gloom, starred at long intervals by a

few gas-lamps. Some women went by, compelling Salvat to step off the

foot-pavement. But he returned to it again, lighted the stump of a cigar,

some remnant which he had found under a table outside a café, and then

resumed his watch, patient and motionless, in front of the mansion.

Disturbed by his dim conjectures, Pierre gradually grew frightened, and

asked himself if he ought not to approach that man. The chief thing that

detained him was the presence of his brother, whom he had seen disappear

into a neighbouring doorway, whence he also was observing the engineer,

ready to intervene. And so Pierre contented himself with not losing sight

of Salvat, who was still waiting and watching, merely taking his eyes

from the mansion in order to glance towards the Boulevard as though he

expected someone or something which would come from that direction. And

at last, indeed, the Duvillards’ landau appeared, with coachman and

footman in livery of green and gold--a closed landau to which a pair of

tall horses of superb build were harnessed in stylish fashion.

Contrary to custom, however, the carriage, which at that hour usually

brought the father and mother home, was only occupied that evening by the

son and daughter, Hyacinthe and Camille. Returning from the Princess de

Harn’s _matinée_, they were chatting freely, with that calm immodesty by

which they sought to astonish one another. Hyacinthe, influenced by his

perverted ideas, was attacking women, whilst Camille openly counselled

him to respond to the Princess’s advances. However, she was visibly

irritated and feverish that evening, and, suddenly changing the subject,

she began to speak of their mother and Gérard de Quinsac.

“But what can it matter to you?” quietly retorted Hyacinthe; and, seeing

that she almost bounded from the seat at this remark, he continued: “Are

you still in love with him, then? Do you still want to marry him?”

“Yes, I do, and I will!” she cried with all the jealous rage of an

uncomely girl, who suffered so acutely at seeing herself spurned whilst

her yet beautiful mother stole from her the man she wanted.

“You will, you will!” resumed Hyacinthe, well pleased to have an

opportunity of teasing his sister, whom he somewhat feared. “But you

won’t unless _he_ is willing--And he doesn’t care for you.”

“He does!” retorted Camille in a fury. “He’s kind and pleasant with me,

and that’s enough.”

Her brother felt afraid as he noticed the blackness of her glance, and

the clenching of her weak little hands, whose fingers bent like claws.

And after a pause he asked: “And papa, what does he say about it?”

“Oh, papa! All that he cares about is the other one.”

Then Hyacinthe began to laugh.

But the landau, with its tall horses trotting on sonorously, had turned

into the street and was approaching the house, when a slim fair-haired

girl of sixteen or seventeen, a modiste’s errand girl with a large

bandbox on her arm, hastily crossed the road in order to enter the arched

doorway before the carriage. She was bringing a bonnet for the Baroness,

and had come all along the Boulevard musing, with her soft blue eyes, her

pinky nose, and her mouth which ever laughed in the most adorable little

face that one could see. And it was at this same moment that Salvat,

after another glance at the landau, sprang forward and entered the

doorway. An instant afterwards he reappeared, flung his lighted cigar

stump into the gutter; and without undue haste went off, slinking into

the depths of the vague gloom of the street.

And then what happened? Pierre, later on, remembered that a dray of the

Western Railway Company in coming up stopped and delayed the landau for a

moment, whilst the young errand girl entered the doorway. And with a

heart-pang beyond description he saw his brother Guillaume in his turn

spring forward and rush into the mansion as though impelled to do so by

some revelation, some sudden certainty. He, Pierre, though he understood

nothing clearly, could divine the approach of some frightful horror. But

when he would have run, when he would have shouted, he found himself as

if nailed to the pavement, and felt his throat clutched as by a hand of

lead. Then suddenly came a thunderous roar, a formidable explosion, as if

the earth was opening, and the lightning-struck mansion was being

annihilated. Every window-pane of the neighbouring houses was shivered,

the glass raining down with the loud clatter of hail. For a moment a

hellish flame fired the street, and the dust and the smoke were such that

the few passers-by were blinded and howled with affright, aghast at

toppling, as they thought, into that fiery furnace.

And that dazzling flare brought Pierre enlightenment. He once more saw

the bomb distending the tool-bag, which lack of work had emptied and

rendered useless. He once more saw it under the ragged jacket, a

protuberance caused, he had fancied, by some hunk of bread, picked up in

a corner and treasured that it might be carried home to wife and child.

After wandering and threatening all happy Paris, it was there that it had

flared, there that it had burst with a thunder-clap, there on the

threshold of the sovereign _bourgeoisie_ to whom all wealth belonged. He,

however, at that moment thought only of his brother Guillaume, and flung

himself into that porch where a volcanic crater seemed to have opened.

And at first he distinguished nothing, the acrid smoke streamed over all.

Then he perceived the walls split, the upper floor rent open, the paving

broken up, strewn with fragments. Outside, the landau which had been on

the point of entering, had escaped all injury; neither of the horses had

been touched, nor was there even a scratch on any panel of the vehicle.

But the young girl, the pretty, slim, fair-haired errand girl, lay there

on her back, her stomach ripped open, whilst her delicate face remained

intact, her eyes clear, her smile full of astonishment, so swiftly and

lightning-like had come the catastrophe. And near her, from the fallen

bandbox, whose lid had merely come unfastened, had rolled the bonnet, a

very fragile pink bonnet, which still looked charming in its flowery

freshness.

By a prodigy Guillaume was alive and already on his legs again. His left

hand alone streamed with blood, a projectile seemed to have broken his

wrist. His moustaches moreover had been burnt, and the explosion by

throwing him to the ground had so shaken and bruised him that he shivered

from head to feet as with intense cold. Nevertheless, he recognised his

brother without even feeling astonished to see him there, as indeed often

happens after great disasters, when the unexplained becomes providential.

That brother, of whom he had so long lost sight, was there, naturally

enough, because it was necessary that he should be there. And Guillaume,

amidst the wild quivers by which he was shaken, at once cried to him

“Take me away! take me away! To your house at Neuilly, oh! take me away!”

Then, for sole explanation, and referring to Salvat, he stammered: “I

suspected that he had stolen a cartridge from me; only one, most

fortunately, for otherwise the whole district would have been blown to

pieces. Ah! the wretched fellow! I wasn’t in time to set my foot upon the

match.”

With perfect lucidity of mind, such as danger sometimes imparts, Pierre,

neither speaking nor losing a moment, remembered that the mansion had a

back entrance fronting the Rue Vignon. He had just realised in what

serious peril his brother would be if he were found mixed up in that

affair. And with all speed, when he had led him into the gloom of the Rue

Vignon, he tied his handkerchief round his wrist, which he bade him press

to his chest, under his coat, as that would conceal it.

But Guillaume, still shivering and haunted by the horror he had

witnessed, repeated: “Take me away--to your place at Neuilly--not to my

home.”

“Of course, of course, be easy. Come, wait here a second, I will stop a

cab.”

In his eagerness to procure a conveyance, Pierre had brought his brother

down to the Boulevard again. But the terrible thunderclap of the

explosion had upset the whole neighbourhood, horses were still rearing,

and people were running demented, hither and thither. And numerous

policemen had hastened up, and a rushing crowd was already blocking the

lower part of the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, which was now as black as a pit,

every light in it having been extinguished; whilst on the Boulevard a

hawker of the “Voix du Peuple” still stubbornly vociferated: “The new

scandal of the African Railway Lines! The thirty-two bribe-takers of the

Chamber and the Senate! The approaching fall of the ministry!”

Pierre was at last managing to stop a cab when he heard a person who ran

by say to another, “The ministry? Ah, well! that bomb will mend it right

enough!”

Then the brothers seated themselves in the cab, which carried them away.

And now, over the whole of rumbling Paris black night had gathered, an

unforgiving night, in which the stars foundered amidst the mist of crime

and anger that had risen from the house-roofs. The great cry of justice

swept by amidst the same terrifying flapping of wings which Sodom and

Gomorrah once heard bearing down upon them from all the black clouds of

the horizon.

BOOK II.

I. REVOLUTIONISTS

IN that out-of-the-way street at Neuilly, along which nobody passed after

dusk, Pierre’s little house was now steeped in deep slumber under the

black sky; each of its shutters closed, and not a ray of light stealing

forth from within. And one could divine, too, the profound quietude of

the little garden in the rear, a garden empty and lifeless, benumbed by

the winter cold.

Pierre had several times feared that his brother would faint away in the

cab in which they were journeying. Leaning back, and often sinking down,

Guillaume spoke not a word. And terrible was the silence between them--a

silence fraught with all the questions and answers which they felt it

would be useless and painful to exchange at such a time. However, the

priest was anxious about the wound, and wondered to what surgeon he might

apply, desirous as he was of admitting only a sure, staunch man into the

secret, for he had noticed with how keen a desire to disappear his

brother had sought to hide himself.

Until they reached the Arc de Triomphe the silence remained unbroken. It

was only there that Guillaume seemed to emerge from the prostration of

his reverie. “Mind, Pierre,” said he, “no doctor. We will attend to this

together.”

Pierre was on the point of protesting, but he realised that it would be

useless to discuss the subject at such a moment, and so he merely waved

his hand to signify that he should act in spite of the prohibition were

it necessary. In point of fact, his anxiety had increased, and, when the

cab at last drew up before the house, it was with real relief that he saw

his brother alight without evincing any marked feebleness. He himself

quickly paid the driver, well-pleased, too, at finding that nobody, not

even a neighbour, was about. And having opened the door with his latch

key, he helped the injured man to ascend the steps.

A little night lamp glimmered faintly in the vestibule. On hearing the

door open, Pierre’s servant, Sophie, had at once emerged from the

kitchen. A short, thin, dark woman of sixty, she had formed part of the

household for more than thirty years, having served the mother before

serving the son. She knew Guillaume, having seen him when he was a young

man, and doubtless she now recognised him, although well-nigh ten years

had gone by since he had last crossed that threshold. Instead of evincing

any surprise, she seemed to consider his extraordinary return quite

natural, and remained as silent and discreet as usual. She led, indeed,

the life of a recluse, never speaking unless her work absolutely required

it. And thus she now contented herself with saying: “Monsieur l’Abbé,

Monsieur Bertheroy is in the study, and has been waiting there for a

quarter of an hour.”

At this Guillaume intervened, as if the news revived him: “Does Bertheroy

still come here, then? I’ll see him willingly. His is one of the best,

the broadest, minds of these days. He has still remained my master.”

A former friend of their father,--the illustrious chemist, Michel

Froment,--Bertheroy had now, in his turn, become one of the loftiest

glories of France, one to whom chemistry owed much of the extraordinary

progress that has made it the mother-science, by which the very face of

the earth is being changed. A member of the Institute, laden with offices

and honours, he had retained much affection for Pierre, and occasionally

visited him in this wise before dinner, by way of relaxation, he would

say.

“You showed him into the study? All right, then, we will go there,” said

the Abbé to the servant. “Light a lamp and take it into my room, and get

my bed ready so that my brother may go to bed at once.”

While Sophie, without a word or sign of surprise, was obeying these

instructions, the brothers went into their father’s former laboratory, of

which the priest had now made a spacious study. And it was with a cry of

joyous astonishment that the _savant_ greeted them on seeing them enter

the room side by side, the one supporting the other. “What, together!” he

exclaimed. “Ah! my dear children, you could not have caused me greater

pleasure! I who have so often deplored your painful misunderstanding.”

Bertheroy was a tall and lean septuagenarian, with angular features. His

yellow skin clung like parchment to the projecting bones of his cheeks

and jaw. Moreover, there was nothing imposing about him; he looked like

some old shop-keeping herbalist. At the same time he had a fine, broad,

smooth brow, and his eyes still glittered brightly beneath his tangled

hair.

“What, have you injured yourself, Guillaume?” he continued, as soon as he

saw the bandaged hand.

Pierre remained silent, so as to let his brother tell the story as he

chose. Guillaume had realised that he must confess the truth, but in

simple fashion, without detailing the circumstances. “Yes, in an

explosion,” he answered, “and I really think that I have my wrist

broken.”

At this, Bertheroy, whose glance was fixed upon him, noticed that his

moustaches were burnt, and that there was an expression of bewildered

stupor, such as follows a catastrophe, in his eyes. Forthwith the

_savant_ became grave and circumspect; and, without seeking to compel

confidence by any questions, he simply said: “Indeed! an explosion! Will

you let me see the injury? You know that before letting chemistry ensnare

me I studied medicine, and am still somewhat of a surgeon.”

On hearing these words Pierre could not restrain a heart-cry: “Yes, yes,

master! Look at the injury--I was very anxious, and to find you here is

unhoped-for good fortune!”

The _savant_ glanced at him, and divined that the hidden circumstances of

the accident must be serious. And then, as Guillaume, smiling, though

paling with weakness, consented to the suggestion, Bertheroy retorted

that before anything else he must be put to bed. The servant just then

returned to say the bed was ready, and so they all went into the

adjoining room, where the injured man was soon undressed and helped

between the sheets.

“Light me, Pierre,” said Bertheroy, “take the lamp; and let Sophie give

me a basin full of water and some cloths.” Then, having gently washed the

wound, he resumed: “The devil! The wrist isn’t broken, but it’s a nasty

injury. I am afraid there must be a lesion of the bone. Some nails passed

through the flesh, did they not?”

Receiving no reply, he relapsed into silence. But his surprise was

increasing, and he closely examined the hand, which the flame of the

explosion had scorched, and even sniffed the shirt cuff as if seeking to

understand the affair better. He evidently recognised the effects of one

of those new explosives which he himself had studied, almost created. In

the present case, however, he must have been puzzled, for there were

characteristic signs and traces the significance of which escaped him.

“And so,” he at last made up his mind to ask, carried away by

professional curiosity, “and so it was a laboratory explosion which put

you in this nice condition? What devilish powder were you concocting

then?”

Guillaume, ever since he had seen Bertheroy thus studying his injury,

had, in spite of his sufferings, given marked signs of annoyance and

agitation. And as if the real secret which he wished to keep lay

precisely in the question now put to him, in that powder, the first

experiment with which had thus injured him, he replied with an air of

restrained ardour, and a straight frank glance: “Pray do not question me,

master. I cannot answer you. You have, I know, sufficient nobility of

nature to nurse me and care for me without exacting a confession.”

“Oh! certainly, my friend,” exclaimed Bertheroy; “keep your secret. Your

discovery belongs to you if you have made one; and I know that you are

capable of putting it to the most generous use. Besides, you must be

aware that I have too great a passion for truth to judge the actions of

others, whatever their nature, without knowing every circumstance and

motive.”

So saying, he waved his hand as if to indicate how broadly tolerant and

free from error and superstition was that lofty sovereign mind of his,

which in spite of all the orders that bedizened him, in spite of all the

academical titles that he bore as an official _savant_, made him a man of

the boldest and most independent views, one whose only passion was truth,

as he himself said.

He lacked the necessary appliances to do more than dress the wound, after

making sure that no fragment of any projectile had remained in the flesh.

Then he at last went off, promising to return at an early hour on the

morrow; and, as the priest escorted him to the street door, he spoke some

comforting words: if the bone had not been deeply injured all would be

well.

On returning to the bedside, Pierre found his brother still sitting up

and seeking fresh energy in his desire to write home and tranquillise his

loved ones. So the priest, after providing pen and paper, again had to

take up the lamp and light him. Guillaume fortunately retained full use

of his right hand, and was thus able to pen a few lines to say that he

would not be home that night. He addressed the note to Madame Leroi, the

mother of his deceased mistress, who, since the latter’s death, had

remained with him and had reared his three sons. Pierre was aware also

that the household at Montmartre included a young woman of five or six

and twenty, the daughter of an old friend, to whom Guillaume had given

shelter on her father’s death, and whom he was soon to marry, in spite of

the great difference in their ages. For the priest, however, all these

were vague, disturbing things, condemnable features of disorderly life,

and he had invariably pretended to be ignorant of them.

“So you wish this note to be taken to Montmartre at once?” he said to his

brother.

“Yes, at once. It is scarcely more than seven o’clock now, and it will be

there by eight. And you will choose a reliable man, won’t you?”

“The best course will be for Sophie to take a cab. We need have no fear

with her. She won’t chatter. Wait a moment, and I will settle

everything.”

Sophie, on being summoned, at once understood what was wanted of her, and

promised to say, in reply to any questions, that M. Guillaume had come to

spend the night at his brother’s, for reasons which she did not know. And

without indulging in any reflections herself, she left the house, saying

simply: “Monsieur l’Abbé’s dinner is ready; he will only have to take the

broth and the stew off the stove.”

However, when Pierre this time returned to the bedside to sit down there,

he found that Guillaume had fallen back with his head resting on both

pillows. And he looked very weary and pale, and showed signs of fever.

The lamp, standing on a corner of a side table, cast a soft light around,

and so deep was the quietude that the big clock in the adjoining

dining-room could be heard ticking. For a moment the silence continued

around the two brothers, who, after so many years of separation, were at

last re-united and alone together. Then the injured man brought his right

hand to the edge of the sheet, and the priest grasped it, pressed it

tenderly in his own. And the clasp was a long one, those two brotherly

hands remaining locked, one in the other.

“My poor little Pierre,” Guillaume faintly murmured, “you must forgive me

for falling on you in this fashion. I’ve invaded the house and taken your

bed, and I’m preventing you from dining.”

“Don’t talk, don’t tire yourself any more,” interrupted Pierre. “Is not

this the right place for you when you are in trouble?”

A warmer pressure came from Guillaume’s feverish hand, and tears gathered

in his eyes. “Thanks, my little Pierre. I’ve found you again, and you are

as gentle and loving as you always were. Ah! you cannot know how

delightful it seems to me.”

Then the priest’s eyes also were dimmed by tears. Amidst the deep

quietude, the great sense of comfort which had followed their violent

emotion, the brothers found an infinite charm in being together once more

in the home of their childhood.* It was there that both their father and

mother had died--the father tragically, struck down by an explosion in

his laboratory; the mother piously, like a very saint. It was there, too,

in that same bed, that Guillaume had nursed Pierre, when, after their

mother’s death, the latter had nearly died; and it was there now that

Pierre in his turn was nursing Guillaume. All helped to bow them down and

fill them with emotion: the strange circumstances of their meeting, the

frightful catastrophe which had caused them such a shock, the

mysteriousness of the things which remained unexplained between them. And

now that after so long a separation they were tragically brought together

again, they both felt their memory awaking. The old house spoke to them

of their childhood, of their parents dead and gone, of the far-away days

when they had loved and suffered there. Beneath the window lay the

garden, now icy cold, which once, under the sunbeams, had re-echoed with

their play. On the left was the laboratory, the spacious room where their

father had taught them to read. On the right, in the dining-room, they

could picture their mother cutting bread and butter for them, and looking

so gentle with her big, despairing eyes--those of a believer mated to an

infidel. And the feeling that they were now alone in that home, and the

pale, sleepy gleam of the lamp, and the deep silence of the garden and

the house, and the very past itself, all filled them with the softest of

emotion blended with the keenest bitterness.

* See M. Zola’s “Lourdes,” Day I., Chapter II.

They would have liked to talk and unbosom themselves. But what could they

say to one another? Although their hands remained so tightly clasped, did

not the most impassable of chasms separate them? In any case, they

thought so. Guillaume was convinced that Pierre was a saint, a priest of

the most robust faith, without a doubt, without aught in common with

himself, whether in the sphere of ideas or in that of practical life. A

hatchet-stroke had parted them, and each lived in a different world. And

in the same way Pierre pictured Guillaume as one who had lost caste,

whose conduct was most suspicious, who had never even married the mother

of his three children, but was on the point of marrying that girl who was

far too young for him, and who had come nobody knew whence. In him,

moreover, were blended the passionate ideas of a _savant_ and a

revolutionist, ideas in which one found negation of everything,

acceptance and possibly provocation of the worst forms of violence, with

a glimpse of the vague monster of Anarchism underlying all. And so, on

what basis could there be any understanding between them, since each

retained his prejudices against the other, and saw him on the opposite

side of the chasm, without possibility of any plank being thrown across

it to enable them to unite? Thus, all alone in that room, their poor

hearts bled with distracted brotherly love.

Pierre knew that, on a previous occasion, Guillaume had narrowly escaped

being compromised in an Anarchist affair. He asked him no questions, but

he could not help reflecting that he would not have hidden himself in

this fashion had he not feared arrest for complicity. Complicity with

Salvat? Was he really an accomplice? Pierre shuddered, for the only

materials on which he could found a contrary opinion were, on one hand,

the words that had escaped his brother after the crime, the cry he had

raised accusing Salvat of having stolen a cartridge from him; and, on the

other hand, his heroic rush into the doorway of the Duvillard mansion in

order to extinguish the match. A great deal still remained obscure; but

if a cartridge of that frightful explosive had been stolen from Guillaume

the fact must be that he manufactured such cartridges and had others at

home. Of course, even if he were not an accomplice, the injury to his

wrist had made it needful for him to disappear. Given his bleeding hand,

and the previous suspicions levelled against him, he would never have

convinced anybody of his innocence. And yet, even allowing for these

surmises, the affair remained wrapt in darkness: a crime on Guillaume’s

part seemed a possibility, and to Pierre it was all dreadful to think of.

Guillaume, by the trembling of his brother’s moist, yielding hand, must

in some degree have realised the prostration of his poor mind, already

shattered by doubt and finished off by this calamity. Indeed, the

sepulchre was empty now, the very ashes had been swept out of it.

“My poor little Pierre,” the elder brother slowly said. “Forgive me if I

do not tell you anything. I cannot do so. And besides, what would be the

use of it? We should certainly not understand one another.... So let

us keep from saying anything, and let us simply enjoy the delight of

being together and loving one another in spite of all.”

Pierre raised his eyes, and for a long time their glances lingered, one

fixed on the other. “Ah!” stammered the priest, “how frightful it all

is!”

Guillaume, however, had well understood the mute inquiry of Pierre’s

eyes. His own did not waver but replied boldly, beaming with purity and

loftiness: “I can tell you nothing. Yet, all the same, let us love each

other, my little Pierre.”

And then Pierre for a moment felt that his brother was above all base

anxiety, above the guilty fear of the man who trembles for himself. In

lieu thereof he seemed to be carried away by the passion of some great

design, the noble thought of concealing some sovereign idea, some secret

which it was imperative for him to save. But, alas! this was only the

fleeting vision of a vague hope; for all vanished, and again came the

doubt, the suspicion, of a mind dealing with one that it knew nothing of.

And all at once a souvenir, a frightful spectacle, arose before Pierre’s

eyes and distracted him: “Did you see, brother,” he stammered, “did you

see that fair-haired girl lying under the archway, ripped open, with a

smile of astonishment on her face?”

Guillaume in his turn quivered, and in a low and dolorous voice replied:

“Yes, I saw her! Ah, poor little thing! Ah! the atrocious necessities,

the atrocious errors, of justice!”

Then, amidst the frightful shudder that seemed to sweep by, Pierre, with

his horror of all violence, succumbed, and let his face sink upon the

counterpane at the edge of the bed. And he sobbed distractedly: a sudden

attack of weakness, overflowing in tears, cast him there exhausted, with

no more strength than a child. It was as if all his sufferings since the

morning, the deep grief with which universal injustice and woe inspired

him, were bursting forth in that flood of tears which nothing now could

stay. And Guillaume, who, to calm his little brother, had set his hand

upon his head, in the same way as he had often caressingly stroked his

hair in childhood’s days, likewise felt upset and remained silent, unable

to find a word of consolation, resigned, as he was, to the eruption which

in life is always possible, the cataclysm by which the slow evolution of

nature is always liable to be precipitated. But how hard a fate for the

wretched ones whom the lava sweeps away in millions! And then his tears

also began to flow amidst the profound silence.

“Pierre,” he gently exclaimed at last, “you must have some dinner. Go, go

and have some. And screen the lamp; leave me by myself, and let me close

my eyes. It will do me good.”

Pierre had to content him. Still, he left the dining-room door open; and,

weak for want of food, though he had not hitherto noticed it, he ate

standing, with his ears on the alert, listening lest his brother should

complain or call him. And the silence seemed to have become yet more

complete, the little house sank, as it were, into annihilation, instinct

with all the melancholy charm of the past.

At about half-past eight, when Sophie returned from her errand to

Montmartre, Guillaume heard her step, light though it was. And he at once

became restless and wanted to know what news she brought. It was Pierre,

however, who enlightened him. “Don’t be anxious. Sophie was received by

an old lady who, after reading your note, merely answered, ‘Very well.’

She did not even ask Sophie a question, but remained quite composed

without sign of curiosity.”

Guillaume, realising that this fine serenity perplexed his brother,

thereupon replied with similar calmness: “Oh! it was only necessary that

grandmother should be warned. She knows well enough that if I don’t

return home it is because I can’t.”

However, from that moment it was impossible for the injured man to rest.

Although the lamp was hidden away in a corner, he constantly opened his

eyes, glanced round him, and seemed to listen, as if for sounds from the

direction of Paris. And it at last became necessary for the priest to

summon the servant and ask her if she had noticed anything strange on her

way to or from Montmartre. She seemed surprised by the question, and

answered that she had noticed nothing. Besides, the cab had followed the

outer boulevards, which were almost deserted. A slight fog had again

begun to fall, and the streets were steeped in icy dampness.

By the time it was nine o’clock Pierre realised that his brother would

never be able to sleep if he were thus left without news. Amidst his

growing feverishness the injured man experienced keen anxiety, a haunting

desire to know if Salvat were arrested and had spoken out. He did not

confess this; indeed he sought to convey the impression that he had no

personal disquietude, which was doubtless true. But his great secret was

stifling him; he shuddered at the thought that his lofty scheme, all his

labour and all his hope, should be at the mercy of that unhappy man whom

want had filled with delusions and who had sought to set justice upon

earth by the aid of a bomb. And in vain did the priest try to make

Guillaume understand that nothing certain could yet be known. He

perceived that his impatience increased every minute, and at last

resolved to make some effort to satisfy him.

But where could he go, of whom could he inquire? Guillaume, while talking

and trying to guess with whom Salvat might have sought refuge, had

mentioned Janzen, the Princess de Harn’s mysterious lover; and for a

moment he had even thought of sending to this man for information. But he

reflected that if Janzen had heard of the explosion he was not at all the

individual to wait for the police at home.

Meantime Pierre repeated: “I will willingly go to buy the evening papers

for you--but there will certainly be nothing in them. Although I know

almost everyone in Neuilly I can think of nobody who is likely to have

any information, unless perhaps it were Bache--”

“You know Bache, the municipal councillor?” interrupted Guillaume.

“Yes, we have both had to busy ourselves with charitable work in the

neighbourhood.”

“Well, Bache is an old friend of mine, and I know no safer man. Pray go

to him and bring him back with you.”

A quarter of an hour later Pierre returned with Bache, who resided in a

neighbouring street. And it was not only Bache whom he brought with him,

for, much to his surprise, he had found Janzen at Bache’s house. As

Guillaume had suspected, Janzen, while dining at the Princess de Harn’s,

had heard of the crime, and had consequently refrained from returning to

his little lodging in the Rue des Martyrs, where the police might well

have set a trap for him. His connections were known, and he was aware

that he was watched and was liable at any moment to arrest or expulsion

as a foreign Anarchist. And so he had thought it prudent to solicit a few

days’ hospitality of Bache, a very upright and obliging man, to whom he

entrusted himself without fear. He would never have remained with

Rosemonde, that adorable lunatic who for a month past had been exhibiting

him as her lover, and whose useless and dangerous extravagance of conduct

he fully realised.

Guillaume was so delighted on seeing Bache and Janzen that he wished to

sit up in bed again. But Pierre bade him remain quiet, rest his head on

the pillows, and speak as little as possible. Then, while Janzen stood

near, erect and silent, Bache took a chair and sat down by the bedside

with many expressions of friendly interest. He was a stout man of sixty,

with a broad, full face, a large white beard and long white hair. His

little, gentle eyes had a dim, dreamy expression, while a pleasant,

hopeful smile played round his thick lips. His father, a fervent St.

Simonian, had brought him up in the doctrines of that belief. While

retaining due respect for it, however, his personal inclinations towards

orderliness and religion had led him to espouse the ideas of Fourier, in

such wise that one found in him a succession and an abridgment, so to

say, of two doctrines. Moreover, when he was about thirty, he had busied

himself with spiritualism. Possessed of a comfortable little fortune, his

only adventure in life had been his connection with the Paris Commune of

1871. How or why he had become a member of it he could now scarcely tell.

Condemned to death by default, although he had sat among the Moderates,

he had resided in Belgium until the amnesty; and since then Neuilly had

elected him as its representative on the Paris Municipal Council, less by

way of glorifying in him a victim of reaction than as a reward for his

worthiness, for he was really esteemed by the whole district.

Guillaume, with his desire for tidings, was obliged to confide in his two

visitors, tell them of the explosion and Salvat’s flight, and how he

himself had been wounded while seeking to extinguish the match. Janzen,

with curly beard and hair, and a thin, fair face such as painters often

attribute to the Christ, listened coldly, as was his wont, and at last

said slowly in a gentle voice: “Ah! so it was Salvat! I thought it might

be little Mathis--I’m surprised that it should be Salvat--for he hadn’t

made up his mind.” Then, as Guillaume anxiously inquired if he thought

that Salvat would speak out, he began to protest: “Oh! no; oh! no.”

However, he corrected himself with a gleam of disdain in his clear, harsh

eyes: “After all, there’s no telling. Salvat is a man of sentiment.”

Then Bache, who was quite upset by the news of the explosion, tried to

think how his friend Guillaume, to whom he was much attached, might be

extricated from any charge of complicity should he be denounced. And

Guillaume, at sight of Janzen’s contemptuous coldness, must have suffered

keenly, for the other evidently believed him to be trembling, tortured by

the one desire to save his own skin. But what could he say, how could he

reveal the deep concern which rendered him so feverish without betraying

the secret which he had hidden even from his brother?

However, at this moment Sophie came to tell her master that M. Théophile

Morin had called with another gentleman. Much astonished by this visit at

so late an hour, Pierre hastened into the next room to receive the new

comers. He had become acquainted with Morin since his return from Rome,

and had helped him to introduce a translation of an excellent scientific

manual, prepared according to the official programmes, into the Italian

schools.* A Franc-Comtois by birth, a compatriot of Proudhon, with whose

poor family he had been intimate at Besancon, Morin, himself the son of a

journeyman clockmaker, had grown up with Proudhonian ideas, full of

affection for the poor and an instinctive hatred of property and wealth.

Later on, having come to Paris as a school teacher, impassioned by study,

he had given his whole mind to Auguste Comte. Beneath the fervent

Positivist, however, one might yet find the old Proudhonian, the pauper

who rebelled and detested want. Moreover, it was scientific Positivism

that he clung to; in his hatred of all mysticism he would have naught to

do with the fantastic religious leanings of Comte in his last years. And

in Morin’s brave, consistent, somewhat mournful life, there had been but

one page of romance: the sudden feverish impulse which had carried him

off to fight in Sicily by Garibaldi’s side. Afterwards he had again

become a petty professor in Paris, obscurely earning a dismal livelihood.

* See M. Zola’s “Rome,” Chapters IV. and XVI.

When Pierre returned to the bedroom he said to his brother in a tone of

emotion: “Morin has brought me Barthès, who fancies himself in danger and

asks my hospitality.”

At this Guillaume forgot himself and became excited: “Nicholas Barthès, a

hero with a soul worthy of antiquity. Oh! I know him; I admire and love

him. You must set your door open wide for him.”

Bache and Janzen, however, had glanced at one another smiling. And the

latter, with his cold ironical air, slowly remarked: “Why does Monsieur

Barthès hide himself? A great many people think he is dead; he is simply

a ghost who no longer frightens anybody.”

Four and seventy years of age as he now was, Barthès had spent nearly

half a century in prison. He was the eternal prisoner, the hero of

liberty whom each successive Government had carried from citadel to

fortress. Since his youth he had been marching on amidst his dream of

fraternity, fighting for an ideal Republic based on truth and justice,

and each and every endeavour had led him to a dungeon; he had invariably

finished his humanitarian reverie under bolts and bars. Carbonaro,

Republican, evangelical sectarian, he had conspired at all times and in

all places, incessantly struggling against the Power of the day, whatever

it might be. And when the Republic at last had come, that Republic which

had cost him so many years of gaol, it had, in its own turn, imprisoned

him, adding fresh years of gloom to those which already had lacked

sunlight. And thus he remained the martyr of freedom: freedom which he

still desired in spite of everything; freedom, which, strive as he might,

never came, never existed.

“But you are mistaken,” replied Guillaume, wounded by Janzen’s raillery.

“There is again a thought of getting rid of Barthès, whose uncompromising

rectitude disturbs our politicians; and he does well to take his

precautions!”

Nicholas Barthès came in, a tall, slim, withered old man, with a nose

like an eagle’s beak, and eyes that still burned in their deep sockets,

under white and bushy brows. His mouth, toothless but still refined, was

lost to sight between his moustaches and snowy beard; and his hair,

crowning him whitely like an aureola, fell in curls over his shoulders.

Behind him with all modesty came Théophile Morin, with grey whiskers,

grey, brush-like hair, spectacles, and yellow, weary mien--that of an old

professor exhausted by years of teaching. Neither of them seemed

astonished or awaited an explanation on finding that man in bed with an

injured wrist. And there were no introductions: those who were acquainted

merely smiled at one another.

Barthès, for his part, stooped and kissed Guillaume on both cheeks. “Ah!”

said the latter, almost gaily, “it gives me courage to see you.”

However, the new comers had brought a little information. The boulevards

were in an agitated state, the news of the crime had spread from café to

café, and everybody was anxious to see the late edition which one paper

had published giving a very incorrect account of the affair, full of the

most extraordinary details. Briefly, nothing positive was as yet known.

On seeing Guillaume turn pale Pierre compelled him to lie down again, and

even talked of taking the visitors into the next room. But the injured

man gently replied: “No, no, I promise you that I won’t stir again, that

I won’t open my mouth. But stay there and chat together. I assure you

that it will do me good to have you near me and hear you.”

Then, under the sleepy gleams of the lamp, the others began to talk in

undertones. Old Barthès, who considered that bomb to be both idiotic and

abominable, spoke of it with the stupefaction of one who, after fighting

like a hero through all the legendary struggles for liberty, found

himself belated, out of his element, in a new era, which he could not

understand. Did not the conquest of freedom suffice for everything? he

added. Was there any other problem beyond that of founding the real

Republic? Then, referring to Mège and his speech in the Chamber that

afternoon, he bitterly arraigned Collectivism, which he declared to be

one of the democratic forms of tyranny. Théophile Morin, for his part,

also spoke against the Collectivist enrolling of the social forces, but

he professed yet greater hatred of the odious violence of the Anarchists;

for it was only by evolution that he expected progress, and he felt

somewhat indifferent as to what political means might bring about the

scientific society of to-morrow. And in like way Bache did not seem

particularly fond of the Anarchists, though he was touched by the idyllic

dream, the humanitarian hope, whose germs lay beneath their passion for

destruction. And, like Barthès, he also flew into a passion with Mège,

who since entering the Chamber had become, said he, a mere rhetorician

and theorist, dreaming of dictatorship. Meantime Janzen, still erect, his

face frigid and his lips curling ironically, listened to all three of

them, and vented a few trenchant words to express his own Anarchist

faith; the uselessness of drawing distinctions, and the necessity of

destroying everything in order that everything might be rebuilt on fresh

lines.

Pierre, who had remained near the bed, also listened with passionate

attention. Amidst the downfall of his own beliefs, the utter void which

he felt within him, here were these four men, who represented the

cardinal points of this century’s ideas, debating the very same terrible

problem which brought him so much suffering, that of the new belief which

the democracy of the coming century awaits. And, ah! since the days of

the immediate ancestors, since the days of Voltaire and Diderot and

Rousseau how incessantly had billows of ideas followed and jostled one

another, the older ones giving birth to new ones, and all breaking and

bounding in a tempest in which it was becoming so difficult to

distinguish anything clearly! Whence came the wind, and whither was the

ship of salvation going, for what port ought one to embark? Pierre had

already thought that the balance-sheet of the century ought to be drawn

up, and that, after accepting the legacies of Rousseau and the other

precursors, he ought to study the ideas of St. Simon, Fourier and even

Cabet; of Auguste Comte, Proudhon and Karl Marx as well, in order, at any

rate, to form some idea of the distance that had been travelled, and of

the cross-ways which one had now reached. And was not this an

opportunity, since chance had gathered those men together in his house,

living exponents of the conflicting doctrines which he wished to examine?

On turning round, however, he perceived that Guillaume was now very pale

and had closed his eyes. Had even he, with his faith in science, felt the

doubt which is born of contradictory theories, and the despair which

comes when one sees the fight for truth resulting in growth of error?

“Are you in pain?” the priest anxiously inquired.

“Yes, a little. But I will try to sleep.”

At this they all went off with silent handshakes. Nicholas Barthès alone

remained in the house and slept in a room on the first floor which Sophie

had got ready for him. Pierre, unwilling to quit his brother, dozed off

upon a sofa. And the little house relapsed into its deep quietude, the

silence of solitude and winter, through which passed the melancholy

quiver of the souvenirs of childhood.

In the morning, as soon as it was seven o’clock, Pierre had to go for the

newspapers. Guillaume had passed a bad night and intense fever had set

in. Nevertheless, his brother was obliged to read him the articles on the

explosion. There was an amazing medley of truths and inventions, of

precise information lost amidst the most unexpected extravagance.

Sagnier’s paper, the “Voix du Peuple,” distinguished itself by its

sub-titles in huge print and a whole page of particulars jumbled together

chance-wise. It had at once decided to postpone the famous list of the

thirty-two deputies and senators compromised in the African Railways

affair; and there was no end to the details it gave of the aspect of the

entrance to the Duvillard mansion after the explosion the pavement broken

up, the upper floor rent open, the huge doors torn away from their

hinges. Then came the story of the Baron’s son and daughter preserved as

by a miracle, the landau escaping the slightest injury, while the banker

and his wife, it was alleged, owed their preservation to the circumstance

that they had lingered at the Madeleine after Monseigneur Martha’s

remarkable address there. An entire column was given to the one victim,

the poor, pretty, fair-haired errand girl, whose identity did not seem to

be clearly established, although a flock of reporters had rushed first to

the modiste employing her, in the Avenue de l’Opera, and next to the

upper part of the Faubourg St. Denis, where it was thought her

grandmother resided. Then, in a gravely worded article in “Le Globe,”

evidently inspired by Fonsègue, an appeal was made to the Chamber’s

patriotism to avoid giving cause for any ministerial crisis in the

painful circumstances through which the country was passing. Thus the

ministry might last, and live in comparative quietude, for a few weeks

longer.

Guillaume, however, was struck by one point only: the culprit was not

known; Salvat, it appeared certain, was neither arrested nor even

suspected. It seemed, indeed, as if the police were starting on a false

scent--that of a well-dressed gentleman wearing gloves, whom a neighbour

swore he had seen entering the mansion at the moment of the explosion.

Thus Guillaume became a little calmer. But his brother read to him from

another paper some particulars concerning the engine of destruction that

had been employed. It was a preserved-meat can, and the fragments of it

showed that it had been comparatively small. And Guillaume relapsed into

anxiety on learning that people were much astonished at the violent

ravages of such a sorry appliance, and that the presence of some new

explosive of incalculable power was already suspected.

At eight o’clock Bertheroy put in an appearance. Although he was

sixty-eight, he showed as much briskness and sprightliness as any young

sawbones calling in a friendly way to perform a little operation. He had

brought an instrument case, some linen bands and some lint. However, he

became angry on finding the injured man nervous, flushed and hot with

fever.

“Ah! I see that you haven’t been reasonable, my dear child,” said he.

“You must have talked too much, and have bestirred and excited yourself.”

Then, having carefully probed the wound, he added, while dressing it:

“The bone is injured, you know, and I won’t answer for anything unless

you behave better. Any complications would make amputation necessary.”

Pierre shuddered, but Guillaume shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that

he might just as well be amputated since all was crumbling around him.

Bertheroy, who had sat down, lingering there for another moment,

scrutinised both brothers with his keen eyes. He now knew of the

explosion, and must have thought it over. “My dear child,” he resumed in

his brusque way, “I certainly don’t think that you committed that

abominable act of folly in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. But I fancy that you

were in the neighbourhood--no, no, don’t answer me, don’t defend

yourself. I know nothing and desire to know nothing, not even the formula

of that devilish powder of which your shirt cuff bore traces, and which

has wrought such terrible havoc.”

And then as the brothers remained surprised, turning cold with anxiety,

in spite of his assurances, he added with a sweeping gesture: “Ah! my

friends, I regard such an action as even more useless than criminal! I

only feel contempt for the vain agitation of politics, whether they be

revolutionary or conservative. Does not science suffice? Why hasten the

times when one single step of science brings humanity nearer to the goal

of truth and justice than do a hundred years of politics and social

revolt? Why, it is science alone which sweeps away dogmas, casts down

gods, and creates light and happiness. And I, Member of the Institute as

I am, decorated and possessed of means, I am the only true

Revolutionist.”

Then he began to laugh and Guillaume realised all the good-natured irony

of his laugh. While admiring him as a great _savant_, he had hitherto

suffered at seeing him lead such a _bourgeois_ life, accepting whatever

appointments and honours were offered him, a Republican under the

Republic, but quite ready to serve science under no matter what master.

But now, from beneath this opportunist, this hieratical _savant_, this

toiler who accepted wealth and glory from all hands, there appeared a

quiet yet terrible evolutionist, who certainly expected that his own work

would help to ravage and renew the world!

However, Bertheroy rose and took his leave: “I’ll come back; behave

sensibly, and love one another as well as you can.”

When the brothers again found themselves alone, Pierre seated at

Guillaume’s bedside, their hands once more sought each other and met in a

burning clasp instinct with all their anguish. How much threatening

mystery and distress there was both around and within them! The grey

wintry daylight came into the room, and they could see the black trees in

the garden, while the house remained full of quivering silence, save that

overhead a faint sound of footsteps was audible. They were the steps of

Nicholas Barthès, the heroic lover of freedom, who, rising at daybreak,

had, like a caged lion, resumed his wonted promenade, the incessant

coming and going of one who had ever been a prisoner. And as the brothers

ceased listening to him their eyes fell on a newspaper which had remained

open on the bed, a newspaper soiled by a sketch in outline which

pretended to portray the poor dead errand girl, lying, ripped open,

beside the bandbox and the bonnet it had contained. It was so frightful,

so atrociously hideous a scene, that two big tears again fell upon

Pierre’s cheeks, whilst Guillaume’s blurred, despairing eyes gazed

wistfully far away, seeking for the Future.

II. A HOME OF INDUSTRY

THE little house in which Guillaume had dwelt for so many years, a home

of quietude and hard work, stood in the pale light of winter up yonder at

Montmartre, peacefully awaiting his return. He reflected, however, after

_déjeuner_ that it might not be prudent for him to go back thither for

some three weeks, and so he thought of sending Pierre to explain the

position of affairs. “Listen, brother,” he said. “You must render me this

service. Go and tell them the truth--that I am here, slightly injured,

and do not wish them to come to see me, for fear lest somebody should

follow them and discover my retreat. After the note I wrote them last

evening they would end by getting anxious if I did not send them some

news.” Then, yielding to the one worry which, since the previous night,

had disturbed his clear, frank glance, he added: “Just feel in the

right-hand pocket of my waistcoat; you will find a little key there.

Good! that’s it. Now you must give it to Madame Leroi, my mother-in-law,

and tell her that if any misfortune should happen to me, she is to do

what is understood between us. That will suffice, she will understand

you.”

At the first moment Pierre had hesitated; but he saw how even the slight

effort of speaking exhausted his brother, so he silenced him, saying:

“Don’t talk, but put your mind at ease. I will go and reassure your

people, since you wish that this commission should be undertaken by me.”

Truth to tell, the errand was so distasteful to Pierre that he had at

first thought of sending Sophie in his place. All his old prejudices were

reviving; it was as if he were going to some ogre’s den. How many times

had he not heard his mother say “that creature!” in referring to the

woman with whom her elder son cohabited. Never had she been willing to

kiss Guillaume’s boys; the whole connection had shocked her, and she was

particularly indignant that Madame Leroi, the woman’s mother, should have

joined the household for the purpose of bringing up the little ones.

Pierre retained so strong a recollection of all this that even nowadays,

when he went to the basilica of the Sacred Heart and passed the little

house on his way, he glanced at it distrustfully, and kept as far from it

as he could, as if it were some abode of vice and error. Undoubtedly, for

ten years now, the boys’ mother had been dead, but did not another

scandal-inspiring creature dwell there, that young orphan girl to whom

his brother had given shelter, and whom he was going to marry, although a

difference of twenty years lay between them? To Pierre all this was

contrary to propriety, abnormal and revolting, and he pictured a home

given over to social rebellion, where lack of principle led to every kind

of disorder.

However, he was leaving the room to start upon his journey, when

Guillaume called him back. “Tell Madame Leroi,” said he, “that if I

should die you will let her know of it, so that she may immediately do

what is necessary.”

“Yes, yes,” answered Pierre. “But calm yourself, and don’t move about.

I’ll say everything. And in my absence Sophie will stop here with you in

case you should need her.”

Having given full instructions to the servant, Pierre set out to take a

tramcar, intending to alight from it on the Boulevard de Rochechouart,

and then climb the height on foot. And on the road, lulled by the gliding

motion of the heavy vehicle, he began to think of his brother’s past life

and connections, with which he was but vaguely, imperfectly, acquainted.

It was only at a later date that details of everything came to his

knowledge. In 1850 a young professor named Leroi, who had come from Paris

to the college of Montauban with the most ardent republican ideas, had

there married Agathe Dagnan, the youngest of the five girls of an old

Protestant family from the Cévennes. Young Madame Leroi was _enceinte_

when her husband, threatened with arrest for contributing some violent

articles to a local newspaper, immediately after the “Coup d’État,” found

himself obliged to seek refuge at Geneva. It was there that the young

couple’s daughter, Marguerite, a very delicate child, was born in 1852.

For seven years, that is until the Amnesty of 1859, the household

struggled with poverty, the husband giving but a few ill-paid lessons,

and the wife absorbed in the constant care which the child required.

Then, after their return to Paris, their ill-luck became even greater.

For a long time the ex-professor vainly sought regular employment; it was

denied him on account of his opinions, and he had to run about giving

lessons in private houses. When he was at last on the point of being

received back into the University a supreme blow, an attack of paralysis,

fell upon him. He lost the use of both legs. And then came utter misery,

every kind of sordid drudgery, the writing of articles for dictionaries,

the copying of manuscripts, and even the addressing of newspaper

wrappers, on the fruits of which the household barely contrived to live,

in a little lodging in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.

It was there that Marguerite grew up. Leroi, embittered by injustice and

suffering, predicted the advent of a Republic which would avenge the

follies of the Empire, and a reign of science which would sweep away the

deceptive and cruel divinity of religious dogmas. On the other hand,

Agathe’s religious faith had collapsed at Geneva, at sight of the narrow

and imbecile practices of Calvinism, and all that she retained of it was

the old Protestant leaven of rebellion. She had become at once the head

and the arm of the house; she went for her husband’s work, took it back

when completed, and even did much of it herself, whilst, at the same

time, performing her house duties, and rearing and educating her

daughter. The latter, who attended no school, was indebted for all she

learnt to her father and mother, on whose part there was never any

question of religious instruction. Through contact with her husband,

Madame Leroi had lost all belief, and her Protestant heredity inclining

her to free inquiry and examination, she had arranged for herself a kind

of peaceful atheism, based on paramount principles of human duty and

justice, which she applied courageously, irrespective of all social

conventionalities. The long iniquity of her husband’s fate, the

undeserved misfortunes which struck her through him and her daughter,

ended by endowing her with wonderful fortitude and devotion, which made

her, whether as a judge, a manager, or a consoler, a woman of

incomparable energy and nobleness of character.

It was in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince that Guillaume became acquainted

with the Leroi family, after the war of 1870. On the same floor as their

little lodging he occupied a large room, where he devoted himself

passionately to his studies. At the outset there was only an occasional

bow, for Guillaume’s neighbours were very proud and very grave, leading

their life of poverty in fierce silence and retirement. Then intercourse

began with the rendering of little services, such as when the young man

procured the ex-professor a commission to write a few articles for a new

encyclopaedia. But all at once came the catastrophe: Leroi died in his

armchair one evening while his daughter was wheeling him from his table

to his bed. The two distracted women had not even the money to bury him.

The whole secret of their bitter want flowed forth with their tears, and

they were obliged to accept the help of Guillaume, who, from that moment,

became the necessary confidant and friend. And the thing which was bound

to happen did happen, in the most simple and loving manner, permitted by

the mother herself, who, full of contempt for a social system which

allowed those of good hearts to die of hunger, refused to admit the

necessity of any social tie. Thus there was no question of a regular

marriage. One day Guillaume, who was twenty-three years old, found

himself mated to Marguerite, who was twenty; both of them handsome,

healthy, and strong, adoring one another, loving work, and full of hope

in the future.

From that moment a new life began. Since his father’s death, Guillaume,

who had broken off all intercourse with his mother, had been receiving an

allowance of two hundred francs a month. This just represented daily

bread; however, he was already doubling the amount by his work as a

chemist,--his analyses and researches, which tended to the employment of

certain chemical products in industry. So he and Marguerite installed

themselves on the very summit of Montmartre, in a little house, at a

rental of eight hundred francs a year, the great convenience of the place

being a strip of garden, where one might, later on, erect a wooden

workshop. In all tranquillity Madame Leroi took up her abode with the

young people, helping them, and sparing them the necessity of keeping a

second servant. And at successive intervals of two years, her three

grandchildren were born, three sturdy boys: first Thomas, then François,

and then Antoine. And in the same way as she had devoted herself to her

husband and daughter, and then to Guillaume, so did she now devote

herself to the three children. She became “Mère-Grand”--an emphatic and

affectionate way of expressing the term “grandmother”--for all who lived

in the house, the older as well as the younger ones. She there

personified sense, and wisdom, and courage; it was she who was ever on

the watch, who directed everything, who was consulted about everything,

and whose opinion was always followed. Indeed, she reigned there like an

all-powerful queen-mother.

For fifteen years this life went on, a life of hard work and peaceful

affection, while the strictest economy was observed in contenting every

need of the modest little household. Then Guillaume lost his mother, took

his share of the family inheritance, and was able to satisfy his old

desire, which was to buy the house he lived in, and build a spacious

workshop in the garden. He was even able to build it of bricks, and add

an upper story to it. But the work was scarcely finished, and life seemed

to be on the point of expanding and smiling on them all, when misfortune

returned, and typhoid fever, with brutal force, carried off Marguerite,

after a week’s illness. She was then five and thirty, and her eldest boy,

Thomas, was fourteen. Thus Guillaume, distracted by his loss, found

himself a widower at thirty-eight. The thought of introducing any unknown

woman into that retired home, where all hearts beat in tender unison, was

so unbearable to him that he determined to take no other mate. His work

absorbed him, and he would know how to quiet both his heart and his

flesh. Mère-Grand, fortunately, was still there, erect and courageous;

the household retained its queen, and in her the children found a

manageress and teacher, schooled in adversity and heroism.

Two years passed; and then came an addition to the family. A young woman,

Marie Couturier, the daughter of one of Guillaume’s friends, suddenly

entered it. Couturier had been an inventor, a madman with some measure of

genius, and had spent a fairly large fortune in attempting all sorts of

fantastic schemes. His wife, a very pious woman, had died of grief at it

all; and although on the rare occasions when he saw his daughter, he

showed great fondness for her and loaded her with presents, he had first

placed her in a boarding college, and afterwards left her in the charge

of a poor female relative. Remembering her only on his death-bed, he had

begged Guillaume to give her an asylum, and find her a husband. The poor

relation, who dealt in ladies’ and babies’ linen, had just become a

bankrupt. So, at nineteen, the girl, Marie, found herself a penniless

outcast, possessed of nothing save a good education, health and courage.

Guillaume would never allow her to run about giving lessons. He took her,

in quite a natural way, to help Mère-Grand, who was no longer so active

as formerly. And the latter approved the arrangement, well pleased at the

advent of youth and gaiety, which would somewhat brighten the household,

whose life had been one of much gravity ever since Marguerite’s death.

Marie would simply be an elder sister; she was too old for the boys, who

were still at college, to be disturbed by her presence. And she would

work in that house where everybody worked. She would help the little

community pending the time when she might meet and love some worthy

fellow who would marry her.

Five more years elapsed without Marie consenting to quit that happy home.

The sterling education she had received was lodged in a vigorous brain,

which contented itself with the acquirement of knowledge. Yet she had

remained very pure and healthy, even very _naive_, maidenly by reason of

her natural rectitude. And she was also very much a woman, beautifying

and amusing herself with a mere nothing, and ever showing gaiety and

contentment. Moreover, she was in no wise of a dreamy nature, but very

practical, always intent on some work or other, and only asking of life

such things as life could give, without anxiety as to what might lie

beyond it. She lovingly remembered her pious mother, who had prepared her

for her first Communion in tears, imagining that she was opening heaven’s

portals to her. But since she had been an orphan she had of her own

accord ceased all practice of religion, her good sense revolting and

scorning the need of any moral police regulations to make her do her

duty. Indeed, she considered such regulations dangerous and destructive

of true health. Thus, like Mère-Grand, she had come to a sort of quiet

and almost unconscious atheism, not after the fashion of one who reasons,

but simply like the brave, healthy girl she was, one who had long endured

poverty without suffering from it, and believed in nothing save the

necessity of effort. She had been kept erect, indeed, by her conviction

that happiness was to be found in the normal joys of life, lived

courageously. And her happy equilibrium of mind had ever guided and saved

her, in such wise that she willingly listened to her natural instinct,

saying, with her pleasant laugh, that this was, after all, her best

adviser. She rejected two offers of marriage, and on the second occasion,

as Guillaume pressed her to accept, she grew astonished, and inquired if

he had had enough of her in the house. She found herself very

comfortable, and she rendered service there. So why should she leave and

run the risk of being less happy elsewhere, particularly as she was not

in love with anybody?

Then, by degrees, the idea of a marriage between Marie and Guillaume

presented itself; and indeed what could have been more reasonable and

advantageous for all? If Guillaume had not mated again it was for his

sons’ sake, because he feared that by introducing a stranger to the house

he might impair its quietude and gaiety. But now there was a woman among

them who already showed herself maternal towards the boys, and whose

bright youth had ended by disturbing his own heart. He was still in his

prime, and had always held that it was not good for man to live alone,

although, personally, thanks to his ardour for work, he had hitherto

escaped excessive suffering in his bereavement. However, there was the

great difference of ages to be considered; and he would have bravely

remained in the background and have sought a younger husband for Marie,

if his three big sons and Mère-Grand herself had not conspired to effect

his happiness by doing all they could to bring about a marriage which

would strengthen every home tie and impart, as it were, a fresh

springtide to the house. As for Marie, touched and grateful to Guillaume

for the manner in which he had treated her for five years past, she

immediately consented with an impulse of sincere affection, in which, she

fancied, she could detect love. And at all events, could she act in a

more sensible, reasonable way, base her life on more certain prospects of

happiness? So the marriage had been resolved upon; and about a month

previously it had been decided that it should take place during the

ensuing spring, towards the end of April.

When Pierre, after alighting from the tramcar, began to climb the

interminable flights of steps leading to the Rue St. Eleuthère, a feeling

of uneasiness again came over him at the thought that he was about to

enter that suspicious ogre’s den where everything would certainly wound

and irritate him. Given the letter which Sophie had carried thither on

the previous night, announcing that the master would not return, how

anxious and upset must all its inmates be! However, as Pierre ascended

the final flight and nervously raised his head, the little house appeared

to him right atop of the hill, looking very serene and quiet under the

bright wintry sun, which had peered forth as if to bestow upon the modest

dwelling an affectionate caress.

There was a door in the old garden wall alongside the Rue St. Eleuthère,

almost in front of the broad thoroughfare conducting to the basilica of

the Sacred Heart; but to reach the house itself one had to skirt the wall

and climb to the Place du Tertre, where one found the façade and the

entrance. Some children were playing on the Place, which, planted as it

was with a few scrubby trees, and edged with humble shops,--a

fruiterer’s, a grocer’s and a baker’s,--looked like some square in a

small provincial town. In a corner, on the left, Guillaume’s dwelling,

which had been whitewashed during the previous spring, showed its bright

frontage and five lifeless windows, for all its life was on the other,

the garden, side, which overlooked Paris and the far horizon.

Pierre mustered his courage and, pulling a brass knob which glittered

like gold, rang the bell. There came a gay, distant jingle; but for a

moment nobody appeared, and he was about to ring again, when the door was

thrown wide open, revealing a passage which ran right through the house,

beyond which appeared the ocean of Paris, the endless sea of house roofs

bathed in sunlight. And against this spacious, airy background, stood a

young woman of twenty-six, clad in a simple gown of black woolen stuff,

half covered by a large blue apron. She had her sleeves rolled up above

her elbows, and her arms and hands were still moist with water which she

had but imperfectly wiped away.

A moment’s surprise and embarrassment ensued. The young woman, who had

hastened to the door with laughing mien, became grave and covertly

hostile at sight of the visitor’s cassock. The priest thereupon realised

that he must give his name: “I am Abbé Pierre Froment.”

At this the young woman’s smile of welcome came back to her. “Oh! I beg

your pardon, monsieur--I ought to have recognised you, for I saw you wish

Guillaume good day one morning as you passed.”

She said Guillaume; she, therefore, must be Marie. And Pierre looked at

her in astonishment, finding her very different from what he had

imagined. She was only of average height, but she was vigorously,

admirably built, broad of hip and broad of shoulder, with the small firm

bosom of an amazon. By her erect and easy step, instinct with all the

adorable grace of woman in her prime, one could divine that she was

strong, muscular and healthy. A brunette, but very white of skin, she had

a heavy helm of superb black hair, which she fastened in a negligent way,

without any show of coquetry. And under her dark locks, her pure,

intelligent brow, her delicate nose and gay eyes appeared full of intense

life; whilst the somewhat heavier character of her lower features, her

fleshy lips and full chin, bespoke her quiet kindliness. She had surely

come on earth as a promise of every form of tenderness, every form of

devotion. In a word, she was a true mate for man.

However, with her heavy, straying hair and superb arms, so ingenuous in

their nudity, she only gave Pierre an impression of superfluous health

and extreme self-assurance. She displeased him and even made him feel

somewhat anxious, as if she were a creature different from all others.

“It is my brother Guillaume who has sent me,” he said.

At this her face again changed; she became grave and hastened to admit

him to the passage. And when the door was closed she answered: “You have

brought us news of him, then! I must apologise for receiving you in this

fashion. The servants have just finished some washing, and I was making

sure if the work had been well done. Pray excuse me, and come in here for

a moment; it is perhaps best that I should be the first to know the

news.”

So saying, she led him past the kitchen to a little room which served as

scullery and wash-house. A tub full of soapy water stood there, and some

dripping linen hung over some wooden bars. “And so, Guillaume?” she

asked.

Pierre then told the truth in simple fashion: that his brother’s wrist

had been injured; that he himself had witnessed the accident, and that

his brother had then sought an asylum with him at Neuilly, where he

wished to remain and get cured of his injury in peace and quietness,

without even receiving a visit from his sons. While speaking in this

fashion, the priest watched the effect of his words on Marie’s face:

first fright and pity, and then an effort to calm herself and judge

things reasonably.

“His letter quite froze me last night,” she ended by replying. “I felt

sure that some misfortune had happened. But one must be brave and hide

one’s fear from others. His wrist injured, you say; it is not a serious

injury, is it?”

“No; but it is necessary that every precaution should be taken with it.”

She looked him well in the face with her big frank eyes, which dived into

his own as if to reach the very depths of his being, though at the same

time she plainly sought to restrain the score of questions which rose to

her lips. “And that is all: he was injured in an accident,” she resumed;

“he didn’t ask you to tell us anything further about it?”

“No, he simply desires that you will not be anxious.”

Thereupon she insisted no further, but showed herself obedient and

respectful of the decision which Guillaume had arrived at. It sufficed

that he should have sent a messenger to reassure the household--she did

not seek to learn any more. And even as she had returned to her work in

spite of the secret anxiety in which the letter of the previous evening

had left her, so now, with her air of quiet strength, she recovered an

appearance of serenity, a quiet smile and clear brave glance.

“Guillaume only gave me one other commission,” resumed Pierre, “that of

handing a little key to Madame Leroi.”

“Very good,” Marie answered, “Mère-Grand is here; and, besides, the

children must see you. I will take you to them.”

Once more quite tranquil, she examined Pierre without managing to conceal

her curiosity, which seemed of rather a kindly nature blended with an

element of vague pity. Her fresh white arms had remained bare. In all

candour she slowly drew down her sleeves; then took off the large blue

apron, and showed herself with her rounded figure, at once robust and

elegant, in her modest black gown. He meanwhile looked at her, and most

certainly he did not find her to his liking. On seeing her so natural,

healthy, and courageous, quite a feeling of revolt arose within him,

though he knew not why.

“Will you please follow me, Monsieur l’Abbé?” she said. “We must cross

the garden.”

On the ground-floor of the house, across the passage, and facing the

kitchen and the scullery, there were two other rooms, a library

overlooking the Place du Tertre, and a dining-room whose windows opened

into the garden. The four rooms on the first floor served as bedchambers

for the father and the sons. As for the garden, originally but a small

one, it had now been reduced to a kind of gravelled yard by the erection

of the large workshop at one end of it. Of the former greenery, however,

there still remained two huge plum-trees with old knotted trunks, as well

as a big clump of lilac-bushes, which every spring were covered with

bloom. And in front of the latter Marie had arranged a broad flower-bed,

in which she amused herself with growing a few roses, some wallflowers

and some mignonette.

With a wave of her hand as she went past, she called Pierre’s attention

to the black plum-trees and the lilacs and roses, which showed but a few

greenish spots, for winter still held the little nook in sleep. “Tell

Guillaume,” she said, “that he must make haste to get well and be back

for the first shoots.”

Then, as Pierre glanced at her, she all at once flushed purple. Much to

her distress, sudden and involuntary blushes would in this wise

occasionally come upon her, even at the most innocent remarks. She found

it ridiculous to feel such childish emotion when she had so brave a

heart. But her pure maidenly blood had retained exquisite delicacy, such

natural and instinctive modesty that she yielded to it perforce. And

doubtless she had merely blushed because she feared that the priest might

think she had referred to her marriage in speaking of the spring.

“Please go in, Monsieur l’Abbé. The children are there, all three.” And

forthwith she ushered him into the workshop.

It was a very spacious place, over sixteen feet high, with a brick

flooring and bare walls painted an iron grey. A sheet of light, a stream

of sunshine, spread to every corner through a huge window facing the

south, where lay the immensity of Paris. The Venetian shutters often had

to be lowered in the summer to attenuate the great heat. From morn till

night the whole family lived here, closely and affectionately united in

work. Each was installed as fancy listed, having a particular chosen

place. One half of the building was occupied by the father’s chemical

laboratory, with its stove, experiment tables, shelves for apparatus,

glass cases and cupboards for phials and jars. Near all this Thomas, the

eldest son, had installed a little forge, an anvil, a vice bench, in fact

everything necessary to a working mechanician, such as he had become

since taking his bachelor’s degree, from his desire to remain with his

father and help him with certain researches and inventions. Then, at the

other end, the younger brothers, François and Antoine, got on very well

together on either side of a broad table which stood amidst a medley of

portfolios, nests of drawers and revolving book-stands. François, laden

with academical laurels, first on the pass list for the École Normale,

had entered that college where young men are trained for university

professorships, and was there preparing for his Licentiate degree, while

Antoine, who on reaching the third class at the Lycée Condorcet had taken

a dislike to classical studies, now devoted himself to his calling as a

wood-engraver. And, in the full light under the window, Mère-Grand and

Marie likewise had their particular table, where needlework, embroidery,

all sorts of _chiffons_ and delicate things lay about near the somewhat

rough jumble of retorts, tools and big books.

Marie, however, on the very threshold called out in her calm voice, to

which she strove to impart a gay and cheering accent: “Children!

children! here is Monsieur l’Abbé with news of father!”

Children, indeed! Yet what motherliness she already set in the word as

she applied it to those big fellows whose elder sister she had long

considered herself to be! At three and twenty Thomas was quite a

colossus, already bearded and extremely like his father. But although he

had a lofty brow and energetic features, he was somewhat slow both in

mind and body. And he was also taciturn, almost unsociable, absorbed in

filial devotion, delighted with the manual toil which made him a mere

workman at his master’s orders. François, two years younger than Thomas,

and nearly as tall, showed a more refined face, though he had the same

large brow and firm mouth, a perfect blending of health and strength, in

which the man of intellect, the scientific Normalian, could only be

detected by the brighter and more subtle sparkle of the eyes. The

youngest of the brothers, Antoine, who for his eighteen years was almost

as strong as his elders, and promised to become as tall, differed from

them by his lighter hair and soft, blue, dreamy eyes, which he had

inherited from his mother. It had been difficult, however, to distinguish

one from the other when all three were schoolboys at the Lycée Condorcet;

and even nowadays people made mistakes unless they saw them side by side,

so as to detect the points of difference which were becoming more marked

as age progressed.

On Pierre’s arrival the brothers were so absorbed in their work that they

did not even hear the door open. And again, as in the case of Marie, the

priest was surprised by the discipline and firmness of mind, which amidst

the keenest anxiety gave the young fellows strength to take up their

daily task. Thomas, who stood at his vice-bench in a blouse, was

carefully filing a little piece of copper with rough but skilful hands.

François, leaning forward, was writing in a bold, firm fashion, whilst on

the other side of the table, Antoine, with a slender graver between his

fingers, finished a block for an illustrated newspaper.

However, Marie’s clear voice made them raise their heads: “Children,

father has sent you some news!”

Then all three with the same impulse hurriedly quitted their work and

came forward. One could divine that directly there was any question of

their father they were drawn together, blended one with the other, so

that but one and the same heart beat in their three broad chests.

However, a door at the far end of the workroom opened at that moment, and

Mère-Grand, coming from the upper floor where she and Marie had their

bedrooms, made her appearance. She had just absented herself to fetch a

skein of wool; and she gazed fixedly at the priest, unable to understand

the reason of his presence.

Marie had to explain matters. “Mère-Grand,” said she, “this is Monsieur

l’Abbé Froment, Guillaume’s brother; he has come from him.”

Pierre on his side was examining the old lady, astonished to find her so

erect and full of life at seventy. Her former beauty had left a stately

charm on her rather long face; youthful fire still lingered in her brown

eyes; and very firm was the contour of her pale lips, which in parting

showed that she had retained all her teeth. A few white hairs alone

silvered her black tresses, which were arranged in old-time fashion. Her

cheeks had but slightly withered, and her deep, symmetrical wrinkles gave

her countenance an expression of much nobility, a sovereign air as of a

queen-mother, which, tall and slight of stature as she was, and

invariably gowned in black woollen stuff, she always retained, no matter

how humble her occupation.

“So Guillaume sent you, monsieur,” she said; “he is injured, is he not?”

Surprised by this proof of intuition, Pierre repeated his story. “Yes,

his wrist is injured--but oh! it’s not a case of immediate gravity.”

On the part of the three sons, he had divined a sudden quiver, an impulse

of their whole beings to rush to the help and defence of their father.

And for their sakes he sought words of comfort: “He is with me at

Neuilly. And with due care it is certain that no serious complications

will arise. He sent me to tell you to be in no wise uneasy about him.”

Mère-Grand for her part evinced no fears, but preserved great calmness,

as if the priest’s tidings contained nothing beyond what she had known

already. If anything, she seemed rather relieved, freed from anxiety

which she had confided to none. “If he is with you, monsieur,” she

answered, “he is evidently as comfortable as he can be, and sheltered

from all risks. We were surprised, however, by his letter last night, as

it did not explain why he was detained, and we should have ended by

feeling frightened. But now everything is satisfactory.”

Mère-Grand and the three sons, following Marie’s example, asked no

explanations. On a table near at hand Pierre noticed several morning

newspapers lying open and displaying column after column of particulars

about the crime. The sons had certainly read these papers, and had feared

lest their father should be compromised in that frightful affair. How far

did their knowledge of the latter go? They must be ignorant of the part

played by Salvat. It was surely impossible for them to piece together all

the unforeseen circumstances which had brought about their father’s

meeting with the workman, and then the crime. Mère-Grand, no doubt, was

in certain respects better informed than the others. But they, the sons

and Marie, neither knew nor sought to know anything. And thus what a

wealth of respect and affection there was in their unshakable confidence

in the father, in the tranquillity they displayed directly he sent them

word that they were not to be anxious about him!

“Madame,” Pierre resumed, “Guillaume told me to give you this little key,

and to remind you to do what he charged you to do, if any misfortune

should befall him.”

She started, but so slightly that it was scarcely perceptible; and taking

the key she answered as if some ordinary wish on the part of a sick

person were alone in question. “Very well. Tell him that his wishes shall

be carried out.” Then she added, “But pray take a seat, monsieur.”

Pierre, indeed, had remained standing. However, he now felt it necessary

to accept a chair, desirous as he was of hiding the embarrassment which

he still felt in this house, although he was _en famille_ there. Marie,

who could not live without occupation for her fingers, had just returned

to some embroidery, some of the fine needlework which she stubbornly

executed for a large establishment dealing in baby-linen and bridal

_trousseaux_; for she wished at any rate to earn her own pocket-money,

she often said with a laugh. Mère-Grand, too, from habit, which she

followed even when visitors were present, had once more started on her

perpetual stocking-mending; while François and Antoine had again seated

themselves at their table; and Thomas alone remained on his legs, leaning

against his bench. All the charm of industrious intimacy pervaded the

spacious, sun-lit room.

“But we’ll all go to see father to-morrow,” Thomas suddenly exclaimed.

Before Pierre could answer Marie raised her head. “No, no,” said she, “he

does not wish any of us to go to him; for if we should be watched and

followed we should betray the secret of his retreat. Isn’t that so,

Monsieur l’Abbé?”

“It would indeed be prudent of you to deprive yourselves of the pleasure

of embracing him until he himself can come back here. It will be a matter

of some two or three weeks,” answered Pierre.

Mère-Grand at once expressed approval of this. “No doubt,” said she.

“Nothing could be more sensible.”

So the three sons did not insist, but bravely accepted the secret anxiety

in which they must for a time live, renouncing the visit which would have

caused them so much delight, because their father bade them do so and

because his safety depended perhaps on their obedience.

However, Thomas resumed: “Then, Monsieur l’Abbé, will you please tell him

that as work will be interrupted here, I shall return to the factory

during his absence. I shall be more at ease there for the researches on

which we are engaged.”

“And please tell him from me,” put in François, “that he mustn’t worry

about my examination. Things are going very well. I feel almost certain

of success.”

Pierre promised that he would forget nothing. However, Marie raised her

head, smiling and glancing at Antoine, who had remained silent with a

faraway look in his eyes. “And you, little one,” said she, “don’t you

send him any message?”

Emerging from a dream, the young fellow also began to smile. “Yes, yes, a

message that you love him dearly, and that he’s to make haste back for

you to make him happy.”

At this they all became merry, even Marie, who in lieu of embarrassment

showed a tranquil gaiety born of confidence in the future. Between her

and the young men there was naught but happy affection. And a grave smile

appeared even on the pale lips of Mère-Grand, who likewise approved of

the happiness which life seemed to be promising.

Pierre wished to stay a few minutes longer. They all began to chat, and

his astonishment increased. He had gone from surprise to surprise in this

house where he had expected to find that equivocal, disorderly life, that

rebellion against social laws, which destroy morality. But instead of

this he had found loving serenity, and such strong discipline that life

there partook of the gravity, almost the austerity, of convent life,

tempered by youth and gaiety. The vast room was redolent of industry and

quietude, warm with bright sunshine. However, what most particularly

struck him was the Spartan training, the bravery of mind and heart among

those sons who allowed nothing to be seen of their personal feelings, and

did not presume to judge their father, but remained content with his

message, ready to await events, stoical and silent, while carrying on

their daily tasks. Nothing could be more simple, more dignified, more

lofty. And there was also the smiling heroism of Mère-Grand and Marie,

those two women who slept over that laboratory where terrible

preparations were manipulated, and where an explosion was always

possible.

However, such courage, orderliness and dignity merely surprised Pierre,

without touching him. He had no cause for complaint, he had received a

polite greeting if not an affectionate one; but then he was as yet only a

stranger there, a priest. In spite of everything, however, he remained

hostile, feeling that he was in a sphere where none of his own torments

could be shared or even divined. How did these folks manage to be so calm

and happy amidst their religious unbelief, their sole faith in science,

and in presence of that terrifying Paris which spread before them the

boundless sea, the growling abomination of its injustice and its want? As

this thought came to him he turned his head and gazed at the city through

the huge window, whence it stretched away, ever present, ever living its

giant life. And at that hour, under the oblique sun-rays of the winter

afternoon, all Paris was speckled with luminous dust, as if some

invisible sower, hidden amidst the glory of the planet, were fast

scattering seed which fell upon every side in a stream of gold. The whole

field was covered with it; for the endless chaos of house roofs and

edifices seemed to be land in tilth, furrowed by some gigantic plough.

And Pierre in his uneasiness, stirred, despite everything, by an

invincible need of hope, asked himself if this was not a good sowing, the

furrows of Paris strewn with light by the divine sun for the great future

harvest, that harvest of truth and justice of whose advent he had

despaired.

At last he rose and took his leave, promising to return at once, if there

should be any bad news. It was Marie who showed him to the front door.

And there another of those childish blushes which worried her so much

suddenly rose to her face, just as she, in her turn, also wished to send

her loving message to the injured man. However, with her gay, candid eyes

fixed on those of the priest, she bravely spoke the words: “_Au revoir,

Monsieur l’Abbé_. Tell Guillaume that I love him and await him.”

III. PENURY AND TOIL

THREE days went by, and every morning Guillaume, confined to his bed and

consumed by fever and impatience, experienced fresh anxiety directly the

newspapers arrived. Pierre had tried to keep them from him, but Guillaume

then worried himself the more, and so the priest had to read him column

by column all the extraordinary articles that were published respecting

the crime.

Never before had so many rumours inundated the press. Even the “Globe,”

usually so grave and circumspect, yielded to the general _furore_, and

printed whatever statements reached it. But the more unscrupulous papers

were the ones to read. The “Voix du Peuple” in particular made use of the

public feverishness to increase its sales. Each morning it employed some

fresh device, and printed some frightful story of a nature to drive

people mad with terror. It related that not a day passed without Baron

Duvillard receiving threatening letters of the coarsest description,

announcing that his wife, his son and his daughter would all be killed,

that he himself would be butchered in turn, and that do what he might his

house would none the less be blown up. And as a measure of precaution the

house was guarded day and night alike by a perfect army of plain-clothes

officers. Then another article contained an amazing piece of invention.

Some anarchists, after carrying barrels of powder into a sewer near the

Madeleine, were said to have undermined the whole district, planning a

perfect volcano there, into which one half of Paris would sink. And at

another time it was alleged that the police were on the track of a

terrible plot which embraced all Europe, from the depths of Russia to the

shores of Spain. The signal for putting it into execution was to be given

in France, and there would be a three days’ massacre, with grape shot

sweeping everyone off the Boulevards, and the Seine running red, swollen

by a torrent of blood. Thanks to these able and intelligent devices of

the Press, terror now reigned in the city; frightened foreigners fled

from the hotels _en masse_; and Paris had become a mere mad-house, where

the most idiotic delusions at once found credit.

It was not all this, however, that worried Guillaume. He was only anxious

about Salvat and the various new “scents” which the newspaper reporters

attempted to follow up. The engineer was not yet arrested, and, so far

indeed, there had been no statement in print to indicate that the police

were on his track. At last, however, Pierre one morning read a paragraph

which made the injured man turn pale.

“Dear me! It seems that a tool has been found among the rubbish at the

entrance of the Duvillard mansion. It is a bradawl, and its handle bears

the name of Grandidier, which is that of a man who keeps some well-known

metal works. He is to appear before the investigating magistrate to-day.”

Guillaume made a gesture of despair. “Ah!” said he, “they are on the

right track at last. That tool must certainly have been dropped by

Salvat. He worked at Grandidier’s before he came to me for a few days.

And from Grandidier they will learn all that they need to know in order

to follow the scent.”

Pierre then remembered that he had heard the Grandidier factory mentioned

at Montmartre. Guillaume’s eldest son, Thomas, had served his

apprenticeship there, and even worked there occasionally nowadays.